Hi all,
This is such an important yet emotional chapter from Chris's character. I suggest preparing the tissues.
Please vote if you enjoy this chapter.
Thank you
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I poured myself a cup of coffee slowly.
"You know we've got someone to do that for us" Uncle Jason said from beside me.
"Go fuck yourself" I snapped at him.
Chace wasn't a slave and it was about time everybody stopped treating him like one.
Sage and Jameson sat there quietly, eating their lucky charm cereal, not even paying attention to Uncle Jason and me.
"Hey, I am your uncle" uncle Jason screamed, "you don't get to speak to me in that way!"
That was 2010; the year of old flames.
This argument occurred July. That was a big month for my family for many reasons. Firstly, July was the start of the 2010-2011 Saga - the saga that changed my life, starting with Zac and Chris.
"Shit" Aunt Kat screamed as slamming her hands against the kitchen table "fucking hell"
"What is it?" Uncle Jared asked from beside her as Uncle Jason and I turned our heads in their direction.
"Chris" she shook her head as resting her left hand over her eyes. "He's at the Koleawiskis medical centre"
"what happened?" Valentina questioned as my heart sank.
My mind went into overdrive. Chris is at the medical centre? What the fuck happened to him?
"He was in a motorcycle accident" Aunt Kat informed us all.
I just stood there in shock. I felt sick to my stomach as my mind kept going back to that phone call.
"Shit, fucking hell"
"What is it?"
"Chris...he's at the Koleawiskis medical centre"
"what happened?"
"He was in a motorcycle accident"
So it turned out that Chris was involved in a high-speed chase with the Jeremy crime family .
Chris could never ride a motorcycle well, Zac was always better than him so we'd get him to do it.
Although, since Zac was shot on nocte fractorum he hadn't been able to do many jobs; as a result, he was on light work, like driving. Zac hasn't stopped shaking due to his nervous system being affected when he was shot; if only he was never shot, then Chris would be fine.
A few hours later Zac came home.
I'll never forget Zac's face when I saw him after the accident, it resembled Chris's when Zac was shot. Zac just stood there, like he forgot how to speak, feel, or cry.
My pour cousin Chris; happiest kid you'd ever meet, that's why I couldn't see him. Cause I knew, if I saw him in the state that he was in, then every time I saw him that's all I'd see; an injured helpless child.
He was in a coma for three weeks; longest he ever went without speaking. I believed that he wouldn't come out of it because afterall, he was always so fragile.
Lila and Tyler; they had lost everybody. Both their parents, and in those few weeks, they were afraid they'd lose their kid brother too.
In my head, he'll always be that six-year-old boy who had just lost his mother to cancer; and the only way he could deal with it was to distract his mind with layers of humor.
Chris thought that if he could just keep talking, keep singing and running, and having as much fun as possible, he could forget. He had spent the last twelve years trying to forget and now he doesn't know anything else.
He was living in a fairytale his whole life; because fairy tales have happy endings, right?
That's how his dad, my Uncle Donny explained it to him after his mother died, there's always a tragedy in fairy tales, but there's always a happy ending. That's how Chris dealt with the death of his mother and every problem since. He never learned to deal with problems like an adult, how could he?
***
Aunt Kat and Uncle Jared stood in the kitchen three weeks after Chris's accident. "He's awake" she announced.
A smile washed across my face but soon dropped.
No one knew when we got the call.
No one knew about the effects that Chris would have to deal with for the rest of his life.
I had no idea before we received the call from the medical center that my baby cousin would never be able to pick me up again - giving me one of his famous hugs.
It turned out that Chris had a spinal cord injury; he had damaged disks in his spinal column, as a result from the accident.
My cousin Chris is now a Paraplegic; can't move either of his legs. Eighteen years old he was; so much wasted potential.
It was weeks later when I was running on the treadmill in the family's gym.
"He's been asking for you" Tyler informed from beside me.
"So" I snapped as he stood beside the treadmill.
I refused to see my baby cousin in pain. I just couldn't bring myself to see him laying in a hospital bed, unable to pick me up.
"Right" he nodded "his wheelchair has arrived"
That was a punch to the gut. "Oh yeah" I began running faster as beams of sweet fell from my forehead.
"Yeah...Jeffrey Koleawiskis is teaching him how to use it" Tyler said.
"Good" I clenched my jaw, holding back my tears.
"Good?" He cocked a brow.
"What do you want me to say?" I snapped at him.
"Something that requires more than two syllables" he raised a brow.
"I'll see him," I assured as getting off the treadmill "just not right now"
"His face is all healed," Tyler told me "he's got no more broken bones....he's coming home tomorrow Taylor...Are you going to be okay?"
"Look Tyler" I cried as facing my twenty four-year-old cousin "spend less time worrying about me and more about your brother"
"You and Zac are the ones he cares most about...how do you think he feels knowing that you don't want to see him, huh?" Tyler folded his arms.
I sighed. I knew that if the roles were reversed Chris wouldn't leave my side.
The 2010-2011 saga was a big one. Little did I know that there was more to come.
****
It was that same night when they all came home.
"We're home" Tyler called from downstairs.
I took a shaky deep breath; I didn't want it to be real.
I wanted to climb down the staircase and find my cousin Chris standing and laughing. Instead, I slowly climbed down the stairs; afraid of the unknown.
"Rina" Chris called with a great big smile as he sat in his wheelchair beside aunt Kat, Zac, and his siblings Tyler and Lila.
"Hey" I struggled to smile as hugging the eighteen-year-old.
That was the first time in over ten years that Chris didn't greet me with a big hug, that would lift me from the ground.
"Check out my new wheels" Chris grinned as spinning around his wheelchair.
"Very nice" I half-smiled, struggling not to cry.
"Chris how about you tell Taylor what uncle Jared said," Lila smiled.
"Oh he said that their gonna build an elevator just for me" Chris smiled "ain't that super"
"Yeah, that it is" I told him.
Chris seemed excited; like becoming a paraplegic was the greatest thing ever. I found it concerning, just like everybody else.
"He's not dealing with this" Zac told me as the two of us begin climbing the staircase.
"Maybe he is" I nodded slowly, "maybe this is how he's dealing with it by finding all the positives instead of the negatives"
That was my interpretation of the situation that is. That's when I realized that perhaps Chris wasn't living in some fantasy land afterall, perhaps he was just looking at every situation with optimism.
"There's a silver lining here?" Zac cocked a brow.
"Maybe through our eyes there's not" I half smiled as I was finally able to work Chris out, "but through his...."
"Chris ain't like the rest of us" Zac looked down in sadness.
"I know" I smiled. "He's special"
I then learnt that my family were putting Chris on forgery's full time, afterall, he wasn't able to do much more.
"Good night" Zac said as we walked seperate ways.
I found that Uncle Nate's office door was shut, for the first time in a long time. I swung the door open to find my uncle Nate on the office floor struggling to breathe, with Chace standing beside him.
"Ta leave!" Chace ordered with fear in his eyes. "Now"
Chace's eyes reflected a man that was genuinely concerned about my uncle, but they also reflected a man who was not shaken up, like he knew exactly what was happening.
My uncle Nate was having a panic attack that night, I didn't know why at the time but I knew that I would soon.
"You want to tell me what that was about?" I questioned four hours later as sitting beside Chace on his sofa.
"I can't say," Chace told me honestly.
"Chace I need to know what happened in there" I reinforced.
Chace sighed.
So it turned out that my uncle's Panic Attack was caused by my great-grandmother Taylorina's predictions.
She had predicted that her son's grandson would become a paraplegic at the age of eighteen; my uncle Nate was worried that her other predictions were also true - more specifically, the predictions about me.