Chapter 21
I hated hospitals.
Sylvia was the one about to get a procedure done and here I am acting like a baby, shaking in my fucking shoes. I squeezed Sylvia’s hand reassuringly, but it was really for me. She turned her head from Finn’s direction where he stood on the opposite side of the bed, holding her other hand. The brunette offered me a dazzling smile, acting like she wasn’t even nervous. It brought me back to my knee surgery.
I remember Finn holding my right hand while Sylvia sat on my left, talking about some news story to distract me. I had never been a fan of the idea of someone cutting me open.
Komentar
Now it was my turn to return the favor.
Sylvia’s blood tests had come back last night, the surgery getting scheduled immediately for the next morning. Time was of the essence to save Aras and Sylvia just so happened to be in the off season, so it couldn’t have been better timing. I hadn’t heard from Beck except for a brief text that he wouldn’t be there at morning practice. I simply responded saying that I wouldn’t be either, not blowing the secret straight out into the open.
When the doctor walked in, I felt my muscles tense but Sylvia’s hand in my own calmed me. I was grateful but deep down I couldn’t help but feel like I wasn’t doing my job, she was. I was supposed to be comforting her. “Mrs Riley, lovely to see you again under much better conditions,” he mused. I was ninety percent sure this was the man that had delivered Maya but I wasn’t sure. He was an expert in hematology hence his significance in Sylvia’s delivery after hemorrhaging in both a miscarriage and with her pregnancy.
In all honesty, I had forgotten everything the doctor had said. I was too busy trying not to shake to focus on his words. I’m sure Sylvia appreciated me being here though. She knows how hard it is for me to sit in a hospital. It wasn’t long until two of the nurses in blue scrubs came in to wheel Sylvia out of the room in her hospital bed, the white band around her wrist with her name printed on it.
“Thank you, Sylvia,” I couldn’t help but tell her as they started to wheel her out. She was giving my best friends brother and her son’s best friend a chance at a full life, having a procedure done when she didn’t have to. Aras wasn’t even my family and I was grateful for what Sylvia was doing. It would make a family’s life a lot brighter.
“It’s the right thing to do, Danny. I’ll be
Fine. Just relax with Finn,” she told me with a comforting smile. Her attention turned to Finn as he gave her a short kiss. “I love you, Baby.”
“I love you too, Sylvia Riley. You’re family will be waiting for you,” Finn smiled with all of his heart at his wife. I couldn’t imagine being that in love. They gave me butterflies just watching them hold hands. It was almost sickening. They were disgustingly cute. The kind you just wanted to punch in the face for making you feel forever alone.
I watched as her white bed got wheeled out of the room and down the hall, the door shutting behind the cluster of nurses. I glanced at Finn as he sat down in a blue faux leather chair, running his hand through his hair and resting his elbows on his knees. “How the hell did my dumb ass brother end up with the most amazing girl in the world?” I asked quite honestly, amazed at how sweet and selfless Sylvia was.
Anyone who said she wasn’t a role model was a fucking fool.
“I wake up and ask myself that every day. It’s like waiting for the axe to drop and for her to realize I’m not enough,” Finn murmured. “She’s my fucking world.”
“The axe is never going to drop, Finn,” I told him honestly. I wouldn’t put it past him to seriously still think he wasn’t enough after eighteen years together. That’s half their lives. “You guys are the strongest and most loving couple I’ve ever seen. If you’re being serious right now, I swear I will beat the fuck out of you.”
“I know we’re meant to be. I’d do anything for her, I’m just saying it still feels like in a little kid getting away with something he shouldn’t have.” He really loved her more than anything in the world. The sun rose and set with Sylvia and their kids. It was beautiful.
“I’m scared,” he admitted in a low voice. I could see in our identical green eyes that there was genuine worry and fear hidden deep in Finn’s strong face. “Last two times we were in the hospital she almost died. I can’t lose her.”
I might not have been around those two times, but I had heard the stories from one of their best friends, Jason. Both times Finn almost lost his child and the love of his life to a hemorrhage; and once he actually did lose the child and the other Sylvia flatlined. I’d be scarred if I were him too. “It’s okay to be scared for her, but this is a planed surgery. There is going to be no bleeding out.”
“And if she doesn’t wake up from the anesthesia?”
“Don’t think like that. She’s had it before and these are some of the best doctors in the country. Sylvia will be perfectly fine. Just think about it; Sylvia and I have both had it
Three times combined and were still walking around like normal people,” I comforted him.
“For a physics major you don’t know how math works. That only means it’s statistically more likely to happen now,” Finn grumbled to himself. It always went back to statistics with him. I was much more of a calculus person; stats made me want to commit suicide more than my old depression ever could.
“You’re impossible,” I crossed my arms in frustration, my mood dipping even more.
“Guess it runs in Elizebeth’s family,” my brother drawled sarcastically, shifting to lean back in the chair with his arms crossed over his chest.
I couldn’t help but scoff. “You know damn well she only considers Maddox and Lennox her real family. We’re the fuck ups and our fathers are her
Mistakes, even if she’s still married to one of them.”
“They turn eighteen in three months,” Finn stated the fact like he wanted to say something, but wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Eventually, his looked up into my matching eyes and asked his question, “Are you ever going to talk to her again? Or the twins?”
I pursued my lips for a second, contemplating my response. “I’d like to point out she left us both when we were fifteen and that if it weren’t for me, you never would have spoken to her again, so respect my choice as a twenty two year old, that I don’t want to see her ever again. Once the twins are in college, maybe we can reach out, but I’m not expecting anything. I’d like to remind you that our father is a pilot so growing up the twins relied on her and only her. After eighteen years of listening to her bitch about you and I and our little family, I doubt they’ll be too enthusiastic about meeting us
And the ‘bitch’ that stole us away.” My mothers view of Sylvia was probably best described as the wicked witch of the west, which couldn’t be more false if it tried.
Finn remained silent, thinking about what I had just said. Almost six years and we hadn’t even spoken a single word to our mother. Finn and I could support each other all we wanted, but the truth of the matter was that Griffins were just like their mother; beings of solitude.
And that’s why I opted to go get myself some food from the shitty cafe, leaving my brother to contemplate what the fuck he wanted to do with our youngest siblings and estranged mother.
“Can I get a corn muffin, black coffee, a green tea, and a salad?” I asked the older woman in the hairnet behind the counter of the small cafeteria of the hospital. It was only six in the morning, but I was starving. Usually I was in
Practice by now, too busy to notice how hungry I actually was. She gave me a weird look when I ordered the salad but I brushed it off. Finn was going to be damn grateful I got him his grass tea and meal. Maybe I’ll give him half my muffin to be nice.
I forked over a crumpled five and took my change as the woman handed me the drink holder with two beverages and a muffin in it, my salad in the clear container below it. If they don’t want people buying chicken salad at six AM, then why sell it? If anything, it was validating me.
I was on my way out of the cafeteria when I rounded the corner and almost walked right into the broad chest that I usually slept against. Luckily, I managed to avoid a scalding collision as my eyes snapped up to the very man himself.
He looked more surprised than I was, the emotion showing through
His slightly parted lips and drawn eyebrows. “Danny? What are you doing here? Is everything okay?” Beck asked me in a rush, knowing full and well I had not told him any details of why I wouldn’t be at practice.
“Yeah everything is fine. Sylvia’s just having a last minute thing done,” I brushed off awkwardly, not sure how I should tell him the whole truth on why I’m actually here. Donors were kept anonymous so there’s no way Beck could know without me telling him my sister in-law was about to potentially save his brother’s life.
“Is she okay? What happened?” Beck asked, concern still in his voice despite how stressed he must currently be about his own family.
“No, no, she’s fine. Sylvia’s just donating some bone marrow. She’s actually had a few blood transfusions, so she claims this is her way of giving back to the system.” I wasn’t lying, just omitting the
Truth for now. I didn’t want to sound like I had overstepped a boundary, even if it was saving a life.
Regardless, Beck’s face changed immediately. There were only so many bone marrow transplants happening at the same time. “You know. Sylvia’s a specific donor isn’t she,” Beck spoke like he had found the meaning of life. “You told her didn’t you?”
“She already knew, Ace and Aras are best friends. But I may or may not have let the blood type thing slip. After that she said even if it was a long shot, she had to at least get tested.” Sylvia was just that selfless. She constantly spoke at events, raised money, protested; all of it to help women’s rights that effected her, but here she was helping a cause whole heartedly that didn’t even remotely affect her.
“Oh my god, Danny. Thank you so much, I can’t even express how much that could change Aras’ life,” Beck
Rushed out as I put the food down on a grey table next to us in the cluster of the near empty cafeteria tables. I could hear the coarseness in his voice as his emotions bubbled to the surface of his happy face.
“I’m not the one getting surgery,” I pointed out.
“I don’t care. You got Sylvia here and now she’s saving my brothers life. I can’t even think of what I’m going to say to her. There aren’t even words to express how grateful I am.” I’d only seen Beck’s eyes water once and that was when he talked about his brother on the rink. Now all of his emotions were bubbling up to the surface, on the verge of letting his silent tears fall down his beautifully symmetrical features.
Before I knew what I was doing, I stood on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck. Beckett didn’t waste time, wrapping his muscular arms
Before I knew what I was doing, I stood on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck. Beckett didn’t waste time, wrapping his muscular arms around my small waist, his warm skin brushing my neck. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“It’s probably for the best,” he whispered. “Thank you, Danny. My brother has a chance now. I know what it took for you to walk into this hospital. But right now I’m so damn glad your here. I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders.”
“You deserve it,” I responded softly against his chest, smelling Beck’s woodsy scent that wrapped around me like a heated blanket in the middle of winter. “Aras deserves it.”
“We all deserve peace.”