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Chapter Thirty-one
Abel
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“Can I come in?” It’sthe first thing I hear when I pull open my front door and find Claire standing on the other side.
It’s been two days since I left Finley in the hospital. Two days that I’ve spent half out of my mind with alcohol and grief.
“I guess.” I sigh, slinging the door further open before walking away without bothering to see if she follows me or not.
The door closes right as I grab my beer and plop down on the couch.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out?” Claire looks around the messy room, littered with empty beer bottles before honing in on the half empty bottle of Jim Beam sitting on the coffee table in front of me.
“I haven’t been hiding out,” I say, taking a long pull of beer. “This is where I live.” I gesture around.
“My sister has been crying herself to sleep for the last two nights and you’ve been sitting here getting drunk and sulking?” She picks up the bottle of whiskey and for a moment I wonder if she’s going to chuck the damn thing across the room.
“She made her choice. She doesn’t want to live and she doesn’t want me. What would you have me do?”
“Are you listening to yourself right now? She has terminal cancer. She’s not making the choice to die. Sheisdying.”
“She’s not getting chemo.”
“Because she wants to enjoy the time she has left. Not spend it too weak and sick to get out of bed.”
“It could save her.”
“It won’t.”
“It could.”
“It won’t!” she interjects more forcefully. “She only has a few weeks left on this earth, Abel. To you, two days getting drunk and trying to drown your sorrows may not seem like a lot, but to Finley it’s like a lifetime. Every day matters now. Every single minute. And here you are, wasting it away like it means nothing.”
“It means everything!” I explode, jumping to my feet.
“You sure have a funny way of showing it! I know you’re hurting and I know you’re scared, but think about Finley. Think about how scared she is. She loves you and you’re leaving her to face this alone.”
“Because I can’t face this.” I crumble back onto the couch, killing off the remainder of my beer in one drink before throwing the bottle across the room. It soars a few feet and shatters against the wall, shards of glass scattering all over the floor. “I can’t watch her die.” I lean forward, sinking my face into my hands.
The couch dips as Claire takes a seat next to me.
“So you’d rather let her die alone?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
“What can I do?” Emotion tightens my throat. “How can I stand by knowing there’s nothing I can do to save her?”
“You just do.” She puts her hand on my arm and squeezes. “You take it one day at a time. You love her as hard as you can for as long as you can. Give her a lifetime in the matter of weeks, because Abel.” She tugs at my arm, causing my hands to fall away from my face. “That’s all she has left. Whether you want to accept it or not, it doesn’t change that she’s leaving us.”
“I don’t know how to live without her.” Tears fill my eyes.
“Neither do I,” she admits, her own tears bubbling to the surface. “But I do know that I won’t waste away what time she has left worrying about howI’mgoing to survive. It’s not about me. It’s about her. And I will do everything in my power to make sure what time she has left is the happiest time of her life. But I can’t do that without you. I need you to get it together. For her.”
“This isn’t fair.” I shove my emotion down as deep as I can, refusing to let it take me under.
“You’re right. It isn’t. But that doesn’t change it either.”
“Fuck!” I roar, pushing to my feet. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I pace the room, pulling at the ends of my hair. “I can’t fucking lose her, Claire. I can’t.” My stomach churns and every ounce of alcohol I’ve pumped into it over the last forty-eight hours threatens to come back up. “What can I do? What can I do?” I repeat, the grief I’ve tried so hard to ignore swarming me like a thousand bees. I feel every sting of pain as it pricks my flesh.
