Through sickness and in health

47

Sunday

I pull into Jason's driveway seeing his moms car is surprisingly here. When I walk inside Jessica is in the kitchen cooking whilst Melissa is at the counter on her phone drinking a glass of wine. Not surprising, even though it's 10:45am. Luke is in the movie room whilst Ivy is asleep in the guest room in her crib. I walk upstairs to Jason's room, when I get inside I hear the shower running. I plop down onto his bed and scroll on my phone whilst I wait for him.

I can't focus though. His room taunts me. Messier than usual and I feel the sudden urge to clean it. Fuck it. I throw his dirty laundry in the basket and clean everything off his desk and dresser put it all back in it's place. When i get to his nightstand I'm met with all the medication he's on and it's overwhelming just to look at it. There's a note pad that has all the dates for when he's on chemo. Bottles of medication; the flu, headaches, stomach pain. Then I see it.

Sleeping pills

He was on them a while ago when his insomnia was bad and he couldn't sleep at all. He was becoming more and more dependant on them and he had to stop taking them because they are highly addictive and even his mom noticed he was taking a lot of them. I knows he's scared of becoming addicted to them and dependent on them which makes me confused even more.

The shower suddenly stops and I quickly put the pill bottle back where it was and sit back on the bed. Jason walks out a minute later, he's wearing sweatpants and socks without a shirt.
"Oh hey" he smiles when he sees me. He plops done onto the bed beside me and lies his head on my chest.
"I changed your bed sheets" I smile fiddling with his hair. I laugh when he reaches out and feels the sheets and hums in approval.
"And tidied your room" I add, his head shoots up as he looks around the room and I laugh.
"Only you wouldn't realise"
"My fault. I'm tired" he sighs lying back down.
"You sleeping okay?" I ask, taking a chance to get answers.
"Yeah. I just feel like I can't get enough sleep right now. I swear I could sleep for days and still feel tired" he says tiredly.

"I would've thought your sleeping pills would've helped with that" I mumble, I've said it before I could even stop myself. I feel him tense and let out a sigh as he sits up.
"How long have you been taking them for?" I ask sitting up now too.
"Literally a few days" he rolls his eyes
"You said yourself you were scared of becoming addicted to them" I sigh
"I know. I'm being careful, I promise. I'm 17 years old I can manage my own medication by now"he rolls his eyes
"I never said that, I know you've expressed your worry of becoming addicted to them in the past. I just don't want you becoming dependent on them" I say softly trying to calm the irritation that's clear in his eyes.
"I'm not going to. It's not a big deal at all" he rolls his eyes standing up. I watch as he picks them up and opens the cap of them, he pours multiple of them into his hand and for a second I think he's about to take them. But then he walks into the bathroom throwing them in the toilet along with pouring the rest in the toilet and flushing.

"There. No need to worry" he says throwing the empty bottle into his trash can and falling back onto the bed carefully. I can tell by the way he carries himself that he's exhausted and weak. His nose is red and the trash can is full with tissues but he's also still very pale.
"You didn't need to do that. I was just saying be careful" I sigh. He doesn't say anything so I decide to move on from it.
"How are you feeling?" I move closer to him, he follows suit as he lays his head next to me instead of on my chest this time.
"Tired" he answers simply, he knows that's not what I was necessarily talking about but I leave it.
"Who's coming over today?" I ask
"Well obviously mom, Luke, Jess and Ivy are here. My grandma might be coming, depends if she can put up with my mom long enough. But then jack invited me over. He invited my mom too" he sighs
"Are you gonna go?" I ask, I know this is a sensitive subject for Jason so the fact he's even talking about it is a good thing.
"Don't think so. It's fucking annoying how every time I'm on chemo. I feel like I'm making up excuses but I don't want to look like shit in front of them. I haven't even met Lucy or the other two kids yet" Jason mumbles sitting up again. He's about to speak again when he starts rapidly coughing again, his whole body shakes as he coughs. I grab the bottle of water from his night stand and hand it to him whilst rubbing his back to calm him. He just shakes his head and moves away from me and denies the water until he finally calms down. I see how he winces even when he breathes which makes me full of worry.

"Fuck my throats killing" he says with a croaky voice. I try to hand him the water again but he just shakes his head.
"It hurts to swallow" he mumbles
"I'm sorry" I sigh not knowing what to do to help him.
"Why?" He laughs weakly
"You can't do anything. Don't be sorry" he smiles moving closer to me. He pulls me into his lap, on instinct my legs wrap around his waist and I bury my face in his neck as he kisses my head.
"I love you. I'm sorry I've been such a dick lately" he mumbles hugging me tightly.
"I'm sorry you've been having such a horrible time and you feel so shitty I wish I could take your pain" I sigh pulling away so I can look at him.
"It's gonna be okay" he whispers as he caressed my cheeks with his thumbs. I can't help the tears that fall at this point.
"I just feel like you've been so down recently and I hate seeing you in pain. It's like you haven't been here and I hate the fact that you have this mental battle going on and I can't help you" I sob. It feels like a weight has been lifted, I cried to my mom about it because I felt like I couldn't cry to Jason about it. I was scared I'd upset him and I felt selfish because I'm not the one going through this. He is. But I'm not sure what I was worried about now, Jason has always let me express my feelings so freely even if they were about him.

"I'm here babe" he whispers
"You know you can talk to me. I'm right here babe" he whispers hugging me tighter again.
We sit wrapped in each other for a few minutes in silence just taking in each other until Jason starts kissing me and I can't get away from him.
"We're in this together" he adds, continuing to kiss me as he clings to me tightly. I've missed these moments with Jason because recently I've felt like if I touch him he's going to break, he looks so delicate because of how sick he is right now and I'm scared if I make one wrong move he's going to be in pain. But I realised he's always in pain.

He's just good at hiding it.