Love And Marriage

Chapter 20: Can You Stand The Rain

I stretched and reached for the popcorn across Jesse's lap. We were having a movie night for Jesse's birthday. A couple days after the shitshow intervention and Jesse still wasn't completely himself.

Now, I had great plans for Jesse's birthday because I thought that a 30th birthday should have an amazing celebration. I had wanted to throw him a party and had already invited everyone, but given recent events, Jesse was not in the mood for any type of celebration. Luckily I was planning on buying all the food the day of or We'd have a huge problem. He spent the day with his boys in our basement and now the evening with me watching Netflix. We watched some type of murder mystery series he wanted to see, it was freaking me out a little, but Jesse was entranced. He was so convinced he knew who did it, it was cute. I grabbed a handful of popcorn and returned to my position, resting my head on his lap. I had the best present for Jesse, but I didn't give it to him yet. I wanted to give it to him at just the right time.

"Bae." I said, tilting to look up at Jesse. He paused the show and looked down at me.

"Yeah."

"You never asked for your present." I said. I gently stroked the side of his face.

"I didn't want anything." Jesse said, leaning into my touch.

"Yeah but you didn't think I was going to not get you anything. And plus this is a present that is a year in the making."

"Jay, you know you-"

"Didn't have to. But I did, so close your eyes, and I'll be right back." I got up from the couch and ran up the stairs. For the last year and a half I had been looking for Jesse's favorite guitars. Jesse talked non-stop about these guitars. He was trying to build a guitar collection, but he only had three. Two acoustic and one electric. These guitars were expensive, over $3,000 each, so for the past year and a half I have been paying off a set of three guitars for him. I was going to save it for our anniversary but I thought he needed a little bit of a cheering up so I decided to give it to him today. I went to the guest room and reached under the bed and pulled out the three guitar cases. I struggled downstairs with the guitars but paused halfway down when I heard two voices arguing.

"You're not a parent yet. You don't understand I'm not giving up on my child. I won't give up on my son."

"Aren't I your son too, don't you care about how this has affected me?"

"I do but Shaun needs-"

"Fuck Shaun, fuck what Shaun needs right now."

"Shaun needs me. He's an addict. I have to look out for him, someone has to. Mel is tired, Mel doesn't want to have anything to do with him, right now. She's disgusted."

"You're enabling him! You always have, this is so stupid."

"I'm looking out for him, someone has to. I'm not going to give up on him. He needs help. He's my son."

"How come I always have to be the bigger person? I'm done with that shit. He had a chance to make things right with me but he chose coke! Just for once see my side."

"Baby, I have to help him...I understand why you're mad, you have every right to be. But that doesn't mean your brother can't get better, and the only way for him to get better is to get him help. He's your brother."

"He is not my brother. Did you even hear what he did to me? And you're okay with that?"

"You just don't understand, it was the drugs, that's not him! He would not do that if he wasn't under the influence."

"He keeps choosing drugs, what if he did that to Diana?"

"He wouldn't. I know he wouldn't."

"So it's okay that he did it to me and you think he wouldn't do it to Diana?"