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CHAPTER 12


Some people make the world special just by being in it.






AJ sighed and said, “ Howie, I’m afraid.”


Howie stopped walking away and said, “ Afraid of what?”


“ I’m afraid I’m going to lose her, Howie.” Said AJ looking vulnerable.


Howie sat down and said, “ What makes you think that you’re going to lose her?”


“ I’m afraid that she’s going to start to remember the way that I am and she won’t want to have anything to do with me.”


“ Why would she do that?” asked Howie.


“ Because I’m an asshole. I don’t deserve her. She doesn’t need to have someone like me screwing up her life. I think she’s better off without me.”


“ You’re not making any sense. Are you afraid that she’ll remember the fight and think less of you because of the words that were said?”


“ I don’t know. I’m so confused.”


“ If you’re afraid, you should tell her and let her know what really happened before someone goes and puts ideas in her head. She’s going to remember everything in the end anyway.”


“ You think?”


“ I have faith that she will recover.” Howie said nodding his head.


“ Did you really mean the words you said before? About how you saved my life?”


Howie sighed and said, “ Yeah. You came home one night and were high and drunk. You wouldn’t let us help you, so you passed out cold in your room. Well, all that night someone was there watching you to make sure you were still breathing.”


“ Oh.” He said and then fell silent.


Out of the blue AJ asks, “ Do you think she loves me?”


“ What?”


“ Do you think she loves me?” AJ repeated.


“ I don’t know Aje. Everything is so screwed up right now. I’m sure Kevin is in there telling her stuff about you. I honestly don’t know how she feels.” He said.


“ I’m just afraid. Do you notice how she calls me AJ? She always called me Alex. The last thing she said to me she called me AJ. That’s when I knew things had changed.”


“ She was just mad, Aje. She was just as mad as you were and she used your nickname to piss you off that’s all.”


“ That’s not it. It’s just… on my way to the beach, I couldn’t get her out of my head. I couldn’t get the fact that she didn’t call me Alex out of my head. It just kept coming back to haunt me. It seemed like it was all a bad dream, you know. And then I found out that she might die, I kept thinking ‘AJ, you can’t end things this way. You can’t leave her hating you.’ I was so afraid that she would die and I would never get to say I’m sorry. I was just so afraid that I would lose her before I got to say anything. When I got into her room, I said everything that I had wanted to say to her, just in case she never woke up. I wonder if she’ll remember the stuff I said. Do you think she will?”


“ I don’t know. I mean, I can understand how you felt. I’m sure Nick felt the same way.”


“ On the way here, I suddenly regretted all the times that we fought. I regretted saying the things that I said yesterday. When something like this happens, it makes you rearrange your priorities, and it makes every little thing count. Like, the day we went to the beach and Anna and I went walking alone for three hours, just talking. It makes moments like that freeze in your mind forever.”


“ I know. I started regretting every bad word I ever said to Kev. I regretted all the times that we fought when we should have been spending quality time together.” Said Howie.


“ You know what I think?”


“ Oh, No. He’s thinking. Good thing that we’re at a hospital.”


“ Shut up. But seriously, we don’t know how much time we have here on earth. We don’t know when one of us is going to be taken away. It made me realize that fighting is stupid when you get down to the point. It seems like everything we fought about at one time or another was trivial. It doesn’t matter what we fought about. When we’re on our death bed and we see our life flash before our eyes, we’re going to remember the fights, and not exactly what we fought about.”


“ Yeah it makes everything seem so small compared to the fact that we could die any minute of any day.”


“ I know I regret everything that I did in the past two years. What do you regret?”


“ I regret not being there for you as often as I should have. Half the time I figured that you were doing it for attention. I never once stopped to think if you were really sick.”


“ I regret the fact that I took you guys for granted so many times. I now realize that it wasn’t fair to you guys. I should have faced the consequences.”


“ Yeah, you should have.”


“ Hey, you’re supposed to tell me that it was okay to rely on you guys.”


“ AJ, you weren’t relying on us. You were using us.”


“ However you want to put it.”


“You’re so funny, Aje. C’mon. Let’s go see that woman of yours.” Howie said as he laughed at AJ’s words.


“ I like the sound of that. She’s all mine Howie.” AJ said as he caught up to Howie.


“ Not until she remembers how she feels about you, of course.” Howie said looking at Him.


“ Oh, of course.” AJ said as he slung his arm around Howie’s neck.


They walked back into the hospital and up to Anna’s room. They stopped right outside the door when they heard Anna ask a question.


“ Kevin? What kind of feelings did I have towards AJ… I mean Alex? Did I think of him as a brother, or was there more there than that?” Anna asked.


AJ held his breath as he waited for Kevin’s answer.


“ Well, you told me about three weeks ago that you thought you were falling in love with him.” Said Kevin.


AJ looked at Howie with wide eyes.


“ Well, Kevin, how will I know if I fall in love with him? I mean, I don’t really feel like myself, so could I love him just the same as I would before?” she asked.


AJ waited to see how Kevin would answer her questions.


“ It’s just something you feel. You know when you’re in love when you can’t stand being apart from them. You find yourself thinking about them for no apparent reason. It’s just something that you feel deep inside your heart. All I can say is that when you get your memory back, you’ll remember all the things that you felt for him. But, now, just go with the flow. Until you can remember, you can rely on me to let you know when you’re doing something that you would never have done before. I think that right now you’ll feel something deep, deep, deep in your heart for him. Those feelings just have to work their way to the surface.” Said Kevin.


Howie whispered, “ Get her flowers. Her favorite kind. Maybe it’ll jog her memory.”


AJ nodded and disappeared down the hall in search for a flower shop.