Page 17 of The Jester and His Outlaw: Part One

“Fuck you. Do you want me to bring up the other day before school when you coughed so hard we contemplated taking you to the hospital?” A rogue cough sputters out of him. He grimaces while he rubs his throat, and I know that shit hurts. Once it’s happened, the burn of smoke searing your insides is something you could never forget.

“We only considered if a trip to the hospital was appropriate because we were high and paranoid. Don’t act like I actually wanted to go,” I remind him through a plume of smoke.

“Whatever, if you weren’t slinging bullshit, we wouldn’t be torturing our lungs,” he gripes.

“Rule number one, you don’t smoke your supply,” I confirm his statement to be true, because it is. My choice is the same top-shelf shit I get for my clients, but when supply is running low, I save the good shit for them because it brings in more money. “What the fuck, I’m one of your clients. Why the hell can’t we smoke the shit I buy?”

“Because you suck at rolling joints, and I happen to have a pack rolled and waiting at all times.”

“Whatever. Next time I’m gonna smoke my shit, and you can choke on that crap,” he grumbles, rubbing his chest as if it will stop the burning in his lungs. He clears his throat, then spits on the asphalt.

“Or you can learn how to smoke.” His fist cracks against my side, and I jerk my arm over to block, obviously too late. What can I say? Even though I expected it, I’m impaired.

My thoughts are drifting into a lighter space, and I lean back against the cool brick of the back of Jensen’s guest house. His father is back in town, so we are hiding our extracurriculars from him like Peeping Toms in the night. A sense of calm layers over Jensen as he joins me in sprawling out and getting comfortable. I didn’t realize how much I needed this after the information we’d received about Gramma’s cancer this afternoon.

Jensen sighs heavily and I can already sense where this conversation is going. She has been as much of a grandmother to him the last five years as she has for me. Hell, he’s probably Gramma’s favorite, feeling her diagnosis as much as I am.

My throat constricts before the question leaves his mouth. “So about a month?”

I’m not stupid or naïve to expect Gramma is going to be around forever.

My parents had me late in life, which has to be why they hated me so much. So Gramma is older than most grandparents of kids my age.

When we moved into our apartment, her condition wasn’t great. She was deteriorating from old age, but cancer has riddled her body now, and she is going downhill fast. Her doctor gave her about a month to live at her appointment this afternoon.

One month.

One fucking month is approximately all I have left to see her alive. How the hell will I make it through losing her?

Of course, she took it like the pro she is.

When I suggested switching my classes to online so I could be home with her, she just about had a coronary and shot that idea down before I could give it life. She expects me to go to school while she sits at home by herself and does what? Works to stay alive long enough that she doesn’t die alone? Hold everything off so she can croak when I’m home for the day? What the fuck?

The idea of coming home in the afternoon to her dead is crippling. I’m half tempted to set up security cameras so I can watch her twenty-four-seven.

I never expected to regret every choice I’d ever made in my life to go out, even if she’d told me to. It was all missed time with her. Time I could’ve spent by her side shooting the shit and sharing stories, learning about her past and her time with my grandfather. Even now I hate the fact that I’m out away from her, but what am I going to do, watch her sleep like a creep? Like a cat, she’s snoozing morning, noon, and night, surfacing long enough to see me when I get home from school and catch up on TV for a while before she conks out for the night. She’s barely eating anymore, either.

We knew there would come a point when the doctors would give us that limit. I guess I did not prepare for it as well as I thought I had.

Howdoyou prepare for something like that?

“One month, dude. It’s fucked up,” I comment, sadness heavy in my tone.

“What arewegoing to do?” His emphasis on the wordwehas anger flaring in my chest. I squash it because what he means is obvious. Leaving my side is not an option for him. He’s already voiced his worries for me when I’m on my own and threatened to move me somewhere if I don’t handle myself in a manner that he deems appropriate.

“I don’t know, man. I mean, I knew it was coming, but so soon? If I’m not at school, I’m going to have to be working. It’s going to be tight without her check each month.” I freeze.Shit. I shouldn’t have gone there. I let the conversation drop as my words hang in the air. Jensen crinkles the bottle in his hand, probably contemplating how he is going to end this night.

There are a few ways it can go, but instead of taking the route I expect from him, he changes it up, uninterested in starting an argument. “We’ll figure it out, Riggsy. Promise.” His words come out strangled and quiet.

I’m ready to move on from this conversation because I have no doubt that it will trickle into my thoughts more often than not over the next month.

Not sure how long has passed, we sit in absolute silence, nothing but the in and out sounds of our breathing to keep us company. I’m almost passed out, my head in the clouds, when Jensen hums and crunches the plastic bottle again. Startled awake, I open my eyes.

“She’s going to stay home the entire time, isn’t she?” he muses, and I huff out a breath. The answer to that question is painfully obvious, but I oblige him anyway.

“Yeah, she’s already told me she’ll castrate me if I try to take her to the hospital. She wants to die at home, like Grandpa did.”

“Shit, that’s intense.”

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