Chapter 13
Ali sat there motionless. She still couldn’t comprehend what she had just been told. The only thing that made sense to her was that she was dreaming because she wouldn’t believe that it was true. In her head she had to tell herself that Kyle was just fine because otherwise she was going to have a breakdown.
“Let’s go back to the room. I need you to talk to me, but it can wait until we get back to the room.”
As Ali sat down on her bed she seemed to be staring off into the distance, deep in thought.
“Do you want to tell me what your mom said now?”
She didn’t respond for a second, but once she realized that Ashlyn had been talking to her she quickly became alert.
“Wait what?”
“What did your mom tell you?”
“She, she told me that Kyle was…” Ali stopped and burst into tears once again.
“It’s okay, take your time.”
Ali spoke quietly through her tears. “Kyle was in an accident and he was badly injured.”
Ashlyn froze. It just seemed to be one thing after another. Like a domino effect of horrible events. Ashlyn knew she was going to have to keep herself calm and stay strong because if she didn’t there was no way that Ali would be able to hold herself together. This was a shock to both of them. They had gotten almost no information besides the fact that he was in Philadelphia and that he was in an accident. They had no idea what condition he was in, how the crash even happened, anything.
Ali hesitated. “We need to go to Philadelphia. We need to go see Kyle.”
Ashlyn’s smile fell. She knew that Ali wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. “Alex, I know you and Kyle are really close, but you just started your radiation treatments yesterday and you have another one in twenty minutes. You can’t just up and leave especially when we just got here a few days ago. I’m sure he’s –”
“Ashlyn. He’s my brother! I need to go see him. He still doesn’t know that I was just dehydrated and I need to talk to him. What if he’s not fine? I don’t know…” Ali fell into a fit of tears.
Ashlyn hugged her tightly, but didn’t say a word. Anything she tried to say to her would just make her all the angrier. She was already overflowing with emotion and wouldn’t be able to handle anything more.
After Ali had calmed down a little, she perked her head up a little, staring into the blonde’s eyes.
“Ash, what, what if he’s not okay? If he doesn’t make it, I, I don’t know what I would do. He’s my everything. He and I are just so close, there would be such a hole without him there.”
“Shhhh. We’re not going to think about that now. Just breath and let yourself calm down. I know this is a lot. You can call your mom later and try to talk to him, but let’s take a little while to think things over. I’m sure the doctors are taking very good care of him. Why don’t you get ready for your treatment?”
Ali didn’t fight it. She knew Ashlyn was right. She knew that she wasn’t physically healthy enough to be able to travel to Philadelphia, no matter what form of transportation. She needed to continue her treatments if she wanted to get healthy. As reluctant as she was, she gave in.
///
“Okay, Ali. Though you’re still really fatigued, we’ve decided that we will let you continue with your radiation. A nurse will come down here to bring you. After your treatment, we want to give you some more fluids, then you can head home. Any questions?”
“No, I think we’re good. Thank you Dr. Carter.”
As soon as Dr. Carter left the room, Ali groaned. She knew that the radiation was just going to make her more fatigued and she was sick of needles. She couldn’t help but question when this was going to end.
“What’s wrong?” Ashlyn asked.
“I just want to go home. Go back to our life. Our normal life.”
“This is our normal now.”
“You know what I mean.” Ali said playfully hitting the blonde.
Ashlyn didn’t laugh. “Of course I do. But you have to be okay with all of this. Like I said, this is our new normal. I know it’s not the normal either of us would have expected at this time in our life, but you are fighting this. We are both fighting it together. Now, let’s get you changed before the nurse comes.”
///
“Home sweet home!” Ali exclaimed.
Though she had only been gone for a day, she had never been happier to see her own front door.
“Those doctors must have put something into the last IV because you actually have some energy right now and I don’t think I’ve seen that in weeks.” Ashlyn had a smile going from ear to ear across her face. This was the Ali she had missed seeing for so long.
“No kidding. I wish I could feel this could at all times.”
“Since you are feeling good, is there anything that you want to do?”
“Honestly I just want to spend some time with you. I want to not think about me and my health for even just 20 minutes. That is my wish.”
“Your wish will be my command. You can go up and take a nice relaxing bath, while I cook us some dinner. How does that sound?”
“What sounds even better is if we could cuddle up to a movie after dinner?” Ali said, kissing Ash on the cheek. “I’ll actually be able to stay up late enough to finish the whole movie this time.
“That sounds delightful. Now go relax.” Ashlyn laughed.
///
The only thing that Ali could think about was Kyle. Her treatments had finally started and all she wanted to do was to leave, to stop her treatment just so she could see her brother. He had been there for her through the surgery and this whole process, but now that he was the one struggling, she couldn’t be there for him. She had already been so guilty about putting Kyle through all of her sickness, but now the guilt had built up even more since she wasn’t there for him, again because of her sickness. Now that she finally had energy, she was taking advantage of it on something other than Kyle.
///
Ashlyn was glad that her and Ali were finally going to get to truly spend time together with both of them being completely aware. Ali had been so fatigued for so long that she couldn’t remember the last time that they had been able to do that. It may not be the perfect situation as they were both worried about Kyle, but it’s better than nothing.
Ali walked downstairs happy and excited to spend some genuine time with her fiancé. She tried to force her worries about Kyle out, even through her guilt. She knew that if anything serious happened, she would get a call right away. The brunette walked up behind Ashlyn and wrapped her arms around her waist.
“How was your bath?” Ashlyn asked
“Relaxing. It felt really good.”
“I’m glad. Are you ready for dinner?”
“Yes ma’am.” Ali said and gave Ashlyn a nice peck on the lips.
///
“Okay. While I have this energy, we need to take advantage. I want no talk about my tumor at all tonight. In this moment I am my healthy self.”
Ashlyn just smiled. Seeing Ali like this was so nice. It truly seemed as though she was healthy and cancer free.
“What tumor?” Ashlyn said seriously.
After a few seconds, they both burst out laughing. They kept smiling at each other and giggling all throughout dinner. It had been so long since they were able to have a night where they could truly do whatever they wanted.
///
The two of them sat down on the couch in their living room and snuggled up next to each other. They turned on Netflix and searched through the movies finally settling on Titanic. As the movie went on, Ali couldn’t help but become distracted with thoughts of Kyle. She tried to force them out because she wanted to enjoy her time with Ashlyn, but she so desperately wanted to be with Kyle and there was no stopping those thoughts.
Ashlyn could sense that Ali was distracted too and she knew exactly what she was thinking about so she paused the movie
“Alex, it’s okay, you can call Debbie. I’m sure she wants to talk to you and”
“No, I want to spend this time with you.”
“We both know that you won’t enjoy yourself nor this time together if you don’t check up on Kyle.”
Ali had a look of guilt on her face knowing that she was ruining their night.
“Why do you have to know me so well?” Ali said with a slight laugh.
“Because I’m your fiancé now call you mother. I want to know how Kyle is doing too!”
They both laughed a little as Ali pulled out her phone and called her mom. She put it on speaker so that Ashlyn could hear too. The more the phone rang, the more anxious the both of them became. Kyle had been in the back of their minds their entire night and they both wanted to make sure that he was doing okay so badly. Finally, Ali’s mom picked up the phone.
“How’s he doing?” Ali blurted out quickly. “Are you with him? How bad is it?”
Ali’s mom cut her off there. “Woah woah woah. I’ll tell you everything. You just need to let me speak.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Also, Ashlyn is with me so she can hear you too.”
“Okay. I’ll start from the beginning. He was on his way to DC to see you and a drunk driver swerved into oncoming traffic and crashed into Kyle.” Ashlyn and Ali were listening intently, taking in every last word. “Thankfully he was wearing his seatbelt, but his car took a huge impact and Kyle is in critical condition.” At the sound of that Ali and Ashlyn both took a sharp intake and tears welled up in their eyes. “He was taken to the hospital and they found bleeding in his brain. He has lots of cuts and bruises and a few broken bones. He also has a collapsed lung and some internal bleeding.” They could hear the emotion coming from Debbie’s voice which scared Ali even more.
She hated this. She hated that she couldn’t be there. She hated that she could only hear about this over the phone. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. Ali was supposed to be the one laying in the hospital bed, not Kyle. None of it was fair.
Her mother continued. “Kyle already had surgery to stop the bleeding in his brain and internally as well as to fix the broken bones in his arm. He still hasn’t woken up from the surgery yet and there is a lot of swelling in his brain, but he doctors said that he should make a full recovery, but it’s going to be an extremely long and tough process.”
Ali still couldn’t fathom the situation that they were in. It was all just so crazy. She was fighting a brain tumor and had just had brain surgery to remove it. Now Kyle was hit by a drunk driver and just had brain surgery to stop the bleeding. She didn’t understand why all of this was happening, especially at the same time.
“How long do you think it will be until he wakes up?” Ali asked, trying to hold back the tears.
“It might be a while. They’re planning on keeping him sedated so that the swelling in his brain can go down and give his body a rest after what he’s gone through. We’re not sure how long that could take. It might be a few hours it could be a few days; we just don’t know.”
“Do you know anything more?” Ali asked, anxious and desperate to know more.
“I’m really sorry honey, but there are a lot of unknowns right now. When he wakes up we will know more, but until then we just have to be patient.”
That was not the answer she was looking for at all. She needed answers. She needed to know that her brother would be okay.
Ashlyn knew that Ali was panicked right now so she decided to jump in.
“Thank you so much Debbie. We’ll let you get some rest. It’s been a long day for all of us, but we really appreciate you giving us all the information. Update us soon. Love you and wish we could be there with you all!”
“I love you both and I’ll let you know any new details I find out, but Alex,” Her head perked up from Ashlyn’s shoulder. “Please, take care of yourself. I’m begging you. I know you want to be here and I wish you could be too, but you need to continue with your treatments and get as much rest as possible so you can keep fighting.”
“I will. I promise. I love you Mom.”
With that, the defender hung up the phone and let all of her emotions go. There was no hiding how scared she was.
“Alex. It’s going to be okay. I know how hard this is for you, but no matter how this turns out I will be here for you. This is scary for all of us, but we will get through it. You are going to fight. Kyle is going to fight. And we are all going to help you both fight, no matter what it takes.”