Page 125 of Eastern Lights

“No. She’s not. She’s fucking dying and I can’t save her. I broke up with her, because I can’t sit there and watch her die.”

Mom’s face dropped. “You broke up with her? You two were dating?”

“Yeah, we were, and yeah, I did. She’s moving out of my place as we speak. It’s over.”

“No…Connor. You can’t do that…I mean…I know this is a lot, but you can’t abandon her…I know you’re scared but—”

“I’m not scared, Mom. I’m fucking terrified. I’m terrified. But I can’t do it again. I can’t sit there and watch someone I care for lose the battle of their life. I can’t go through that. I did it twice with you, watching you fight, and I can’t do it again.”

Mom’s eyes watered over, and she covered her hand with her mouth, choking up. I didn’t want to make her cry, but I was being honest. I couldn’t suffer through that trauma again. I couldn’t spend late nights sitting up wondering if Aaliyah was still breathing. I couldn’t sit on the edge at all times, wondering if today was the day I was forced to say goodbye. I couldn’t watch her die.

Danny stepped forward and gave Mom a half-smile. He was much more somber than before, his energetic personality taming. “Can I talk to him alone for a minute, sweetheart?”

Mom nodded, and left the room, leaving me uneasy with the idea of interacting with Danny. I didn’t even know this guy.

He sat down at the table with me and released a weighted sigh. “Life is shitty sometimes, eh?”

“No offense, Dan, but I—”

“Danny.”

“Right. Danny. No offense, but I don’t want to talk about this. Especially with someone who is pretty much a stranger to me.”

“I get it, but I understand where you’re coming from.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yeah, I do, Connor. Probably more than you’d believe.”

“No. You have no clue what it’s like to go through what I’ve been through. You have no clue how hard it is to watch someone you love battle cancer two times. You have no clue what that can do to your head. Then when you get past that trauma, you have no clue what it’s like to fall for someone who will bring up those same fears. You don’t fucking know.”

He brushed his thumb against the bridge of his nose and sat back in his chair. He stared forward as if he were looking past me, and he pushed out a forced grin that didn’t have a drop of happiness in it. “You might not think I know what it’s like, but I do, young man. I was married before I met your mother. Her name was Jules, and she was phenomenal. I was by her side through her first cancer scare and through her second that took her life.”

Danny’s brows knitted together as he lowered his hands to his lap and fiddled with his fingers.

My heart sat heavily in my throat as he revealed his truths to me, and I felt like a complete jackass because I didn’t have a clue what he’d been through.

“No one suffers more than the victims of that ugly disease, of any disease, truly. No one knows what the pain those individuals went through was like. But I remembered I’d prayed to God that he’d shift it. Shift her pain to my body. Give me her hurts so I could feel them for her.”

I remained quiet but invested.

I prayed that prayer one too many times, too.

“But the people who hurt the most after the ones with the diagnosis? Their loved ones. I never showed her my sorrow, because I didn’t want her to have any more of a burden to bear. I knew her sadness and fear was tenfold more than my own. She was already suffering more than words. What kind of asshole would I have been if I told her that I was hurting, too? Instead, I cried in my car. Before work. After work. During my lunch break. Whenever I had a chance to fall apart, I’d fall. I’d fall apart because the woman I loved, the woman I cherished with all of my heart was slipping away from me and I had no control over it.”

He took a deep breath and clasped his hands together. “Please believe me when I say, I know the fears you have with Aaliyah. When I met your mother and found out about her past run-ins with cancer, I hesitated just like you. I thought what if it comes back? What if she leaves me sooner than I’d hope? What if I have to go back to that part in my life of falling apart in my car again? The what-ifs are the worst part of it all, because there’s no way to truly ever know.”

“How did you get past it?”

“With her smile, with her heart,” he said effortlessly as if loving my mother was the easiest thing to do. “You don’t meet a woman like your mother and skip the chance of happiness because of the fear of loss. No, you dig your feet in deeper. You hold on to her tighter because you know her love will be worth it, time and time again. I realized that I couldn’t live my life, waiting for the unknown, but I had to take the leap. Besides,” he breathed out a cloud of hot air and smiled. “What kind of lucky bastard like me gets to fall in love with two extraordinary women in his lifetime? If life needed a reason for existence, love is the solution.”

Damn.

I really wanted to hate that guy.

“I already messed things up with Aaliyah,” I said, feeling gloom and doom about the whole situation. Fuck, I missed her. I missed her so much that I didn’t even know how to cope. I didn’t know my heart could do that—I didn’t know it could keep shattering into a million pieces each day that passed. It was my own fault for pushing her away, too. Due to my struggles. My fears. My past.

“Do you love her?” Danny asked.

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