Wonderland - Judd/Jones - Standalone
Title: Wonderland
Author: russsel
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Judd/Jones
Genre: AU, Romance
Summary: “Alright,” he began, and he shifted his head to the ceiling, “Just… promise me you’ll be right here when I wake up tomorrow.”
A/N: Alright, here I am again. This took me a while to write since it's really long. Almost as long as All About Jacob if you guys remember. Another Death!fic from me, since I just can't get enough. I didn't want to break this into chapters, since I'm drowning enough as it is with a few, and also because I didn't feel like I should. I was reading Mark Twain while I was writing this, so I guess you can say I'm inspired by him. The story's cliche, but, really, aren't all stories?
Dedication: To scribblemusic for giving my life new meaning. Keep on truckin', Viv! ♥
Disclaimer: I do not own McFly, or Alice in Wonderland, in any way.
“Excuse me, sir?”
I looked up from my book, keeping my finger as a bookmark, and, pushing my glasses further up my nose, I looked at the owner of the voice. Standing before me, back slightly arched downward in an effort to level with my face, was a man with glittering sapphire eyes, brown, curly hair, and freckles dotting the area around his nose. He was also sporting a wide smile, pearly white teeth reflecting the sunlight. It would have blinded me if I hadn’t squinted a bit to lessen the blow.
“Yes?” I asked, my hand groping the area beside me for my proper bookmark but still keeping my eyes on him.
“I’m sorry to bother you on this beautiful day out,” he started with a slight chuckle, waving an arm to the world to emphasize his claim, the moment I tapped the paper with my middle finger and picked it up, “but there’s a restaurant opening up just around the corner, and I’m going around giving people coupons and stuff to go check it out.”
I contemplated as I placed the bookmark under my finger. I was never too keen on trying out new places, especially places that serve food, food that I’d eventually eat, unless it’s been reviewed by the local newspaper or something for validation. But this fellow right here, he seemed chipper enough to make me reconsider.
“Yeah, I guess,” I smiled, closing the book and propping it on my lap, “Why not.”
He stood up to his full height and jumped lightly in the air, as though he’d just scored a goal, smile widening to a near-impossible degree. He calmed down enough to pull out a piece of paper in his pocket and inched closer. I could feel the electricity of delight tickling me into smiling widely along with him.
“Oh, that’s just great! You’re, like, the third person to accept!” he said happily, handing me the paper. I received it and scanned the front with a raised eyebrow.
BOLTON’S
take your stomach with you and you’ll never want to leave
I smiled and chuckled at the slogan before folding it up and stuffing it in my back pocket.
“Nice slogan,” I said, and he scratched his head in embarrassment.
“Yeah, I’m the one who wrote that,” he admitted with a chuckle, and he brought his hand down and drove it in his pocket again, moving it side to side, the disturbance of the papers audible through the fabric. “Not very good, I know, but people compliment it anyway.”
“No, no, I like it,” I said hurriedly, determined not to make him feel bad. “Sort of quirky in a way.”
He flashed a personal smile and looked away from my eyes, and when he turned back, he said, “So, I’ll just see you there?”
Standing the book up on my thighs, I gave him a half-smile, and nodding, I said, “You bet.”
Nodding curtly with a softer smile, he wheeled around and sauntered back to his business, his jolliness emanating from his body like solar flares.
Once he was out of my view, I opened the book and re-read the entire page after not remembering where I’d left off.
You certainly don’t see that everyday.
:::
The tinkling above my head unnerved me for a second, but I ignored it and kept moving forward, and I heard the door whiz closed the next moment.
I looked around the area, tried to familiarize myself with it, and found blue eyes tending to an elderly couple, wearing that very same smile he gave me earlier that day.
Taking a sigh, I sat myself down on one of the chairs that lined the walls beside the doors and waited for someone to seat me in.
A few minutes later, I saw a shadow fall over me, and looking up, I saw curly head with a large menu clasped in one hand, fanning himself softly despite the slight coldness surrounding the restaurant.
“Glad you came,” he said jovially, tossing his head as a motion for me to stand up, and he spun around on his heels. He held up a hand and moved a finger to follow him.
“Here you go,” he said, placing the menu on the polished table. He watched me take my seat before continuing. “Now, just look over everything and call me up when you have your order, yeah?”
I nodded and watched him leave, long strides working his sculpted back visible through the flimsy fabric of his tight shirt. I gulped and switched my focus to the menu. Was I really just checking him out? I shook the thought and busied myself with the picture of the juicy steak taking up half the page.
Moments later, after working the order through my head a couple more times, I looked up and tried to catch his eyes, but I found it to be quite difficult since he had his back turned talking with the same couple.
So I sat and waited, and before I knew it, he was striding over to me, hovering a pen over a notepad.
“So, what’ll you have?” he asked brightly, and I turned my head to look at his nametag before saying anything.
Hello, my name is DANNY!!!!
I laughed slightly at the exclamation marks after his name, because it wasn’t unlike his personality. It was something I could see him doing.
Noticing my attention on his chest, he looked down and lifted the card pinned on his shirt, flashing it closer so I could see more properly. Not that I needed to, the name took up almost the entire space already as it was.
“What’s yours?” he asked, dropping his shirt and straightening out the part he had pinched together.
“Harry,” I replied, shifting in my seat to find a more comfortable spot.
“Harry,” he mumbled under his breath, nodding all the while, and perking his brows, he added, “So, what’ll you have, Harry?”
“I’d like to try the steak here,” I said, lifting the menu and pointing at the steak I’d been looking at for the most part of my time in the restaurant. He nodded and scribbled something down on the notepad.
“That’s my favorite,” he smiled, tucking the pen behind his ear, “and a drink?”
I discreetly looked back at my menu, having forgotten to search for a beverage while I waited, and clocking the first one on the list in my mind, I shifted my eyes back to him.
“Erm… How’s an iced tea sound?”
He smiled and collected the menu, our hands brushing only so slightly, and I pretended I didn’t notice. What I couldn’t ignore was the butterflies that exploded out of nowhere in the pit of my stomach, and I shifted even more. Everything had suddenly gone uncomfortable for some reason.
“Sounds great. I’ll be right back with your food, then.”
“Alright, thanks.”
He turned around and walked the opposite way.
In his absence, I pushed my glasses further back until the lenses were nearly pressing on my pupils, and I took out the coupon from my back pocket. Was he just flirting with me? I should like to think so, but one could never be too sure with these things. A simple hand touching might have been purely accidental, but something deep in my heart told me it wasn’t, that it was entirely intentional. I shrugged it off.
I didn’t know what to think.
He came back a few minutes later with a plate of the steak, just as juicy as it looked in the menu, and he set the iced tea down on the table before the plate.
“Cooked it myself,” he said cheerfully, puffing his chest out proudly, and lowering it, he added, in a more hopeful tone, “I hope you like it.”
I looked at the piece of meat and grabbed the utensils wrapped up in a large napkin beside my hand.
He didn’t linger to watch me eat, and he turned around after seeing me cut into his masterpiece. But he immediately wheeled back around, remembering something, apparently, and he leaned in close, propping himself on the sides of his arms on the table. He pulled out a small packet of something from his pocket and slid it across the table so it was nestling underneath my fist.
“Customers usually pay extra for this,” he whispered under his breath, a sly smile sweeping across his face as he looked around for any possible eavesdroppers, “but since I cooked it and all, I reckoned they wouldn’t mind. Makes it taste so much better, that does. Trust me.”
I smiled and thanked him for his consideration, and he watched as I ripped open the packet and sprinkled the contents, something like red pepper flakes mixed with something yellow like mustard seeds, all over the steak.
I didn’t wait for him to leave before dipping the piece impaled in the fork in the sauce provided, and, popping it into my mouth, I was met with a most wonderful array of taste and textures. I shivered slightly.
“This has got to be the greatest steak I’ve ever had,” I said, still awestruck, and I meant it, too, unlike the instances where people would say it just for the sake of saying it to make whoever feel better.
He brightened up at the comment and flashed a mind-blowing grin, making those butterflies explode, yet again, into being, fluttering around the magnificent piece of steak in my stomach.
“Thank you,” he said, standing up and scratching his head in either embarrassment or modesty. Whichever of the two, I didn’t care. I took another bite. And another. And another. Before two minutes had passed, my plate was completely empty, and I sighed in satisfaction as I slumped in my seat, a hand on my happy stomach.
“Do you think you can get me another one?”
He chuckled and grabbed the empty plate.
“Coming right up.”
:::
I frequented my visits to Bolton’s. More than really necessary. I might have went just about every day for a week and a half, and ate just about everything in the menu. You name it: shrimp, fish, elk (I didn’t know what it was initially, but I loved it all the same). I ordered it immediately. I was especially fond of the steak, and I ordered it coupled with the other meals.
But inside, it wasn’t just the fact that the food was near-divine levels. It was because Danny served me each one of those days, and he always did it with a smile. He never seemed to complain when I go in everyday, sit in my allotted seat, and order almost the whole restaurant, save for the vegetables. I wasn’t too fond of vegetables. What I’m trying to say is: I think it’s quite safe to say that I’d fancied him right there and then.
But on the eleventh day, I noticed something change in me physically: I felt sluggish, lazy, heavy. It was when I looked down on my stomach as I waited for Danny to serve me and saw a huge bulge threatening to burst out of my now-tight shirt that I realized I had gained a fair bit of weight.
“Why do you come here everyday, Harry?” Danny asked, taking the seat opposite me, readying himself for the onslaught of orders.
I eyed him curiously and shrugged.
“’Cause the food’s great here, that’s why,” I replied, sinking low in my seat to prevent him from seeing the unwanted expansion of stomach stretching my skin. But he saw it all the same, and he chuckled at the sight of me trying to hide it.
“Doubt that’s the only reason,” he gambled, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t really map out. Well, he had an eyebrow raised, a sort of half-smirk on his lips, not showing his teeth, head turned slightly to the side but still watching me. I suddenly felt hot, and my hands instinctively clung to my mountainous stomach. Was he a mind reader?
“What do you think is another?” I inquired, testing his mind reading abilities.
He smiled and sat back on his seat, crossing his arms over his chest.
“If you wanted to ask me out, you could have done it with less trauma on your body,” he replied leaning in close and twirling a lock of curly hair between his fingers. “I don’t think your shirt appreciates it.”
I was dumbstruck.
Was I that easy to read? I sure never dropped any hints or whatever. None that I could recall anyway. So how could he have known that?
“I’m guessing by your silence I’m right, then?” he smiled, stretching an arm across the table to grasp one of my hands, and I could only nod in response.
“Well, then, that’s settled, isn’t it?” he remarked, letting go of my hand and standing up, and picking up the notepad, he added, “I’m free this Saturday and you can pick me up… here. I’ll be right in here.”
Not waiting for a response, he winked and turned around, and he happily trotted on a few steps before wheeling back around and stopping beside me.
“I forgot to ask your order,” he chuckled, grabbing the pen behind his ear and positioning it over the notepad. “So, what’ll you have, Harry?”
I didn’t even need to think. Not that I could at the moment; everything seemed to be sort of incoherent in a way. I’d just asked him out without asking him out, and it was a very mind-blowing issue for me. I never labeled myself as “attractive.” What, with all my time devoted to books and work, and not to mention, my entire being hidden behind spectacles, I considered myself more of an “Average Joe” or whatever they called it. So, you can understand why it was such a wake up call to me when Danny, who was everything anybody could want in a single person: handsome, tall, sculpted, energetic, and nice, accepted my request (not that I did in the first place, it’s still all so confusing to me) to go out.
“The steak, maybe?” I said with a smile, and he scribbled it down on the paper. Unnecessary considering it was basically all I ever ordered, but I liked watching him write on his notepad, the way he would scrunch up his nose and move his mouth to one side, biting the inside of his cheek.
“You got it.”
And it was while I was eating that I reckoned I should do something about my stomach. So immediately after finishing my steak, I walked casually out the door and, running over to my car like a madman, I drove as fast as I could to the nearest gym.
:::
“You sure tone up nicely,” Danny complimented the moment I pushed through the doors, used to the tinkling bell by now. I smiled, shrugged, and pressed my glasses back. I had three days to prepare, so I thought I might as well take advantage of the time.
“Thanks,” I replied, and looking around, I saw the restaurant empty.
“Yeah, the restaurant closes on the weekends,” said Danny, noticing my interest around the place, and the next moment, he added, “Well, you ready to go?”
I pulled my eyes back to him and raised an eyebrow, slightly taken aback by his lively question. But then I recognized immediately and laughed my stupor off.
“Yeah, come on.”
Tossing my head out the door, I turned around and made my way across the floor, and was just in the process of pushing through when suddenly, I felt something snake around my arm. Turning my head, I saw Danny beside me, smile as brilliant and blinding as ever, an arm linked with mine. He laughed at my expression and pulled me outside, and soon we were off to my car, already heading to the plaza before I could calculate what had just happened.
:::
“You’re something else, you know that?” Danny said after taking a bite of his fairly large croissant, his fifth one. I smiled. I didn’t think of myself as anything special, really; just a bloke who went to work and ate and slept like all the rest.
“And you really like eating, don’t you?” I answered back with a grin, reaching a hand to his face and thumbing off crumbs that littered the side of his mouth.
“Ha-ha, very funny,” he said with a mock laugh, and taking another huge chunk, he said, “But seriously. I really like spending time with you. You’re really funny and stuff.”
I laughed and took a sip of my drink.
“Then I guess you won’t reject my offer to go out again?” I gambled, talking more to the table than Danny. A few seconds of silence ensued, and I felt a hand sliding across mine and grabbing it tenderly. I looked up and saw that he was looking at me with a smile, and I could feel my own breaking out in return.
“Of course not.”
:::
After three more dates, we finally called it official. Danny and I were finally together as a couple. In the times we spent, I came to learn more about him than I’d ever imagined. I learned he likes playing the guitar, loves eating and balances it by working out, likes playing football, loves playing in arcades and making a fool of himself, and many, many more. He left his parents back in Bolton to go to London, telling me he couldn’t stand the place, and we had quite a laugh when he, ironically enough, ended up working in a restaurant called Bolton’s. But what intrigued me the most was his strong desire to go to the States.
“I’ve always wanted to go there, Harry,” he whispered to me, snuggling closer under the blanket as the people in the television flashed its brilliance on the walls. I turned my head and held him tighter.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, since I was a kid.”
He laid his head on my shoulder and searched for my hand. Finding it, he interlocked his fingers with mine, and he shuffled ever so closer.
”I’ve always wanted to see the Grand Canyon with my own eyes. And the Statue of Liberty. I bet it’s real pretty up close. And the Golden Gate Bridge. I know it’s just like any old bridge, but I’d very much like to see it anyway.”
All the while, I was looking at him, and was very nearly turning off the television if it weren’t for the fact that his eyes were glued to the screen. I’d never been so captivated by someone before; here was someone who was sporadic, who likes to be unpredictable, almost daredevil-like, and now, here he was, eyes glazing dreamily over images of beautiful landmarks playing in his head, and I could almost feel his longing to be able to go there and see them for himself.
“You’ll make it there someday,” I assured him, taking my eyes off the top of his head and settling it back on the television screen. He lifted his head up and looked at me, a smile creeping on his face.
“You think so?”
I kissed his forehead and pushed my glasses up, grin almost as wide as his.
“Yeah.”
He laid his head back on my shoulder and we watched the remainder of the film in peace. Somewhere in the back of my mind told me to grant his wish, and I resolved to make his dream a reality.
His birthday was coming up, and I knew exactly what to get him.
:::
A few weeks later, we decided to move in together in my flat, and I kept quiet about my secret as well as I could without coming off as suspicious. But I couldn’t help the moments where I would smile for no apparent reason, to him, when we would talk about the States. I just couldn’t wait to see the look in his face when I hand him his ticket.
When all seemed well and smooth sailing, however, something bad happened, just like all relationships did.
:::
It was just a regular Saturday, eating lunch that he’d made for us together, when out of nowhere, he coughed so violently, it knocked his plate onto the floor.
“Are you alright?” I asked worriedly, striding over beside him and stooping low to pick up the shattered remains of the plate.
“Yeah, I’m-”
He coughed again, more aggressively this time, and he stood up and clutched at his chest, heaving to rid his airway of whatever was blocking it. But he was unsuccessful, and turning to me with tears of pain, he shook his head and excused himself out of the dining room, leaving me confused and worried and, after absentmindedly pricking my finger on a rather sharp edge, bleeding.
His coughing continued for the most part of the day, and he spent all of it in our room, sat on the edge of the bed, holding a cloth against his mouth. I came in regularly to check how he was doing and if he wanted anything, but he always shook his head and coughed, clearly unable to vocalize his requests either way.
“You sure you don’t want anything?” I asked, sitting beside him and pulling him to my chest in one of my trips. At first, he couldn’t do anything but cough, turning his head to the side so I wouldn’t contract whatever it was that he had. After minutes of waiting, however, a time of peace came, and he used this window to his advantage.
“Can you get me some-some water, Harry?” he asked, covering his mouth almost immediately after saying my name, and I nodded in reply. I went out the room and got him a glassful.
The next day came, but Danny’s coughing never ceased for a second. Even when he was sleeping, or trying to sleep.
“Harry, I’m sorr-sorry,” he heaved labouredly, slightly accustomed to the coughs to form a coherent sentence, after hacking up blood all over the sheets. I shook my head and rose up, collecting the sheets in a ball and walking across the room to get clean ones. I jumped back into bed and wrapped him in the new sheets, kissing him on his temple and saying, “It’s okay,” before easing him on his back to try to sleep again.
I called up a doctor the next day and told him Danny’s array symptoms. To top his incessant coughing, he lost all interest to eat, and in turn, he lost some of his weight. He was also tired almost all the time, and he barely left the bed except to go to the loo. Even then, he’d require some help, and I helped him through it with as much optimism as my heart could create.
By the time the doctor got to my flat, Danny was experiencing chest pains, and he was sprawled on the bed, hands clutched on his shirt, pressing on his chest to make the pain stop. The doctor wasted no time in trying to figure out what was wrong with him, and I held Danny’s hand through and through.
:::
“I’m still uncertain,” said the doctor, taking me aside after sedating Danny and alleviating the pains, “but I think he may have lung cancer.”
A sharp intake of breath, and my eyes blew wide open, my heart picking up speed.
“That can’t be,” I said under my breath, looking over his shoulder to see Danny sleeping away.
“Did he use to smoke?”
I turned back to him, anxiety filling my veins like a broken dam.
“Yeah, he quit a while back, but-but lung cancer?”
The doctor took note of his in his clipboard and looked up to face me again, face as grave as a cemetery.
“I’m still uncertain, so we’ll need to have him get a chest radiograph to see if there’s any unnatural mass in his lungs.”
I brought a hand to my face and rubbed my chin, feeling helpless all of a sudden. Thinking it over, it might not be too late for him to get a surgery or something, and there’s also the possibility that the doctor may have been wrong, and he really didn’t have lung cancer. Setting my mind to remedy the situation, I turned back to the doctor and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Can we do it right now?”
“It’s recommended to get an early screening. There’s more of a chance to prevent the cancer from spreading even further.”
Nodding, and keeping as straight a face as I could, I resolutely strode over to Danny and picked him up off the bed.
:::
“So?” I asked after the doctor, a new one, appeared from behind the double doors where Danny was. I’d been waiting for quite a while, and the anxiety rose into near-agonizing levels, I was very near busting the vending machine when it refused to give me my iced tea the first time.
“I’m sorry to say, but Mr. Jones does, indeed, have lung cancer.”
My heart stopped for a fraction of a second, almost dropping the can clasped in my hand on the floor, and I could only look at him in disbelief.
“The cancer has spread pretty far, but we might be able to prevent it from growing even further if we perform the surgery as soon as possible.”
I didn’t know what to do. It was as if my mind had shut down on me. The thought of Danny having cancer still burned in the back of my head, and the image was taking over me in such large quantities, I couldn’t do anything to hold it back.
“Mr. Judd,” the doctor said, snapping me back into reality, and I looked at him in a daze, my eyes wide open, “we need your confirmation to do the surgery.”
“Will he be alright after?” were the first words out of my mouth, and the look on his face made my heart sink.
“As with everything else, nothing is certain. But we’ll do our best, don’t you worry.”
I could almost feel tears brimming around my eyes, and I tried my hardest to hold them back. I wanted to be strong for Danny; that was the least I could do for him.
“Do what you have to do,” I said firmly, and in a cracking voice, I added, “But please make him well.”
“We’ll do what we can,” the doctor assured, and he nodded to someone over my shoulder. A nurse took me aside and presented me with paperwork, and, without even reading them over, I signed every single one.
:::
“Hey there, sunshine,” I said tearily when Danny had finally woken up, a smile washing over my face.
The surgery came through wonderfully, said the doctor, and that the cancer wouldn’t be spreading anymore.
“Hey,” he smiled back, blinking softly and gulping. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital, silly,” I said, placing a kiss on his cheek and trying to hold back my tears.
“Ow, my chest hurts,” he said when he attempted to sit up, but I placed a palm on his stomach to prevent him from finishing the action.
“Doctor said not to stress-stress yourself.”
He smiled and laid back down, his curly hair fluttering softly in the breeze wafting through the slightly opened window behind me. He lifted a hand and traced the outline of the stitches on his chest through the white blanket, and I wiped a tear that had rolled down a cheek.
“What did I have? Was it something serious?”
He turned to me and smiled, but it was a sad smile, and he brought a hand to cup my cheeks, whispering, “What’s wrong?”
“You had lung cancer, Dan,” I replied, closing my eyes at his touch, and I heard him make a sound, but he never took his hand away. “You had surgery to remove the cancer.”
“Oh,” he said, wiping the tears that had begun flooding from my eyes, and I hyperventilated slightly, my breaths coming in shaky. “But I’m alright now, aren’t I?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I didn’t know how to tell him, or even if I should tell him, but I thought it would be cruel if I didn’t. It was his body after all, and he had a right to know what’s happening in it.
“They managed to get the tumor out,” I said, dragging on the inevitable, but he only shook his head and said, more firmly, “Aren’t I?”
“The tumor’s out, but they couldn’t do anything about the damage it did to your lungs and-”
“Harry!”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand and pulled him in my embrace, sobbing softly on the pillow beside his ear.
“Dan, you’ve got less than a year left to live!”
Silence.
It seemed forever that we were stuck in this position, neither of us saying anything and listening, instead, to the beeping machines beside him. Those were the only sounds in the room, and my sobbing shortly joined the depressing orchestra.
“I don’t want you to go, Dan,” I whispered desperately, and lifting my head up, I placed a kiss on his lips and said, “I don’t want you to leave me. I don’t want to be alone.”
He was crying now, too, but he was doing a much better job at keeping it quiet than I was, and he turned to me and placed a hand once again on my cheek.
“Dan, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
:::
Danny stayed in the hospital for two weeks to recover from the surgery, and had long since accepted his fate, telling me it was God’s will and all that. But not me. I didn’t want to believe he only had less than a year left to live; I refused to.
I scoped out doctors during his stay; looked for them online, phoned them from different parts of the country, drove to every single hospital I could find. But none of the doctors seemed to know what to do. They didn’t even seem to care that I was killing myself driving all over the area looking for something-anything-that could possibly help Danny.
After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t handle the rejection anymore, each one like a scream in my ear that Danny’s going to die and there’s absolutely nothing I could do about it.
I stopped searching and just tried to accept it.
:::
“Harry, you look tired,” he said, helping me carry his things into the flat the day he was finally released. His smile was back, but there was a solemnity coating each curve, and it was then that I knew nothing would ever be the same.
“Just been thinking,” I replied, heaving a particularly large baggage and dragging it a few inches off the ground.
“Well, you better start resting then. You look like crap,” he joked, setting the things down on the sofa and collapsing beside them.
I laughed when I dropped the baggage beside the door and said, “Thanks, that’s just what I’d like to hear.”
“Sorry, babe,” he chuckled, and patting the spot next to him on the sofa he added, “Come here.”
I jumped in the seat like a whirlwind and he rested his head on my chest the next second, hand crawling along my stomach in search for a hand. He always did like it when we held hands.
“You need to stop worrying about me,” he said, looking up at me but never leaving my chest. “It’s done and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“I know,” I said, bringing my free hand to stroke his curly mane. “I know.”
“Just live life with me, you know?” he said, fixing his gaze to the empty television screen. “So what if I never see the States, at least I’ll be spending the rest of my life with you.”
I smiled and bit my lip at the same time, and I inconspicuously slid my hand from his hair into my shirt pocket and pulled out his birthday gift, just one month early. Ever so slowly, I lowered it before his face and waited for a reaction, and upon noticing it, he didn’t disappoint.
He reached up and snatched the ticket faster than lightning, and he gasped in disbelief.
“No, you did not just get me a ticket to the states!” he huffed, still surprised, and he held on tightly as if the wind might blow it away and it’d be gone forever. “Harry, I love you!”
He jumped up, wrapped his arms around me in exhilaration, and he planted kiss after kiss all over my face, saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” in the intervals.
“When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow, if you want to.”
His eyes blew wide open and leaned in to kiss me more properly on the lips, arms tightening their grip around my neck, pushing me closer. After parting, he fell on his spot, heaving heavily, eyes still glued to the ticket as if an entire movie were playing on it.
“Harry, you have no idea how much this means to me,” he said, giving me a fleeting glance before turning back to his gift.
If it’s anything like how I was feeling when I was watching him: brilliant smile etched on his face that could put the very stars to shame, his excitement at the simple gift, and knowing that I was the one responsible for them, then I probably had a pretty good idea.
:::
He was wrapped in a thick sweater when he came out of the flat, after much debate whether it would be cold where we were going first or not, and he jumped in the passenger’s seat with as much enthusiasm as a little boy would knowing he was heading to an amusement park.
Soon, we were off to the airport, and eleven hours later, we set foot in the sunny state of California. Danny took off his sweater at once when the warm air prickled his skin.
Our first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge, and after a few hours’ drive (I rented a car immediately after landing), we found ourselves driving underneath the crimson bridge, and Danny rolled down the window and poked his head out in wonder. Delight filled my body at the sight, and I could feel myself tearing up at how much Danny was enjoying himself, but I held it back and drove on with a smile, determined not to put him off by something as insignificant as crying.
“Harry, it’s beautiful,” he told me after sinking back into his seat and staring instead through the windshield. He groped around for my hand, and out of instinct, I already had it right beside him, ready to be held. And we drove along the length of the bridge talking and laughing, the sun setting spilling orange and pink in the sky, and I held his hand tighter with each laugh.
I didn’t want him to go.
:::
“Danny, wake up.”
Danny stirred under the sheets, rolled on his side, and snored into sleep once again. I smiled and, diving my hands under the sheets, lifted him up, and his arms came around my neck, not wanting to fall. I carried him all the way to the bathroom, laughing loudly when I nearly tripped after stepping on his discarded jacket.
Today was our trip to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, and after attempting three times, I reckoned I should take the matters to my own hands.
After getting him ready, we set off once again to the airport, this time boarding the airplane for New York City, and Danny spent the entire ride there sleeping on me, preferring, as he told me himself, my warmth than the cold cushions of airline seats.
Hours later, we got on the rented car and drove straight for the Statue, marveling at the sights on the way there. Once, we stopped to get ourselves hotdogs off of a street vendor; one for me and three for him.
As soon as we arrived at the harbor, I picked up my camera and led Danny into the throng of people busily navigating around each other; some tourists, some just going about their usual businesses.
Danny dragged me to one of the nearby gift shops and bought himself a novelty crown.
“What is that?” I asked when he advanced closer to me, arms outstretched, presenting me the crown.
“It’s her crown, Harry,” he laughed, and he moved closer.
“And what do you want to do with that?” I asked, backing away playfully.
“I want you to wear it, Harry,” he smiled, placing the green thing snug on my head. Taking a few steps back, he crossed his arms over his chest and chuckled. “It looks great on you, no joke.”
Walking forward and grabbing my hand, he gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “Come on, let’s take pictures.”
:::
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Danny, grabbing my arms clasped around his neck and pulling me closer.
We were standing on the rocks enclosing the Grand Canyon, overlooking the vast ravine and its numerous pillars of sediment. The sun was setting behind a mountainous mass, flooding the sky with gold and orange and pink all mixed in one, enveloping us in its warm glow.
He turned his head and kissed me before turning back at the spectacle with a sigh.
“It’s these things that make you realize that there’s more to life, you know?” he said, rubbing a thumb on the back of my hand, and it was the only thing preventing me from wiping the tears rolling down my cheeks. “There’s more to life after me, Harry, and I hope you know that.”
I didn’t know what to say at the moment, much less think. The entirety of the situation dawned on me in that one second, and I couldn’t help but let the tears run free without objection.
“I’ll try,” I managed to say, and he let out a sad chuckle.
“Promise me you’ll move on?” he asked just as the sun dropped lower. Just like before, I didn’t know what to say. As much as I didn’t want to, I knew I had to. I had no choice but to move on, but why did it have to be so damn hard?
Kissing the top of his head and inhaling his scent, I said firmly, “I’ll try.”
:::
“Let’s go home, Harry, I’m tired.”
At those words, I wasted no time in getting us back to our flat, and I kept him company as well as I could whenever he woke up and had difficulty going back to sleep again.
It seemed to happen more often as the days drug on.
He would wake up in the middle of the night and grab onto me, waking me up in the process, and I would have to lull him back to sleep in every instance. I tried to cope with it, but I always found myself crying in the bathroom after finally managing to get him sound asleep, the Statue’s crown held tightly in my fists.
:::
Months passed by, and they seemed to take his energy away with them.
He didn’t have the energy to work anymore, so he quit his job in Bolton’s and stayed in the house full-time. I didn’t know what he did the days I was out for work, but he said not to worry about him. That’s what he said for everything lately; after failing to make a whole trip around the house and collapsing on the way to the bedroom, he turned to me and said, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me;” after losing all will to cook, he sat against the cupboards, looked at me with a smile, and said, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me.”
I didn’t know if I could go on with work knowing that he couldn’t do anything by himself anymore.
“Don’t be silly, Harry,” he told me when I told him I wanted to quit my job and stay with him. “That’s not a very smart thing to do.”
But he didn’t understand. Every minute spent behind my desk, doing some menial task that had nothing to do with society whatsoever, was a minute lost being with him. And knowing that I could do something to spend more time with him, if just for a little while, was killing me inside.
“Promise me you won’t quit.”
I bit my lip and looked at him longingly. Placing a kiss on his forehead, I finally gave in, unable to resist the look on his face.
“I won’t, then.”
:::
“Harry, read something to me,” Danny requested, and at once, I grabbed the nearest book my hand could reach. Reading the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland emblazoned on the cover, I flipped it open, turned to the first page, and mapped out a random spot to begin.
“‘Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.’”
“I can relate to that,” Danny said, half to himself, half to me, and I raised a brow in wonder.
“Hmm?”
“Well,” he began, turning to me and reaching for my hand. “I’m sort of like Alice in a way. I didn’t really know you all that much, but I reckoned you were something interesting, and so I took a plunge down my own little rabbit-hole and decided to ask you out. I didn’t think about the things that I’d get out of the date, but when I finally reached the end of that hole, I got something more than I’d ever bargained for, just like Alice when she found Wonderland. I got the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. Went to places I thought I’d never see in my life. Shared the most beautiful sunset with him in the most beautiful place in the world. And all that because I decided to take the risk and follow that rabbit, Harry. And it’s been so much of an adventure, really, my life, and I’m glad you were there with me every single step of the way.”
“Stop it, Dan, you’re going to make me cry,” I said with a wet smile, wiping the tears that had formed around my eyes with my sleeve.
“No, you stop it,” he retorted playfully, reaching a hand to wipe my other cheek with a teary smile. “You’re going to make me cry.”
We both laughed and spent the night reading him the book, picking out pieces he could relate to here and there, and pretty soon, he was asleep. Closing the book and kissing him on his temple, I flicked the lamp off and I myself fell into slumber.
:::
Just when everything seemed bright and cheery, when it seemed like nothing would go wrong and Danny was laughing and smiling again, God decided to intervene once again, and he crept up behind me without making the slightest of sounds.
:::
“Harry, I feel so weak,” said Danny, and his claim was mirrored in his voice. It wasn’t the same, cheery tone he always talked with. Not anymore. “I’m tired all the time. I can’t move around the room anymore without fainting and…”
“Come on, Danny,” I said, shuffling closer and wrapping my arms around his waist, resting my chin on his shoulder. “You can’t give up now. Not yet.”
“I don’t know how long I can hold on,” he said with a sad smile, turning to me, and at once, I saw the flare diminish in his blue eyes. What used to be glowing, sapphire orbs morphed suddenly into glass balls covered in peeling blue paint. I could feel myself tearing up again.
Why Danny? Out of anybody in the world: murderers and plunderers, why did He choose Danny? What had Danny ever done wrong?
“Harry, don’t cry.”
It wasn’t until he brought his thumb to wipe my cheek that I realized I had been crying, and I looked at him, eyes glassy and red. He smiled at me, attempted to smile like he did before, and he got real close this time, and I smiled with him.
“Just promise me one thing.”
I sniffed and nodded, and muttered, “Anything, Dan. Anything.”
“Alright,” he began, and he shifted his head to the ceiling, “Just… promise me you’ll be right here when I wake up tomorrow.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, my heart was hurting so much. I clung even tighter, not caring if I was hurting him or not, because I didn’t want him to go, it was too soon.
He turned to me and kissed me.
“Promise me, Harry.”
Giving him a kiss of my own, I nodded and blinked a tear away, my hand reaching over and grabbing his hand for a change.
“I promise.”
:::
When the morning sun crept through the tiny crack in the curtains and brushed along my eyelids, I woke up, and the first thing I did was to scramble to my side to face Danny, smiling for keeping my promise. I didn’t make a move to wake him up; he needed his rest, so I only marveled at his sleeping form.
Looking from a certain angle, he seemed to be smiling, and I smiled even wider. It’d been a long time since he’d had a good dream, and I knew he deserved it after everything he’d been through. Wondering what he could be dreaming about, I traced, with my eyes, his nose, his lips, and down to his chest, and at once, a sinking feeling fell on my heart.
My smile turned to shock when I realized his chest wasn’t moving.
“Danny,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder and shaking him awake. But he didn’t stir.
“Danny,” I repeated louder, shaking him more violently. No stir.
My heart began to pound aggressively in my chest, and in the silence I could hear every beat. This was not happening. Not today. Not yet.
I got on my knees and shook him more, unable to believe it. He told me he was going to wake up tomorrow, and that he was looking forward to seeing me next to him. I kept my end of the bargain, so why didn’t he?
I shook him more desperately, tears streaming down my face despite all the measures I did to prevent them.
“Danny, please wake up,” I pleaded, moving closer to see if my shaking created a response in him, but no breaths came, and I closed my eyes and cupped my hands on my face.
“Oh, God, no.”
And I knew then that Danny was gone.
I didn’t want to believe it. He was just laughing last night like everyone else, for God’s sake, with me! I was there!
“Danny,” I cried, lifting him up and hugging him, pressing my face on his chest. “Danny, please. You can’t leave me like this. You said you’d wake up today, you said. You said.”
I knew it was hopeless to plead, but I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t think of anything else. It was as if my mind had shut down on me, and I all I could do was beg and cry. So I did, on his chest, soiling his shirt, and I held him close, feeling emptier as the seconds ticked past that his arms weren’t coming up to hold me in return.
“Danny, I love you so much.”
:::
Three days later, his funeral was held.
His parents flew in from Bolton, and all his friends came as well. I almost didn’t come. I couldn’t bear to see him lying in his coffin, knowing that he’s forever gone and he wouldn’t come back. But I knew I had to.
I looked away for the most of it, settling my gaze on a nearby tree or a car parked next to it. Never looking forward and looking at the white casket.
But all wrapped in my sorrow and grief, I had forgotten how his mother would react, and it came as such a surprise when she broke down in the middle of the priest’s speech and pounded the ground with the sides of her fists, bellowing something too incoherent for anybody to understand.
“Didn’t even know he had-had cancer!” I heard her say in one of her calmer cries, “How could he do this to me? He just up and left us to go here, and now he’s-he’s gone, and he didn’t even tell me! His own mother! I can’t-”
Her husband rose from his seat and lifted her up, letting her sob on him while he led her back to her seat. I was crying again, but I didn’t care. I had as much right to cry in front of everybody as his mother.
When it was time to lower the coffin, it was all anybody could do when his mother rushed up and held it, refusing to let it go, yelling about it being too soon and that she didn’t want to let go of her only son. That’s exactly what I felt, and what I wanted to do. I didn’t want them to take him away, I wanted to see him smile again, laugh again, hold my hand when he needed reassurance that, yes, he wasn’t alone. And lowering that casket destroyed the chances of those things happening ever again, and when the time came for me to drop my rose, I let a deep sigh of helplessness before letting it go with a tear or two.
Danny was gone, and I knew I should accept it. I had to.
:::
It took me three nights to recover from the blow, crying at different intervals of time, not leaving the house at all. I spent those three nights on the bed, facing the area he should have been occupying, looking at a green crown nestled delicately on the pillow.
But by no means did I give up. No. That was my promise to him, and I had every intention of keeping it. I learned to move on, learned to let go just enough but never completely, and every night, when the wind whistled through the window every now and then, I could still hear him laugh.
:::
I was sat again, on the bench reading the same book I was reading when he came up to me with the coupon. It was a bright day, just like it had been, and it surprised me so when I saw a shadow fall over me.
Looking up and pushing my glasses back, I saw a man no older than me, with blond hair and a dimpled smile.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” he began, and I closed the book at once, remembering the exact same moment that started it all. “But there’s a new bookstore opening up just down the street, and I’m going around telling people about it.”
I smiled at the hilarity of it all. Was it God’s way of telling me something? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t let this fellow standing and bent over, waiting for an answer.
“So, can I expect you there?”
He handed me a flyer with a smile. Not the same smile, but a good smile nonetheless, and I received it with one of my own. It was what Danny would have wanted, and I knew I needed it, too.
“Yeah, I guess. Why not.”
Author: russsel
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Judd/Jones
Genre: AU, Romance
Summary: “Alright,” he began, and he shifted his head to the ceiling, “Just… promise me you’ll be right here when I wake up tomorrow.”
A/N: Alright, here I am again. This took me a while to write since it's really long. Almost as long as All About Jacob if you guys remember. Another Death!fic from me, since I just can't get enough. I didn't want to break this into chapters, since I'm drowning enough as it is with a few, and also because I didn't feel like I should. I was reading Mark Twain while I was writing this, so I guess you can say I'm inspired by him. The story's cliche, but, really, aren't all stories?
Dedication: To scribblemusic for giving my life new meaning. Keep on truckin', Viv! ♥
Disclaimer: I do not own McFly, or Alice in Wonderland, in any way.
“Excuse me, sir?”
I looked up from my book, keeping my finger as a bookmark, and, pushing my glasses further up my nose, I looked at the owner of the voice. Standing before me, back slightly arched downward in an effort to level with my face, was a man with glittering sapphire eyes, brown, curly hair, and freckles dotting the area around his nose. He was also sporting a wide smile, pearly white teeth reflecting the sunlight. It would have blinded me if I hadn’t squinted a bit to lessen the blow.
“Yes?” I asked, my hand groping the area beside me for my proper bookmark but still keeping my eyes on him.
“I’m sorry to bother you on this beautiful day out,” he started with a slight chuckle, waving an arm to the world to emphasize his claim, the moment I tapped the paper with my middle finger and picked it up, “but there’s a restaurant opening up just around the corner, and I’m going around giving people coupons and stuff to go check it out.”
I contemplated as I placed the bookmark under my finger. I was never too keen on trying out new places, especially places that serve food, food that I’d eventually eat, unless it’s been reviewed by the local newspaper or something for validation. But this fellow right here, he seemed chipper enough to make me reconsider.
“Yeah, I guess,” I smiled, closing the book and propping it on my lap, “Why not.”
He stood up to his full height and jumped lightly in the air, as though he’d just scored a goal, smile widening to a near-impossible degree. He calmed down enough to pull out a piece of paper in his pocket and inched closer. I could feel the electricity of delight tickling me into smiling widely along with him.
“Oh, that’s just great! You’re, like, the third person to accept!” he said happily, handing me the paper. I received it and scanned the front with a raised eyebrow.
BOLTON’S
take your stomach with you and you’ll never want to leave
I smiled and chuckled at the slogan before folding it up and stuffing it in my back pocket.
“Nice slogan,” I said, and he scratched his head in embarrassment.
“Yeah, I’m the one who wrote that,” he admitted with a chuckle, and he brought his hand down and drove it in his pocket again, moving it side to side, the disturbance of the papers audible through the fabric. “Not very good, I know, but people compliment it anyway.”
“No, no, I like it,” I said hurriedly, determined not to make him feel bad. “Sort of quirky in a way.”
He flashed a personal smile and looked away from my eyes, and when he turned back, he said, “So, I’ll just see you there?”
Standing the book up on my thighs, I gave him a half-smile, and nodding, I said, “You bet.”
Nodding curtly with a softer smile, he wheeled around and sauntered back to his business, his jolliness emanating from his body like solar flares.
Once he was out of my view, I opened the book and re-read the entire page after not remembering where I’d left off.
You certainly don’t see that everyday.
:::
The tinkling above my head unnerved me for a second, but I ignored it and kept moving forward, and I heard the door whiz closed the next moment.
I looked around the area, tried to familiarize myself with it, and found blue eyes tending to an elderly couple, wearing that very same smile he gave me earlier that day.
Taking a sigh, I sat myself down on one of the chairs that lined the walls beside the doors and waited for someone to seat me in.
A few minutes later, I saw a shadow fall over me, and looking up, I saw curly head with a large menu clasped in one hand, fanning himself softly despite the slight coldness surrounding the restaurant.
“Glad you came,” he said jovially, tossing his head as a motion for me to stand up, and he spun around on his heels. He held up a hand and moved a finger to follow him.
“Here you go,” he said, placing the menu on the polished table. He watched me take my seat before continuing. “Now, just look over everything and call me up when you have your order, yeah?”
I nodded and watched him leave, long strides working his sculpted back visible through the flimsy fabric of his tight shirt. I gulped and switched my focus to the menu. Was I really just checking him out? I shook the thought and busied myself with the picture of the juicy steak taking up half the page.
Moments later, after working the order through my head a couple more times, I looked up and tried to catch his eyes, but I found it to be quite difficult since he had his back turned talking with the same couple.
So I sat and waited, and before I knew it, he was striding over to me, hovering a pen over a notepad.
“So, what’ll you have?” he asked brightly, and I turned my head to look at his nametag before saying anything.
Hello, my name is DANNY!!!!
I laughed slightly at the exclamation marks after his name, because it wasn’t unlike his personality. It was something I could see him doing.
Noticing my attention on his chest, he looked down and lifted the card pinned on his shirt, flashing it closer so I could see more properly. Not that I needed to, the name took up almost the entire space already as it was.
“What’s yours?” he asked, dropping his shirt and straightening out the part he had pinched together.
“Harry,” I replied, shifting in my seat to find a more comfortable spot.
“Harry,” he mumbled under his breath, nodding all the while, and perking his brows, he added, “So, what’ll you have, Harry?”
“I’d like to try the steak here,” I said, lifting the menu and pointing at the steak I’d been looking at for the most part of my time in the restaurant. He nodded and scribbled something down on the notepad.
“That’s my favorite,” he smiled, tucking the pen behind his ear, “and a drink?”
I discreetly looked back at my menu, having forgotten to search for a beverage while I waited, and clocking the first one on the list in my mind, I shifted my eyes back to him.
“Erm… How’s an iced tea sound?”
He smiled and collected the menu, our hands brushing only so slightly, and I pretended I didn’t notice. What I couldn’t ignore was the butterflies that exploded out of nowhere in the pit of my stomach, and I shifted even more. Everything had suddenly gone uncomfortable for some reason.
“Sounds great. I’ll be right back with your food, then.”
“Alright, thanks.”
He turned around and walked the opposite way.
In his absence, I pushed my glasses further back until the lenses were nearly pressing on my pupils, and I took out the coupon from my back pocket. Was he just flirting with me? I should like to think so, but one could never be too sure with these things. A simple hand touching might have been purely accidental, but something deep in my heart told me it wasn’t, that it was entirely intentional. I shrugged it off.
I didn’t know what to think.
He came back a few minutes later with a plate of the steak, just as juicy as it looked in the menu, and he set the iced tea down on the table before the plate.
“Cooked it myself,” he said cheerfully, puffing his chest out proudly, and lowering it, he added, in a more hopeful tone, “I hope you like it.”
I looked at the piece of meat and grabbed the utensils wrapped up in a large napkin beside my hand.
He didn’t linger to watch me eat, and he turned around after seeing me cut into his masterpiece. But he immediately wheeled back around, remembering something, apparently, and he leaned in close, propping himself on the sides of his arms on the table. He pulled out a small packet of something from his pocket and slid it across the table so it was nestling underneath my fist.
“Customers usually pay extra for this,” he whispered under his breath, a sly smile sweeping across his face as he looked around for any possible eavesdroppers, “but since I cooked it and all, I reckoned they wouldn’t mind. Makes it taste so much better, that does. Trust me.”
I smiled and thanked him for his consideration, and he watched as I ripped open the packet and sprinkled the contents, something like red pepper flakes mixed with something yellow like mustard seeds, all over the steak.
I didn’t wait for him to leave before dipping the piece impaled in the fork in the sauce provided, and, popping it into my mouth, I was met with a most wonderful array of taste and textures. I shivered slightly.
“This has got to be the greatest steak I’ve ever had,” I said, still awestruck, and I meant it, too, unlike the instances where people would say it just for the sake of saying it to make whoever feel better.
He brightened up at the comment and flashed a mind-blowing grin, making those butterflies explode, yet again, into being, fluttering around the magnificent piece of steak in my stomach.
“Thank you,” he said, standing up and scratching his head in either embarrassment or modesty. Whichever of the two, I didn’t care. I took another bite. And another. And another. Before two minutes had passed, my plate was completely empty, and I sighed in satisfaction as I slumped in my seat, a hand on my happy stomach.
“Do you think you can get me another one?”
He chuckled and grabbed the empty plate.
“Coming right up.”
:::
I frequented my visits to Bolton’s. More than really necessary. I might have went just about every day for a week and a half, and ate just about everything in the menu. You name it: shrimp, fish, elk (I didn’t know what it was initially, but I loved it all the same). I ordered it immediately. I was especially fond of the steak, and I ordered it coupled with the other meals.
But inside, it wasn’t just the fact that the food was near-divine levels. It was because Danny served me each one of those days, and he always did it with a smile. He never seemed to complain when I go in everyday, sit in my allotted seat, and order almost the whole restaurant, save for the vegetables. I wasn’t too fond of vegetables. What I’m trying to say is: I think it’s quite safe to say that I’d fancied him right there and then.
But on the eleventh day, I noticed something change in me physically: I felt sluggish, lazy, heavy. It was when I looked down on my stomach as I waited for Danny to serve me and saw a huge bulge threatening to burst out of my now-tight shirt that I realized I had gained a fair bit of weight.
“Why do you come here everyday, Harry?” Danny asked, taking the seat opposite me, readying himself for the onslaught of orders.
I eyed him curiously and shrugged.
“’Cause the food’s great here, that’s why,” I replied, sinking low in my seat to prevent him from seeing the unwanted expansion of stomach stretching my skin. But he saw it all the same, and he chuckled at the sight of me trying to hide it.
“Doubt that’s the only reason,” he gambled, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t really map out. Well, he had an eyebrow raised, a sort of half-smirk on his lips, not showing his teeth, head turned slightly to the side but still watching me. I suddenly felt hot, and my hands instinctively clung to my mountainous stomach. Was he a mind reader?
“What do you think is another?” I inquired, testing his mind reading abilities.
He smiled and sat back on his seat, crossing his arms over his chest.
“If you wanted to ask me out, you could have done it with less trauma on your body,” he replied leaning in close and twirling a lock of curly hair between his fingers. “I don’t think your shirt appreciates it.”
I was dumbstruck.
Was I that easy to read? I sure never dropped any hints or whatever. None that I could recall anyway. So how could he have known that?
“I’m guessing by your silence I’m right, then?” he smiled, stretching an arm across the table to grasp one of my hands, and I could only nod in response.
“Well, then, that’s settled, isn’t it?” he remarked, letting go of my hand and standing up, and picking up the notepad, he added, “I’m free this Saturday and you can pick me up… here. I’ll be right in here.”
Not waiting for a response, he winked and turned around, and he happily trotted on a few steps before wheeling back around and stopping beside me.
“I forgot to ask your order,” he chuckled, grabbing the pen behind his ear and positioning it over the notepad. “So, what’ll you have, Harry?”
I didn’t even need to think. Not that I could at the moment; everything seemed to be sort of incoherent in a way. I’d just asked him out without asking him out, and it was a very mind-blowing issue for me. I never labeled myself as “attractive.” What, with all my time devoted to books and work, and not to mention, my entire being hidden behind spectacles, I considered myself more of an “Average Joe” or whatever they called it. So, you can understand why it was such a wake up call to me when Danny, who was everything anybody could want in a single person: handsome, tall, sculpted, energetic, and nice, accepted my request (not that I did in the first place, it’s still all so confusing to me) to go out.
“The steak, maybe?” I said with a smile, and he scribbled it down on the paper. Unnecessary considering it was basically all I ever ordered, but I liked watching him write on his notepad, the way he would scrunch up his nose and move his mouth to one side, biting the inside of his cheek.
“You got it.”
And it was while I was eating that I reckoned I should do something about my stomach. So immediately after finishing my steak, I walked casually out the door and, running over to my car like a madman, I drove as fast as I could to the nearest gym.
:::
“You sure tone up nicely,” Danny complimented the moment I pushed through the doors, used to the tinkling bell by now. I smiled, shrugged, and pressed my glasses back. I had three days to prepare, so I thought I might as well take advantage of the time.
“Thanks,” I replied, and looking around, I saw the restaurant empty.
“Yeah, the restaurant closes on the weekends,” said Danny, noticing my interest around the place, and the next moment, he added, “Well, you ready to go?”
I pulled my eyes back to him and raised an eyebrow, slightly taken aback by his lively question. But then I recognized immediately and laughed my stupor off.
“Yeah, come on.”
Tossing my head out the door, I turned around and made my way across the floor, and was just in the process of pushing through when suddenly, I felt something snake around my arm. Turning my head, I saw Danny beside me, smile as brilliant and blinding as ever, an arm linked with mine. He laughed at my expression and pulled me outside, and soon we were off to my car, already heading to the plaza before I could calculate what had just happened.
:::
“You’re something else, you know that?” Danny said after taking a bite of his fairly large croissant, his fifth one. I smiled. I didn’t think of myself as anything special, really; just a bloke who went to work and ate and slept like all the rest.
“And you really like eating, don’t you?” I answered back with a grin, reaching a hand to his face and thumbing off crumbs that littered the side of his mouth.
“Ha-ha, very funny,” he said with a mock laugh, and taking another huge chunk, he said, “But seriously. I really like spending time with you. You’re really funny and stuff.”
I laughed and took a sip of my drink.
“Then I guess you won’t reject my offer to go out again?” I gambled, talking more to the table than Danny. A few seconds of silence ensued, and I felt a hand sliding across mine and grabbing it tenderly. I looked up and saw that he was looking at me with a smile, and I could feel my own breaking out in return.
“Of course not.”
:::
After three more dates, we finally called it official. Danny and I were finally together as a couple. In the times we spent, I came to learn more about him than I’d ever imagined. I learned he likes playing the guitar, loves eating and balances it by working out, likes playing football, loves playing in arcades and making a fool of himself, and many, many more. He left his parents back in Bolton to go to London, telling me he couldn’t stand the place, and we had quite a laugh when he, ironically enough, ended up working in a restaurant called Bolton’s. But what intrigued me the most was his strong desire to go to the States.
“I’ve always wanted to go there, Harry,” he whispered to me, snuggling closer under the blanket as the people in the television flashed its brilliance on the walls. I turned my head and held him tighter.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, since I was a kid.”
He laid his head on my shoulder and searched for my hand. Finding it, he interlocked his fingers with mine, and he shuffled ever so closer.
”I’ve always wanted to see the Grand Canyon with my own eyes. And the Statue of Liberty. I bet it’s real pretty up close. And the Golden Gate Bridge. I know it’s just like any old bridge, but I’d very much like to see it anyway.”
All the while, I was looking at him, and was very nearly turning off the television if it weren’t for the fact that his eyes were glued to the screen. I’d never been so captivated by someone before; here was someone who was sporadic, who likes to be unpredictable, almost daredevil-like, and now, here he was, eyes glazing dreamily over images of beautiful landmarks playing in his head, and I could almost feel his longing to be able to go there and see them for himself.
“You’ll make it there someday,” I assured him, taking my eyes off the top of his head and settling it back on the television screen. He lifted his head up and looked at me, a smile creeping on his face.
“You think so?”
I kissed his forehead and pushed my glasses up, grin almost as wide as his.
“Yeah.”
He laid his head back on my shoulder and we watched the remainder of the film in peace. Somewhere in the back of my mind told me to grant his wish, and I resolved to make his dream a reality.
His birthday was coming up, and I knew exactly what to get him.
:::
A few weeks later, we decided to move in together in my flat, and I kept quiet about my secret as well as I could without coming off as suspicious. But I couldn’t help the moments where I would smile for no apparent reason, to him, when we would talk about the States. I just couldn’t wait to see the look in his face when I hand him his ticket.
When all seemed well and smooth sailing, however, something bad happened, just like all relationships did.
:::
It was just a regular Saturday, eating lunch that he’d made for us together, when out of nowhere, he coughed so violently, it knocked his plate onto the floor.
“Are you alright?” I asked worriedly, striding over beside him and stooping low to pick up the shattered remains of the plate.
“Yeah, I’m-”
He coughed again, more aggressively this time, and he stood up and clutched at his chest, heaving to rid his airway of whatever was blocking it. But he was unsuccessful, and turning to me with tears of pain, he shook his head and excused himself out of the dining room, leaving me confused and worried and, after absentmindedly pricking my finger on a rather sharp edge, bleeding.
His coughing continued for the most part of the day, and he spent all of it in our room, sat on the edge of the bed, holding a cloth against his mouth. I came in regularly to check how he was doing and if he wanted anything, but he always shook his head and coughed, clearly unable to vocalize his requests either way.
“You sure you don’t want anything?” I asked, sitting beside him and pulling him to my chest in one of my trips. At first, he couldn’t do anything but cough, turning his head to the side so I wouldn’t contract whatever it was that he had. After minutes of waiting, however, a time of peace came, and he used this window to his advantage.
“Can you get me some-some water, Harry?” he asked, covering his mouth almost immediately after saying my name, and I nodded in reply. I went out the room and got him a glassful.
The next day came, but Danny’s coughing never ceased for a second. Even when he was sleeping, or trying to sleep.
“Harry, I’m sorr-sorry,” he heaved labouredly, slightly accustomed to the coughs to form a coherent sentence, after hacking up blood all over the sheets. I shook my head and rose up, collecting the sheets in a ball and walking across the room to get clean ones. I jumped back into bed and wrapped him in the new sheets, kissing him on his temple and saying, “It’s okay,” before easing him on his back to try to sleep again.
I called up a doctor the next day and told him Danny’s array symptoms. To top his incessant coughing, he lost all interest to eat, and in turn, he lost some of his weight. He was also tired almost all the time, and he barely left the bed except to go to the loo. Even then, he’d require some help, and I helped him through it with as much optimism as my heart could create.
By the time the doctor got to my flat, Danny was experiencing chest pains, and he was sprawled on the bed, hands clutched on his shirt, pressing on his chest to make the pain stop. The doctor wasted no time in trying to figure out what was wrong with him, and I held Danny’s hand through and through.
:::
“I’m still uncertain,” said the doctor, taking me aside after sedating Danny and alleviating the pains, “but I think he may have lung cancer.”
A sharp intake of breath, and my eyes blew wide open, my heart picking up speed.
“That can’t be,” I said under my breath, looking over his shoulder to see Danny sleeping away.
“Did he use to smoke?”
I turned back to him, anxiety filling my veins like a broken dam.
“Yeah, he quit a while back, but-but lung cancer?”
The doctor took note of his in his clipboard and looked up to face me again, face as grave as a cemetery.
“I’m still uncertain, so we’ll need to have him get a chest radiograph to see if there’s any unnatural mass in his lungs.”
I brought a hand to my face and rubbed my chin, feeling helpless all of a sudden. Thinking it over, it might not be too late for him to get a surgery or something, and there’s also the possibility that the doctor may have been wrong, and he really didn’t have lung cancer. Setting my mind to remedy the situation, I turned back to the doctor and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Can we do it right now?”
“It’s recommended to get an early screening. There’s more of a chance to prevent the cancer from spreading even further.”
Nodding, and keeping as straight a face as I could, I resolutely strode over to Danny and picked him up off the bed.
:::
“So?” I asked after the doctor, a new one, appeared from behind the double doors where Danny was. I’d been waiting for quite a while, and the anxiety rose into near-agonizing levels, I was very near busting the vending machine when it refused to give me my iced tea the first time.
“I’m sorry to say, but Mr. Jones does, indeed, have lung cancer.”
My heart stopped for a fraction of a second, almost dropping the can clasped in my hand on the floor, and I could only look at him in disbelief.
“The cancer has spread pretty far, but we might be able to prevent it from growing even further if we perform the surgery as soon as possible.”
I didn’t know what to do. It was as if my mind had shut down on me. The thought of Danny having cancer still burned in the back of my head, and the image was taking over me in such large quantities, I couldn’t do anything to hold it back.
“Mr. Judd,” the doctor said, snapping me back into reality, and I looked at him in a daze, my eyes wide open, “we need your confirmation to do the surgery.”
“Will he be alright after?” were the first words out of my mouth, and the look on his face made my heart sink.
“As with everything else, nothing is certain. But we’ll do our best, don’t you worry.”
I could almost feel tears brimming around my eyes, and I tried my hardest to hold them back. I wanted to be strong for Danny; that was the least I could do for him.
“Do what you have to do,” I said firmly, and in a cracking voice, I added, “But please make him well.”
“We’ll do what we can,” the doctor assured, and he nodded to someone over my shoulder. A nurse took me aside and presented me with paperwork, and, without even reading them over, I signed every single one.
:::
“Hey there, sunshine,” I said tearily when Danny had finally woken up, a smile washing over my face.
The surgery came through wonderfully, said the doctor, and that the cancer wouldn’t be spreading anymore.
“Hey,” he smiled back, blinking softly and gulping. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital, silly,” I said, placing a kiss on his cheek and trying to hold back my tears.
“Ow, my chest hurts,” he said when he attempted to sit up, but I placed a palm on his stomach to prevent him from finishing the action.
“Doctor said not to stress-stress yourself.”
He smiled and laid back down, his curly hair fluttering softly in the breeze wafting through the slightly opened window behind me. He lifted a hand and traced the outline of the stitches on his chest through the white blanket, and I wiped a tear that had rolled down a cheek.
“What did I have? Was it something serious?”
He turned to me and smiled, but it was a sad smile, and he brought a hand to cup my cheeks, whispering, “What’s wrong?”
“You had lung cancer, Dan,” I replied, closing my eyes at his touch, and I heard him make a sound, but he never took his hand away. “You had surgery to remove the cancer.”
“Oh,” he said, wiping the tears that had begun flooding from my eyes, and I hyperventilated slightly, my breaths coming in shaky. “But I’m alright now, aren’t I?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I didn’t know how to tell him, or even if I should tell him, but I thought it would be cruel if I didn’t. It was his body after all, and he had a right to know what’s happening in it.
“They managed to get the tumor out,” I said, dragging on the inevitable, but he only shook his head and said, more firmly, “Aren’t I?”
“The tumor’s out, but they couldn’t do anything about the damage it did to your lungs and-”
“Harry!”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand and pulled him in my embrace, sobbing softly on the pillow beside his ear.
“Dan, you’ve got less than a year left to live!”
Silence.
It seemed forever that we were stuck in this position, neither of us saying anything and listening, instead, to the beeping machines beside him. Those were the only sounds in the room, and my sobbing shortly joined the depressing orchestra.
“I don’t want you to go, Dan,” I whispered desperately, and lifting my head up, I placed a kiss on his lips and said, “I don’t want you to leave me. I don’t want to be alone.”
He was crying now, too, but he was doing a much better job at keeping it quiet than I was, and he turned to me and placed a hand once again on my cheek.
“Dan, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
:::
Danny stayed in the hospital for two weeks to recover from the surgery, and had long since accepted his fate, telling me it was God’s will and all that. But not me. I didn’t want to believe he only had less than a year left to live; I refused to.
I scoped out doctors during his stay; looked for them online, phoned them from different parts of the country, drove to every single hospital I could find. But none of the doctors seemed to know what to do. They didn’t even seem to care that I was killing myself driving all over the area looking for something-anything-that could possibly help Danny.
After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t handle the rejection anymore, each one like a scream in my ear that Danny’s going to die and there’s absolutely nothing I could do about it.
I stopped searching and just tried to accept it.
:::
“Harry, you look tired,” he said, helping me carry his things into the flat the day he was finally released. His smile was back, but there was a solemnity coating each curve, and it was then that I knew nothing would ever be the same.
“Just been thinking,” I replied, heaving a particularly large baggage and dragging it a few inches off the ground.
“Well, you better start resting then. You look like crap,” he joked, setting the things down on the sofa and collapsing beside them.
I laughed when I dropped the baggage beside the door and said, “Thanks, that’s just what I’d like to hear.”
“Sorry, babe,” he chuckled, and patting the spot next to him on the sofa he added, “Come here.”
I jumped in the seat like a whirlwind and he rested his head on my chest the next second, hand crawling along my stomach in search for a hand. He always did like it when we held hands.
“You need to stop worrying about me,” he said, looking up at me but never leaving my chest. “It’s done and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“I know,” I said, bringing my free hand to stroke his curly mane. “I know.”
“Just live life with me, you know?” he said, fixing his gaze to the empty television screen. “So what if I never see the States, at least I’ll be spending the rest of my life with you.”
I smiled and bit my lip at the same time, and I inconspicuously slid my hand from his hair into my shirt pocket and pulled out his birthday gift, just one month early. Ever so slowly, I lowered it before his face and waited for a reaction, and upon noticing it, he didn’t disappoint.
He reached up and snatched the ticket faster than lightning, and he gasped in disbelief.
“No, you did not just get me a ticket to the states!” he huffed, still surprised, and he held on tightly as if the wind might blow it away and it’d be gone forever. “Harry, I love you!”
He jumped up, wrapped his arms around me in exhilaration, and he planted kiss after kiss all over my face, saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” in the intervals.
“When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow, if you want to.”
His eyes blew wide open and leaned in to kiss me more properly on the lips, arms tightening their grip around my neck, pushing me closer. After parting, he fell on his spot, heaving heavily, eyes still glued to the ticket as if an entire movie were playing on it.
“Harry, you have no idea how much this means to me,” he said, giving me a fleeting glance before turning back to his gift.
If it’s anything like how I was feeling when I was watching him: brilliant smile etched on his face that could put the very stars to shame, his excitement at the simple gift, and knowing that I was the one responsible for them, then I probably had a pretty good idea.
:::
He was wrapped in a thick sweater when he came out of the flat, after much debate whether it would be cold where we were going first or not, and he jumped in the passenger’s seat with as much enthusiasm as a little boy would knowing he was heading to an amusement park.
Soon, we were off to the airport, and eleven hours later, we set foot in the sunny state of California. Danny took off his sweater at once when the warm air prickled his skin.
Our first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge, and after a few hours’ drive (I rented a car immediately after landing), we found ourselves driving underneath the crimson bridge, and Danny rolled down the window and poked his head out in wonder. Delight filled my body at the sight, and I could feel myself tearing up at how much Danny was enjoying himself, but I held it back and drove on with a smile, determined not to put him off by something as insignificant as crying.
“Harry, it’s beautiful,” he told me after sinking back into his seat and staring instead through the windshield. He groped around for my hand, and out of instinct, I already had it right beside him, ready to be held. And we drove along the length of the bridge talking and laughing, the sun setting spilling orange and pink in the sky, and I held his hand tighter with each laugh.
I didn’t want him to go.
:::
“Danny, wake up.”
Danny stirred under the sheets, rolled on his side, and snored into sleep once again. I smiled and, diving my hands under the sheets, lifted him up, and his arms came around my neck, not wanting to fall. I carried him all the way to the bathroom, laughing loudly when I nearly tripped after stepping on his discarded jacket.
Today was our trip to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, and after attempting three times, I reckoned I should take the matters to my own hands.
After getting him ready, we set off once again to the airport, this time boarding the airplane for New York City, and Danny spent the entire ride there sleeping on me, preferring, as he told me himself, my warmth than the cold cushions of airline seats.
Hours later, we got on the rented car and drove straight for the Statue, marveling at the sights on the way there. Once, we stopped to get ourselves hotdogs off of a street vendor; one for me and three for him.
As soon as we arrived at the harbor, I picked up my camera and led Danny into the throng of people busily navigating around each other; some tourists, some just going about their usual businesses.
Danny dragged me to one of the nearby gift shops and bought himself a novelty crown.
“What is that?” I asked when he advanced closer to me, arms outstretched, presenting me the crown.
“It’s her crown, Harry,” he laughed, and he moved closer.
“And what do you want to do with that?” I asked, backing away playfully.
“I want you to wear it, Harry,” he smiled, placing the green thing snug on my head. Taking a few steps back, he crossed his arms over his chest and chuckled. “It looks great on you, no joke.”
Walking forward and grabbing my hand, he gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “Come on, let’s take pictures.”
:::
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Danny, grabbing my arms clasped around his neck and pulling me closer.
We were standing on the rocks enclosing the Grand Canyon, overlooking the vast ravine and its numerous pillars of sediment. The sun was setting behind a mountainous mass, flooding the sky with gold and orange and pink all mixed in one, enveloping us in its warm glow.
He turned his head and kissed me before turning back at the spectacle with a sigh.
“It’s these things that make you realize that there’s more to life, you know?” he said, rubbing a thumb on the back of my hand, and it was the only thing preventing me from wiping the tears rolling down my cheeks. “There’s more to life after me, Harry, and I hope you know that.”
I didn’t know what to say at the moment, much less think. The entirety of the situation dawned on me in that one second, and I couldn’t help but let the tears run free without objection.
“I’ll try,” I managed to say, and he let out a sad chuckle.
“Promise me you’ll move on?” he asked just as the sun dropped lower. Just like before, I didn’t know what to say. As much as I didn’t want to, I knew I had to. I had no choice but to move on, but why did it have to be so damn hard?
Kissing the top of his head and inhaling his scent, I said firmly, “I’ll try.”
:::
“Let’s go home, Harry, I’m tired.”
At those words, I wasted no time in getting us back to our flat, and I kept him company as well as I could whenever he woke up and had difficulty going back to sleep again.
It seemed to happen more often as the days drug on.
He would wake up in the middle of the night and grab onto me, waking me up in the process, and I would have to lull him back to sleep in every instance. I tried to cope with it, but I always found myself crying in the bathroom after finally managing to get him sound asleep, the Statue’s crown held tightly in my fists.
:::
Months passed by, and they seemed to take his energy away with them.
He didn’t have the energy to work anymore, so he quit his job in Bolton’s and stayed in the house full-time. I didn’t know what he did the days I was out for work, but he said not to worry about him. That’s what he said for everything lately; after failing to make a whole trip around the house and collapsing on the way to the bedroom, he turned to me and said, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me;” after losing all will to cook, he sat against the cupboards, looked at me with a smile, and said, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me.”
I didn’t know if I could go on with work knowing that he couldn’t do anything by himself anymore.
“Don’t be silly, Harry,” he told me when I told him I wanted to quit my job and stay with him. “That’s not a very smart thing to do.”
But he didn’t understand. Every minute spent behind my desk, doing some menial task that had nothing to do with society whatsoever, was a minute lost being with him. And knowing that I could do something to spend more time with him, if just for a little while, was killing me inside.
“Promise me you won’t quit.”
I bit my lip and looked at him longingly. Placing a kiss on his forehead, I finally gave in, unable to resist the look on his face.
“I won’t, then.”
:::
“Harry, read something to me,” Danny requested, and at once, I grabbed the nearest book my hand could reach. Reading the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland emblazoned on the cover, I flipped it open, turned to the first page, and mapped out a random spot to begin.
“‘Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.’”
“I can relate to that,” Danny said, half to himself, half to me, and I raised a brow in wonder.
“Hmm?”
“Well,” he began, turning to me and reaching for my hand. “I’m sort of like Alice in a way. I didn’t really know you all that much, but I reckoned you were something interesting, and so I took a plunge down my own little rabbit-hole and decided to ask you out. I didn’t think about the things that I’d get out of the date, but when I finally reached the end of that hole, I got something more than I’d ever bargained for, just like Alice when she found Wonderland. I got the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. Went to places I thought I’d never see in my life. Shared the most beautiful sunset with him in the most beautiful place in the world. And all that because I decided to take the risk and follow that rabbit, Harry. And it’s been so much of an adventure, really, my life, and I’m glad you were there with me every single step of the way.”
“Stop it, Dan, you’re going to make me cry,” I said with a wet smile, wiping the tears that had formed around my eyes with my sleeve.
“No, you stop it,” he retorted playfully, reaching a hand to wipe my other cheek with a teary smile. “You’re going to make me cry.”
We both laughed and spent the night reading him the book, picking out pieces he could relate to here and there, and pretty soon, he was asleep. Closing the book and kissing him on his temple, I flicked the lamp off and I myself fell into slumber.
:::
Just when everything seemed bright and cheery, when it seemed like nothing would go wrong and Danny was laughing and smiling again, God decided to intervene once again, and he crept up behind me without making the slightest of sounds.
:::
“Harry, I feel so weak,” said Danny, and his claim was mirrored in his voice. It wasn’t the same, cheery tone he always talked with. Not anymore. “I’m tired all the time. I can’t move around the room anymore without fainting and…”
“Come on, Danny,” I said, shuffling closer and wrapping my arms around his waist, resting my chin on his shoulder. “You can’t give up now. Not yet.”
“I don’t know how long I can hold on,” he said with a sad smile, turning to me, and at once, I saw the flare diminish in his blue eyes. What used to be glowing, sapphire orbs morphed suddenly into glass balls covered in peeling blue paint. I could feel myself tearing up again.
Why Danny? Out of anybody in the world: murderers and plunderers, why did He choose Danny? What had Danny ever done wrong?
“Harry, don’t cry.”
It wasn’t until he brought his thumb to wipe my cheek that I realized I had been crying, and I looked at him, eyes glassy and red. He smiled at me, attempted to smile like he did before, and he got real close this time, and I smiled with him.
“Just promise me one thing.”
I sniffed and nodded, and muttered, “Anything, Dan. Anything.”
“Alright,” he began, and he shifted his head to the ceiling, “Just… promise me you’ll be right here when I wake up tomorrow.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, my heart was hurting so much. I clung even tighter, not caring if I was hurting him or not, because I didn’t want him to go, it was too soon.
He turned to me and kissed me.
“Promise me, Harry.”
Giving him a kiss of my own, I nodded and blinked a tear away, my hand reaching over and grabbing his hand for a change.
“I promise.”
:::
When the morning sun crept through the tiny crack in the curtains and brushed along my eyelids, I woke up, and the first thing I did was to scramble to my side to face Danny, smiling for keeping my promise. I didn’t make a move to wake him up; he needed his rest, so I only marveled at his sleeping form.
Looking from a certain angle, he seemed to be smiling, and I smiled even wider. It’d been a long time since he’d had a good dream, and I knew he deserved it after everything he’d been through. Wondering what he could be dreaming about, I traced, with my eyes, his nose, his lips, and down to his chest, and at once, a sinking feeling fell on my heart.
My smile turned to shock when I realized his chest wasn’t moving.
“Danny,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder and shaking him awake. But he didn’t stir.
“Danny,” I repeated louder, shaking him more violently. No stir.
My heart began to pound aggressively in my chest, and in the silence I could hear every beat. This was not happening. Not today. Not yet.
I got on my knees and shook him more, unable to believe it. He told me he was going to wake up tomorrow, and that he was looking forward to seeing me next to him. I kept my end of the bargain, so why didn’t he?
I shook him more desperately, tears streaming down my face despite all the measures I did to prevent them.
“Danny, please wake up,” I pleaded, moving closer to see if my shaking created a response in him, but no breaths came, and I closed my eyes and cupped my hands on my face.
“Oh, God, no.”
And I knew then that Danny was gone.
I didn’t want to believe it. He was just laughing last night like everyone else, for God’s sake, with me! I was there!
“Danny,” I cried, lifting him up and hugging him, pressing my face on his chest. “Danny, please. You can’t leave me like this. You said you’d wake up today, you said. You said.”
I knew it was hopeless to plead, but I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t think of anything else. It was as if my mind had shut down on me, and I all I could do was beg and cry. So I did, on his chest, soiling his shirt, and I held him close, feeling emptier as the seconds ticked past that his arms weren’t coming up to hold me in return.
“Danny, I love you so much.”
:::
Three days later, his funeral was held.
His parents flew in from Bolton, and all his friends came as well. I almost didn’t come. I couldn’t bear to see him lying in his coffin, knowing that he’s forever gone and he wouldn’t come back. But I knew I had to.
I looked away for the most of it, settling my gaze on a nearby tree or a car parked next to it. Never looking forward and looking at the white casket.
But all wrapped in my sorrow and grief, I had forgotten how his mother would react, and it came as such a surprise when she broke down in the middle of the priest’s speech and pounded the ground with the sides of her fists, bellowing something too incoherent for anybody to understand.
“Didn’t even know he had-had cancer!” I heard her say in one of her calmer cries, “How could he do this to me? He just up and left us to go here, and now he’s-he’s gone, and he didn’t even tell me! His own mother! I can’t-”
Her husband rose from his seat and lifted her up, letting her sob on him while he led her back to her seat. I was crying again, but I didn’t care. I had as much right to cry in front of everybody as his mother.
When it was time to lower the coffin, it was all anybody could do when his mother rushed up and held it, refusing to let it go, yelling about it being too soon and that she didn’t want to let go of her only son. That’s exactly what I felt, and what I wanted to do. I didn’t want them to take him away, I wanted to see him smile again, laugh again, hold my hand when he needed reassurance that, yes, he wasn’t alone. And lowering that casket destroyed the chances of those things happening ever again, and when the time came for me to drop my rose, I let a deep sigh of helplessness before letting it go with a tear or two.
Danny was gone, and I knew I should accept it. I had to.
:::
It took me three nights to recover from the blow, crying at different intervals of time, not leaving the house at all. I spent those three nights on the bed, facing the area he should have been occupying, looking at a green crown nestled delicately on the pillow.
But by no means did I give up. No. That was my promise to him, and I had every intention of keeping it. I learned to move on, learned to let go just enough but never completely, and every night, when the wind whistled through the window every now and then, I could still hear him laugh.
:::
I was sat again, on the bench reading the same book I was reading when he came up to me with the coupon. It was a bright day, just like it had been, and it surprised me so when I saw a shadow fall over me.
Looking up and pushing my glasses back, I saw a man no older than me, with blond hair and a dimpled smile.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” he began, and I closed the book at once, remembering the exact same moment that started it all. “But there’s a new bookstore opening up just down the street, and I’m going around telling people about it.”
I smiled at the hilarity of it all. Was it God’s way of telling me something? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t let this fellow standing and bent over, waiting for an answer.
“So, can I expect you there?”
He handed me a flyer with a smile. Not the same smile, but a good smile nonetheless, and I received it with one of my own. It was what Danny would have wanted, and I knew I needed it, too.
“Yeah, I guess. Why not.”