Chapter Twenty-Four
As I come to, I’m shivering and in Julián arms. His face is covered in worry, confusion, and I realize half of the trembling of my body is from his. His hair and clothes are drenched as he slowly rocks my body, pushing my soaked hair off my forehead.
“Don’t call the hospital,” I choke out, coughing up a good amount of salt water from the pool. “Please.”
“Oriah.” My mother’s voice makes my body tense.
“Hem de trucar a un metge?” Julián’s attention doesn’t leave me, but I know he’s speaking to my mom.
She looks at me, then him. “No, no si ella no ho vol. Però ha d’anar a la seva habitació i ficar-se al llit.”
“Let’s get you to your room.” Julián lifts me up from our place on the cement, and water pours off our bodies, pooling at his feet.
“Can you go the back way so my—” my mom begins, but stops herself at Julián’s death glare.
“I will go the way that’s easiest for Ry. I don’t give a shit about your party,” he tells her, but takes me the back way, making sure no one sees me.
Not for her sake, but for mine. I’m dripping wet, and my dress feels heavy against my body, even though I’m being carried. The way back to my room feels like the longest stretch of silence I’ve ever experienced.
Julián scans my room key from my handbag and carries me into the room, passing the entryway, the living space, and heads straight to the bathroom. The intensity of his stare makes me uneasy as he gently places me on the cushioned mat on the floor. His fingers unzip my dress and remove the clasp of my necklace, dropping it to the floor. He struggles but manages to take my earrings off, putting my jewelry in a neat pile on the tile.
“Are you able to stand?” he finally asks me.
I nod. He turns on the bath faucets and blasts the water, gauging the temperature with his fingers. Gently grabbing on to my hands, he pulls me up, holding me with one arm behind my back to keep me steady.
With ease, he lifts me up again and places me into the bathtub, a few inches deep of water. The hot water gives a rush of relief, nearly instantly stopping my shivering. I lay my head back and close my eyes, but the burn of Julián’s on me doesn’t lighten. He’s probably so angry, so confused…
It would be easier to keep my eyes shut, to tell him it’s okay if he runs away now that he saw firsthand that I’m a ticking time bomb. Too much to handle, too much of a risk and hassle to be with.
“I’m sorry, Julián.” I blink my eyes open and muster the courage to face him. His back is against the wall closest to the tub, his hands clasped together, white-knuckled.
“Sorry for what? What on god’s earth could you possibly be sorry for?” His voice is full of exhaustion.
“Aren’t you upset with me?” I meekly ask.
He sits up, his back no longer touching the wall.
“Upset with you? I’m damn terrified for you, I thought you were dying, Ry. I saw you… spasming and then falling into the pool. I’m fucking scared for your life, not upset with you.”
“I’m sorry, Julián,” I whisper, the water still rushing from the faucet.
“Do not say sorry again, please. I don’t need an apology; I need an explanation. Even just a little bit so I know what the hell just happened.”
“I should have told you.”
“Then tell me now.”
Where to begin? From birth… from now… I don’t want to overwhelm him, but he deserves an explanation of some sort.
“The fast version is… I was born with a genetic condition; it’s called tuberous sclerosis. There are many, many different versions of my condition, varying from nonverbal, severe autism; blindness…”
His lips are purple, and not from the cold. “For me, the part of the condition that affects me the most is epilepsy. I have these things called tubers, not to be confused with tumors, that I was born with in my heart and brain. I developed them in my kidneys over time also, but my brain is the reason you saw what you saw.”
His voice is barely a whisper. “Is there a treatment?”
I shake my head. “Yes and no. There are medications to control the seizures, but they’ve only worked on and off for me. So I gave up taking them when I arrived here, because a few of the tubers shifted recently.”
He’s as still as a statue as I wait for him to jump up and run far, far away from me and my health burden. “How often has this been happening?”
“Over my lifespan, but… this was the second one today.”
“Today? When was the other? Please tell me it wasn’t when I… oh god… Ry. If I would have known, I would have never—”
I sit up a little, adjusting my body in the tub. “The one thing I ask from you is to not treat me differently. I know it’s nearly impossible, but please don’t say you wouldn’t have reacted the same if you knew. You didn’t cause the seizure. I believe it was my emotional overload that triggered it at that exact moment, but no one and nothing caused this or can fix it.”
“I want to hate you for not telling me, but I can’t seem to get past the pain of the idea of losing you.” Julián’s body shakes with a sob. His hands cover his face, and I lean over him and turn the water off. I reach for him, the water splashing around me as I gently pull his hands away from his face. Tears pour from his eyes, and he launches forward, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me to him.
“Shhh… It will be okay… it will all be okay.” I promise him something I can’t keep.
“I should be the one telling you that.” He hugs me harder. The fabric of his top is so cold against my heated skin. I reach my hands between us and start to unbutton his shirt.
“You’re freezing; come in with me,” I suggest.
He seems to realize that his clothes are still wet. I push the shirt down his shoulders, and he silently removes the rest of his clothes, climbing into the opposite side of the bathtub. I don’t pressure him to move closer to me, even though I want nothing more than to hug him again, to hug him every second of every minute of every hour of every day, until the end of mine.
“Are you afraid?” Julián asks me after a few minutes of silence.
“Yes.”
His shoulders rock, my heart breaking again and again as he tries to hold in his tears.
“I wasn’t afraid before. I was at peace with what would happen when I came here. I stopped resenting fate, I accepted it, welcomed it even. But then I met you… and I started to grow angry again. I found myself wanting to curse the world, destroy it. I had stopped fighting it, stopped fighting everything. I was okay… but you, you make me want to live, and that’s what I’m afraid of the most. That now I want to fight to live. And that makes me more afraid than dying. Knowing that now I want to live, and can’t.”
“You can. There must be a way. My pare knows a doctor in Madrid. I can ask him; there must be a way. I refuse to accept that your life is over. Even if you’re tired of fighting, I am not. I will never be.”
I sigh, wishing I could make him understand that the only solution is way too risky and not one I’m willing to take. Is it better to let him waste his energy fighting a battle he can never win?
“Let’s fight, okay? Please, Ry, I can’t lose you. You can’t…” He struggles to say the word. “Die. You can’t. I can’t lose you. You’ve become everything to me, and I can’t lose you.”
I move across the water, holding on to him long after the water is cold, long after his body has run out of tears. Eventually, he wraps me in a thick robe and carries me to the bed. He watches me until I fall asleep, and I wonder if it’s because he’s worried I won’t wake up.