Vibrations

Chapter 6

We went inside. I learned an important lesson that night. When someone you love is sitting in a hospital somewhere, when you don't know how they are doing, how well they are, hell, whether or not they're going to live or die, the quiet times are the worst times. There's nothing to do, but sit, and wonder, and worry, and make up scenarios that one should definitely not be thinking about...

We sat on the couch in my parent's trailer and tried to watch a movie together.

Neither of us seemed all that tired. Both of us seemed restless as all get out. We had talked each other out, and neither of us seemed all that interested in trying to get to sleep.

Finally, I could take no more.

I stood, "I'm going to go for a walk. Maybe moving around some will help me get my brain to shut the fuck up. Want to come?"

She looked up at me from the pillow she had laid out for herself to watch the movie from. She was chewing on her nail again.

She shook her head at me slightly, "No." She lifted her phone up, "Fuck. It's almost midnight."

She sighed, "I'm supposed to have volleyball camp in the morning. Think I'm going to need to bail on it."

I shook my head at her. "No way."

She looked at me, and I was taken with how much like her mother she looked. "Jakey, my mom is in the hospital. I really don't feel like playing volleyball right now."

I knelt in front of her and put my hand on her hip. "Kiddo. Your mom would kill me if she knew I told you this, but she put in a lot of sacrifices to make sure you had the money for that camp. If you don't go, she's going to feel like she let you down. Like she took something from you. It would be important to her that you go."

Tears started in her eyes. "I know. It's just I sit here and all I can think about is how worried I am that she's going to get sicker..."

She didn't want to say it. She didn't even want to open the door to the possibility that her mom might die.

I licked my lips and tried to focus my thoughts. I didn't want to think about mom dying any more than Re did, but I needed to. I needed to think out ahead of this. I needed to be the one that kept their shit together so if this went sideways I could help keep everyone else centered in the road. I needed to be strong for Re, and for my dad. It would be tough, and I knew I would be hurting just as much as they were if the unthinkable happened, but someone needed to do the job, and I was best equipped.

I looked into her eyes and smiled. "Kiddo, things are going to work out. They have to, because I won't let it go down any other way. Right now, sitting here, hell, tomorrow, sitting here, and worrying your head off, isn't going to do a goddamn bit of good. You should go to your camp tomorrow, and you should try to have fun. You should try to learn, and you should live your life like everything is going to be okay, right up until life shows you it isn't going to be. Don't tempt fate. We all just need to go on with some hope, and pray things turn out for the best. Okay?"

She gave me a hopeless look. "And what if she gets sicker? What if she gets bad news from the doctor tomorrow?"

I smiled at her, trying to put her at ease, "Then I can come right down to the school and get you. You'll be my first stop, and we'll all face this together as a family. Right now, what I need you to do is be a kid. I need you to let me do the adult thing, and you do the kid thing. If you're running circles around your mom's bed at the hospital all she's going to do is worry about how she's worrying you. You going on like you're not worried is the best thing for her. You want to be strong for her, that's the way you do it, okay?"