6. - – Sienna
CHAPTER SIX
-
SIENNA
The room falls quiet. Not the comfortable kind of quiet that once existed between me and Kieran but the kind that is filled with burning shame.
The kind that presses against your ears until you have no choice but to fill it.
I stare at my shoes- at anything other than the woman sitting across from me.
Hell, I am not even sure I could describe what she looks like in detail.
The crescent-shaped marks my nails have left in my skin draw me back into reality.
The sting feels deserved. “Girl meets boy.” A dark laugh slips from my throat.
My therapist says nothing. “Girl falls in love with a boy.” I twist the ring that I desperately wished sat upon my left hand; the fourth digit.
“The boy has incurable cancer.” My chest tightens. “Boy vanishes.” The laugh that follows is ugly. Sharp around the edges and full of undeniable rage. Rage that I was the one left alive.
“What in the actual fuck is my life?” The clock on the wall ticks. Once. Twice. Three times. Still she waits. I hate that she's good at her job. Because eventually the silence wins; my vocal cords beg to speak. I look toward the window behind her; anything but her face yet again.
Anything but the pity I know I'll find there. “He just stopped answering.” My voice comes out smaller than I mean for it to.
The memory rises before I can stop it. The glow of my phone at two in the morning.
My thumb is hovering over his name. Again.
Still no response. I told myself he was sleeping.
Treatment made people tired. That's what I told myself.
The next day I sent another text. Then another.
Then a stupid meme because maybe something normal would get a response where concern wouldn't. Nothing.
I can still remember staring at the screen. Watching the little "Delivered" beneath the message. Like somehow if I looked at it long enough it would change. Like he'd suddenly appear and tell me he lost his charger. Lost his phone. Lost track of time. Anything.
My throat tightens. Anything except the truth.
I pull my bottom lip between my teeth. Hard.
“He always answered.” The words barely make it out.
“Even if it took him hours.” A tear slips free and I wipe it away before it can fall.
“He always answered .” I laugh quietly, shaking my head.
“God, he was annoying about it too.” A small smile tugs at my lips despite everything.
“Every time he called, he'd say the same thing.”
My therapist remains silent, giving me space to continue. I'd forgotten how much I hated and loved that about her. “Most people answer the phone with hello, right?” I let out a shaky breath. “Not Kieran.” For a second, I can practically hear his voice. “There's my lucky star.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. My chest tightens immediately. “He called me Ace.” A pause. “ I didn’t understand at first- when he kept calling me Ace. I thought he had forgotten my name. God, I got so annoyed and confronted him in a small fit of rage.”
An inhale to help steady myself before I began again.
“Kieran just looked at me and stepped in closer with this mischievous grin plastered across his face. My God he was beautiful; buzz cut, clean shaved, and sharp features. His eyes pulled you in as if he always knew more than he was willing to say. Maybe it was everything he had been thorough and experienced or maybe it was simply because he knew his time was coming faster than the rest of ours. Either way he had this unfair advantage of staying calm no matter what I threw his way.”
My tears escaped as the memory consumed me; his voice filling my mind. “I call you Ace because even with all the bad hands life has dealt me; God still granted me my Ace.”
A guttural sob poured from my very soul as the words “Every single time” escaped.
“Didn't matter if he was calling from a hospital waiting room or the grocery store.
Didn't matter if we'd talked five minutes earlier.” A sad smile pulls at my lips; the tears still flowing freely.
“It was always, 'Hey, Ace.'” My fingers tighten together.
“I used to tell him it was stupid.” My voice softens.
“That lucky stars weren't real.” Not after Jax.
Not after cancer. Not after everything. “But he'd just laugh.” I can still hear it.
That stupid laugh. The one that always made me want to roll my eyes and smile at the same time.
“He swore I was the reason good things happened to him.” Another laugh escapes me.
Smaller this time. “Said every decent scan, every good day, every piece of luck he'd had since meeting me was because of me.” The smile disappears as quickly as it came.
“And then one day...” My throat tightens.
“He stopped calling and something inside me knew, but my God I was willing to play ignorant for as long as possible.”
The room didn’t have time to fall silent this time; I nearly screamed the words.
“No more Ace. No more lucky charm.” My eyes close tightly as I attempt to gather the overwhelming amount of emotions flooding through me; the urges that beg me to find the closest pill.
Anything to make this pain dim. “I have nothing left.
My brother, my twin, is dead. The man who I honestly thought would be my forever- once again - dead.
Maybe that one is my fault though because who falls in love with their dead brother's best friend ? Let alone a cancer ridden best friend. I have nothing left.” The words unravel with my exhale. “Not a damn thing.”
I remember standing in my kitchen one night.
Phone in my hand. Microwave clock glowing 2:17 a.m. The house is completely dark, and for the first time…
I didn't send another message. I just stared at his contact; his picture, his name. Something cold settled into my chest; not panic but it wasn’t grief either.
It was something worse- a knowing. The kind that crawls beneath your skin.
The kind where you spend weeks pretending it isn't there.
I knew. I knew something was wrong. I knew it in the way he started pulling away.
In the way he stopped letting me come to appointments.
In the way every conversation felt like he was already halfway out the door.
My fingers tighten around each other as the ring I had been fiddling with this entire session loosened on my now boney finger.
Staying skinny wasn’t a difficult task when food was the last thing you desired; when a pill was your every waking thought.
“But I couldn't do it again.” The confession leaves me before I can stop it.
I close my eyes for a moment allowing myself to see my other half-Jax.
He was my mirror self in so many ways; we shared fair complexions and haunted eyes.
But while his demons were cast upon him by genes mine were self-inflicted.
Suddenly it is no longer only him I see - hospital beds.
IV lines. Monitors. The smell of antiseptic.
The look on my mother's face. Then Kieran.
And suddenly they blur together. One memory bleeding into another. One loss becomes two.
My voice cracks. “I couldn't watch another person disappear.” The room tilts.
Just slightly. Enough to make me swallow hard.
“So I stopped calling.” A pathetic little sound emerges from within me as my leg starts to twitch and sweat begins to bead at the outer corner of my headhead.
“Which is funny, right?” My eyes find hers for the first time.
“Because for months I blamed him for leaving as I popped pill after fucking pill.”
“But somewhere along the way...” My gaze drops. “I left too.” The silence that follows is unbearable. The clock ticks. My chest aches. And for the first time all session, I wish she would say something. Anything. My therapist leans back slightly in her chair.
“You were grieving.”
The words are gentle. Careful. I hate them immediately. I shake my head. “No.” The answer comes too fast. Too defensive. “I was selfish.”
“You were hurting.” she retorted.
“I abandoned him. He called me and I never showed. Instead I popped my dead brother's pills and now here I am. Angry, addicted, and alone.” The words crack on the way out. Just saying them aloud makes me feel sick. “I don’t know what his last words to me even were. He stopped reaching out- I stopped calling. Now all I have is a letter that arrived about three months ago that I can’t seem to open. ”
My therapist studies me for a moment. “Did you know he was dying?” The question catches me off guard.
My mouth opens. Then closes. Because the answer isn't simple.
“Yes.” I swallow. “But also no.” My fingers twist together as sweat starts to settle at the nape of my neck and nausea settles into my stomach.
“I knew he had cancer.” I pause “I knew what cancer did.” My voice softens and betrays me.
“But I think part of me convinced myself he'd be different. I wanted to believe he loved me enough to stay; which I know is utterly insane. He didn’t want to die- I don’t think he wanted to leave me or his family. ”
She spoke - which startled me after staying silent during most of my session.
“I would assume you are right. I doubt by the way you have spoken of him that he would have wished to die or leave you. He seemed to have cared a great deal about you and Jax. I honestly can’t imagine being in any of your situations. ”
I nod at her words before my mouth is opening again “I survived it once with Jax.” A bitter laugh escapes me.
“I thought maybe the universe couldn't possibly be cruel enough to make me do it twice.” My therapist doesn't respond right away.
When she finally does, her voice is soft. “And when you realized it could?”
The question lands like a punch to the ribs. I close my eyes. Because I know exactly what happened. I know exactly what I did.