Unsteady

29 | Wreck and Ruin

So, my time has really begun to run out.

Cystic fibrosis has always been a ticking time bomb; a timer hanging over my head. I've always known that it was all a matter of years counting down to my impending descent into the ground or take off into the wind.

But I never realized that years has now become one. Just one.

The morning at Nick's house had been a warning. It was a message from my lungs, telling me they're failing. It was the start of the final countdown.

I'm not scared about it. It's all inevitable.

I mix the burnt yellow and gold shades together from the paint set I got for my birthday from Nick. I begin stroking out the new color into the sketch of his hair, the sound of the brush against the canvas music to my ears. My gaze flicks between the canvas to the drawing of Nick clipped to the upper right-hand corner. His sketched smile of content is enough for warmth to spread through me.

I'm lucky. I'm really lucky to call this guy mine. This boy who shouldn't exist in all his blond, blue-eyed, chiselled torso, unrealistic perfection with a romance film boyfriend personality to match. 

But he isn't unrealistic. 

He's real. 

And he's mine. He chose me.

I'm not afraid to die. Death comes with the diagnosis.

I'm afraid to leave Nick. I'm afraid to leave him all alone in a world that can be so cruel—that already has been so cruel to him. I'm afraid to leave him without someone to rely on; without a shoulder to cry on; without a hand to hold; without sails in a storm.

He's going to tell his parents—his father—the truth for me. Nick's going through the hardest admission in his life right now for me.

I can't ignore the guilt twisting the pit of my stomach into knots. He's doing all this for me, and I'm going to leave him eventually.

My thoughts screech to a halt when a harsh cough forces its way up my throat. I toss the palette and brush on the side table and hunch over, violent coughing replacing my already short breaths. I stagger back a step and feel hands against my back.

"You okay?"

"I'm good," I heave as I sit by the desk. "The coughing is normal. More normal now, I guess." I rub my palms to my eyes. "The dizziness, though? Not really used to that."

I open my eyes and roll them up to meet Frankie. She's looking at the canvas. She brushes her fingers down Nick's sketched face.

She sighs through her nostrils. "I haven't seen him look like that in a really long time."

She unclips the drawing and holds it like it has all the answers. The look she fixes me with next sends a shiver down my spine and goosebumps along my arms and the back of my neck.

"What is it with you?" she asks me.

I frown. "What?"

"What is it about you that my brother is so addicted to?" Her nose crinkles slightly in what looks like disdain. "He spends almost all his time with you. He changes when you're around and changes more when I'm around both of you. Whenever my brother comes here and leaves, you're gone too, and then I see you come back together."

She scrutinizes me with a broken expression, and dread floods me like a tsunami. "A-And...And I saw him...He kissed you."

I swallowed.

Shit.

Shit on a motorcycle screwing me gently with a chainsaw.

"He told you, didn't he?" she snarls. "About our brother? About how your lifestyle made him kill himself?"

I stand and raise my hands in a subtle defensive motion. "Frankie—"

"What? Frankie what? Are you actually going to try and explain this away? Are you seriously going to tell me that it's not what I think and I've got it all wrong? That it's all in my head?" 

She throws a hand to the doorway. "You're screwing my brother!"

My heart stops. My breathing hitches. I dig my fingernails into my palms. I tighten my jaw so much it hurts.

Nick's standing there in the doorway.

AUTHOR NOTE: Hey, guys! Le gasp at that ending, though! Looks like things are only going to go downhill from here for the boys!

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