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To reinstate not only the dialysis program, but many others that the neighborhood desperately needed.
To make a difference in families like mine.
Ones that just needed to catch a fucking break.
In those days, Seeley came in clutch again.
Because it was Seeley who paid for my grandmother’s funeral expenses.
It was Seeley who paid the rent and utilities for the rest of the summer, so I wasn’t evicted right before going away to college.
It was Seeley who was right there with me, organizing a going away party, helping me find a way to rent a car when I wasn’t of age to do so yet, helping me pack the things I wanted to bring with me, then assuring me that he would handle the rest, donating it all instead of letting our asshole landlord offer the apartment as “fully furnished” to the next tenants.
He got me through the grief.
He pulled me back up onto my feet.
And all the while, the feelings of love I had toward them grew until I felt almost overwhelmed by them.
To the point that the idea of leaving made me feel physically sick, fighting back nausea and a chronic stomachache.
An absolutely insane part of me just… didn’t want to go. Even though I knew there was no path upward if I stayed in the neighborhood without getting an education.
I went from jokingly telling him that I would sneak him into my dorm room to practically begging him to come, to get an apartment and a job, to start over with me.
And, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why he refused. What was keeping him in our town? His shithead parents? His friends he did shady jobs with?
I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.
But he was being stubborn.
I mean, that wasn’t strange. This was Seeley we were talking about. He was the most stubborn person I knew. Unbendingly stubborn at times.
I just didn’t get why he was being so stubborn about this particular thing. It wasn’t like he had a lot of fondness for the neighborhood or anything like that, anyone he would feel bad leaving behind.
It was just weird.
Almost as weird as him telling me he wasn’t going to road trip with me to my dorm and help me move in. That just wasn’t like him. We loved a good trip. And this would be the first one ever where we could be gone for a day or two on the road without any worries about my gran.
Then he was spouting stuff about how I might not want to come back to the neighborhood, that I might want to become a fancy city doctor or something like that.
It was just all so strange.
And hard to process on top of the grief at the loss of my grandmother and the grief of knowing I was going to have to leave him behind.
It felt horrible to think it, but the grief surrounding him somehow felt so much worse.
But, I tried to remind myself, it was different. My gran was old and unwell and she made a choice to finally be free of her suffering. So while I was absolutely sad that she was gone, there was peace in knowing she was no longer in pain or struggling.
The grief about Seeley was raw and sharp and overwhelming.
Because I was hopelessly and helplessly and all-consumingly in love with him.
And I was going to have to go months without seeing him. Months. This was a guy I saw every single day since I was ten years old. Hell, multiple times a day most of the time.
I couldn’t wrap my head around not sharing my highs and lows with him, not having him there to tease me while we studied flashcards, or to hold my books as we browsed the aisles at the bookstore where he showed endless amounts of patience.
There were a million little ways I would miss him daily.
