Surfacing,

Part Six

By Lauren

Drew fought the next memory tooth and nail. She knew what was coming. She had been there. She had lived it. She had no desire to go back.

But, as always, her memory won over, though instead of bright flashing lights, this flashback had come on with tears and pouring rain. Her mind’s eye was washed in water, as if she was in a car in the middle of a thunderstorm, or as if she was crying. As her thoughts focused, latched on to the memory, it was clear that both rain and tears were falling.

It was early in the morning on that New Year’s Day, and Drew was sitting in the window in the loft, watching raindrops snake down the window, her own tears racing down her cheeks.

“Ahem,” Jesse said quietly, walking through the door and closing it softly behind him. Drew turned her head and glanced at him, quickly looking back to the window.

“Everyone’s left the club,” he offered. No answer. “We made tons of money tonight.” Still no answer.

“Drew,” he said softly, walking up behind her and reaching for her shoulders.

She slapped his hands away. “Don’t even think about it,” she seethed.

Jesse recoiled as if she were a snake about to bite. “Drew, what’s wrong?” he asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Drew shook her head, heavy, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Drew, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, how can I make it right?” he asked helplessly, raking his hands through his short brown hair.

Drew’s eyes softened as she looked toward him, sniffling and sobbing softly.

“You said there was something you needed to tell me…”

Jesse’s eyes grew soft and sad, his expression distant. “Yeah…yeah, I do need to talk to you about something.”

“Well, I know what it is,” Drew said with certainty.

“You do?” Jesse asked carefully, his eyes wide.

“Of course I do. There’s someone else. I don’t have a genius IQ, Jesse, but I know the tone in your voice when you’re about to let me down. And how else could you let me down now?”

Tears fell unabashedly from Jesse’s eyes, and that frightened Drew. All in all, Jesse had a very cool head. She had never seen him cry. “No, Drew, that’s not it,” he said softly, looking up at her.  “I’m not cheating on you. You know that I would never do that.”

“My head told me so. My heart knew that I was due for a smashing,” she said.

“Oh, God, Drew,” Jesse murmured, his face tortured.

Drew left the cool glass of the window and padded in her bare feet over to the bed. She sat down next to him and carefully, slowly wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have accused you of that.”

“I’m sorry,” Jesse said, a sad smile coming through his tears. “You know, I think that might be the first time you’ve ever said that to me.”

“I don’t say it to many people,” she admitted, resting her cheek on his shoulder.

They sat there in silence for a moment, Jesse stroking her long, brown hair, her tears soaking through his shirt.

“Tell me, Jesse,” she finally said, looking up into his eyes.

A single tear escaped from his right eye and trickled down his cheek. “I had a scare. In New York.”

Drew separated herself from him slightly, her brown eyes clouded with confusion. “A scare? What, were you mugged or something?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he amended quickly. “I was walking through the gallery, and all of a sudden I got really dizzy, and my heart started beating really fast. The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital room.”

Drew’s eyes widened with fear. “Jesse…your…your heart?” she stammered, carefully touching his chest.

He shrugged her touch off, standing up and crossing the room. “Not my heart,” he muttered. “Maureen Bauer’s heart.” He ran his fingers down his face, pulling his cheeks down.

Drew knew that her mouth was hanging agape, but she couldn’t find the strength to close it. It was a few moments before she had composed herself enough to whisper, “What’s wrong with it?”

He sat down on the couch, and she stood and scurried over to him, sitting in front of him on the coffee table. “Is Max still at his party?”

Jesse took a deep breath, and only then did Drew notice that his skin was a little pasty, that his lips were a little blue. “The doctors aren’t sure what’s causing it,” he said softly. 

“Causing what?” she asked, becoming more and more panicked.

He caught her hands in both of his, looking straight into her eyes with his own weary, sad ones. “Drew, I’m going into congestive heart failure.”

Drew’s breath caught in her throat. “No,” she whispered. “No, Jesse, no, you’re not going into heart failure! Look at you! You look fine, you look healthy, there’s nothing wrong with you!” There is something wrong, though, she realized. He does look like he’s sick.

“I knew it, I knew you were going to deny that this was happening to me,” he said, dropping her hands and moving to the kitchen. “I’ve denied this for so long, why wouldn’t you?”

“Wait, wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “You’ve denied this for how long, exactly?”

He said nothing, just opened the refrigerator door and pulled out paper-wrapped turkey and ham and a jar of mayonnaise. 

“Well?” she asked impatiently.

Jesse pulled a half-empty bag of bread from the breadbox and opened the twist tie, pulling out two soft slices. “A while,” he replied.

“How long?” she demanded.

He laid down the lunchmeat and bread and looked her squarely in the eye. “I first noticed that something might be wrong on Labor Day.”

“Labor Day?” she asked, loudly, incredulously. “You’ve known that you were sick since Labor Day and you didn’t say anything?”

“I’m not sick, Drew,” he called, grabbing a table knife and generously spreading a thick layer of mayonnaise on one of the bread slices.

“I thought you weren’t denying it anymore,” she said sarcastically.

“I’m not denying anything,” he said. “But I’m not sick. I’m dying. I’m dying, Drew.”

Drew’s face wrinkled tearfully. “But…but, isn’t there anything they can do?”

“Like what?” he asked, slapping the sandwich together forcefully.

“Stop making that God damned sandwich,” she ordered, and he looked up at her sadly. “And I don’t know what the doctors could do. I’m not a medical student like Michelle.”

His face fell. “Drew, I’ve already had one heart transplant. I won’t get another. I’m going to die.”

The words slammed into Drew like a freight train. He was going to die, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. He would be dead and gone, like her father. To her shock, she had begun to forget her father. Would she soon be grasping to fading memories of Jesse, too?

“Oh, God, you can’t die,” she cried, walking into the kitchen and hugging him fiercely. “You can’t die. We’re going to get married.”

“I don’t want to make you a widow, Drew,” he said, his lips finding her hair.

“I don’t care about being a widow.” 

“I care that you would be.”

“Oh, Jesse, why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she asked, tears streaking her face.

“Why? So you could worry over me? I wasn’t even sure I was going to tell you about it tonight.”

“How could you even think about not telling me?” 

“Because I didn’t want to believe it. I don’t want to believe it. But somehow, telling you, talking with you about it, makes it seem real.”

“Maybe it’s not real,” she suggested. But it is real. Look at his eyes.

Look at his funny-colored lips. Look at his pale skin.

“Don’t say that, Drew, when you know that it is,” he commanded, pulling her tighter.

“How long…” she began, unable to finish her sentence. 

“They don’t know, exactly. One doctor said six months. One said nine. One said no more than four.”

“Oh, I can’t lose you!” she cried.

“Drew, Maureen gave me a new lease on life. The average life expectancy after a transplant is only five years. Look how much longer I lived than that.”

Drew’s mind felt numb. It seemed so unreal that Jesse, warm flesh and beating heart, might be dead before next Christmas. 

“Drew, honey, I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice rough and choked-up.

“I…I don’t know what to say to you,” she stammered, her voice unnaturally high.

He pulled her closer, and she could feel his face burrowing into her hair. Tears moistened her cheeks, and she sobbed unabashedly on his shoulder.

“You can tell me you love me. You can tell me that you’re so glad that I had the transplant in the first place, because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have met you,” he said softly, stroking her back gently.

“I love you,” she whispered. “And you don’t know how thankful I am that you had that transplant. But I don’t know how I’m going to live without you.”

“Shh, don’t say that,” Jesse begged. “I’m not gone yet. We still have time.”

“Yeah, but no one knows how much,” she pointed out.

“That doesn’t matter,” he disagreed. “It doesn’t matter. And you know why?”

“Why?” she asked, looking up into his eyes.

“Because I love you, and you love me, and we’re happy. We are. And it doesn’t matter how much longer I have left. I could die tonight and die happy, because I have you,” he murmured.

Drew’s heart melted. “That’s beautiful.”

“And it’s also true,” he said softly.

They stood in the kitchen in silence, holding each other and crying. Drew didn’t even realize how much time had passed until she heard a key scrape in the lock, and the door push open.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Max called out happily, pulling off his jacket and throwing it on the couch. “What’s going on?”

Drew and Jesse separated slightly, Drew wiping the tears from under her eyes. “Oh, not much,” she managed. “How was the party?”

Max paled. “You’ve been crying. What’s wrong?”

Jesse shoved his hands in his pockets and looked over at Drew. “Your sister was just getting a little emotional,” he said lightly, giving Drew a look that said, “Go along with it.”

Eyes puzzled, Max looked from Jesse to Drew and back again. “No way. Something’s wrong.”

Drew bit her bottom lip to try and keep tears from falling again. “Carlos quit, and I’m going all crazy,” she fibbed.

Max laughed. “Is that all? Come on, Drew, half the staff at Millennium quits every two weeks. All you have to do is go grab a couple of customers and hand them aprons.”

Drew smiled. “Yeah, I guess it is pretty silly of me to be getting all worked up over something like this.”

“Well, Max, you know, Drew’s had a lot on her plate lately,” Jesse began. “I mean, between my gallery openings in New York, and your college applications, and the club, she’s due for a good cry.”

Max’s brow is furrowed. “I guess…but, you know, if this is just some couple problem that you guys don’t want to tell me about, I’m cool with that.”

Drew laughed. “Don’t be stupid. Anyway, how did the party go? Did Susan let you kiss her at midnight?”

Max’s cheeks flushed a little. “Drew, come on, we’ve been going together for, like, two and a half years. Of course she let me kiss her at midnight.”

Jesse winked, and Drew started to playfully hit him in the arm, but drew her hand back. Did all the abuse I gave him over the years contribute to this?

“Well, I’m happy that things are going so well with you,” Drew said.

“Yeah, me too. Everything’s perfect,” Max grinned. “But, hey, listen, I’m going to bed, so you guys can go back to crying or fighting or whatever it was that I interrupted.”

Drew smiled sadly. “Thanks. I love you, Max.”

Max gave her a strange sidelong glance. “I love you, too, sis.” With that, he hurried back to his partitioned off room.

Immediately, Drew burst into tears again. “We can’t tell him,” she said rationally through her sobs.

Jesse nodded in agreement, pulling his hands from his pocket and wrapping them around her. “It would only hurt him right now. He doesn’t need that.”

Drew nodded. “He doesn’t need to know yet.”

And the rain slicked the windows and the streets below, pouring onto the city. Drew’s heart ached at Max’s words. Everything wasn’t perfect.

Nothing’s been perfect since, Drew reminded herself as she felt the memory pulling away from her once again.

Part Seven

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