It Was Always You

“You fucking asshole!”

Jack freezes in the doorway, backpack hanging off his shoulder by one strap, his eyes wide and facial expression clearly showing that he wasn’t quite expecting such a rude welcoming home. Actually, he really wasn’t expecting one at all.

“What?” the younger boy asks cautiously, dropping his bag at his feet. Apart from the fact that Alex is yelling at him, there are other things totally wrong with this situation. “Why are you home? What’s going on?”

Alex ignores his question, “You didn’t even call me to tell me that you’d be back today!” He advances on Jack, his eyes angry and hands formed into fists. Jack takes a step backwards. “I was calling your cell for the past two hours!”

“It died,” Jack says weakly, his back hitting the front door, Alex standing right in front of him. “I didn’t bring my charger. I just-”

Alex narrows his eyes. “Did it really or were you ignoring me on purpose to prolong telling me that you’re not leaving Zack?”

Realization washes over Jack. He sighs heavily, puts both hands on Alex’s shoulders and pushes him back. “It died. I was not ignoring you. I broke up with Zack. Take a deep breath and calm down because you’re going to make yourself sick.”

“I…” Alex slumps his shoulders and looks down at the floor. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Forget about it,” Jack says softly, reaching out and grabbing Alex’s wrist, bringing him closer. “It’s fine.” He presses their lips together quickly before pulling back and pressing their foreheads together. “It’s just you and me now. No third party.”

Alex pales at those words and Jack realizes how bad that sounded. “I – shit. I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant-”

“He’s in a really bad state,” Alex tells Jack, interrupting his explanation. “He went downhill so fast after you left yesterday…He’s so weak, Jack. They said it could be any day now.”

“I…w-why are you home, then? Why aren’t you at the hospital with him?”

“I just wanted to shower and change clothes. Rian and John forced me to. They said I was starting to smell,” Alex cracks a smile at that, but Jack can tell that he’s really struggling to mean it. “I was actually going to head back right now. You um. You want to go with me?”

Jack nods, his head feeling light and his heart feeling like it’s got a ten pound weight on it. “Let me just put my stuff in your room.”

-&-

“He hasn’t eaten anything since right before you left yesterday.”

Jack sighs, sits down in the chair right beside his son’s bed. Joey is asleep, lying flat in the bed. The heart monitor is beeping steadily, which is really the only comfort to Jack at all. Joey is pale and his breathing is labored and it’s just so obvious that they’re going to lose him at any time now.

“They said if he doesn’t eat anything when he wakes up…they could give him the nutrients he needs through IV but…by doing that, they really won’t be giving him much more time.”

“He’s suffering,” Jack says softly, reaching out and brushing his hand against his son’s forehead. “Look at how hard he’s trying just to breathe. I don’t think we should prolong that.”

He looks up at Alex who’s standing beside him, chewing on his fingernails and eyes wet. “I know,” he whispers, “I just…”

“You don’t want to lose him. I know. But we’re going to. One way or another. We’ve talked about this. I don’t want him to be in any more pain than he needs to be.”

“No, I know you’re right. It’s just so hard, Jack. How are we supposed to just…just watch him die? After raising him and teaching him how to live?”

Jack doesn’t answer, because he really isn’t sure how to. No parent would know how to.

-&-

It’s one in the morning when Alex finally falls asleep. He’s in Jack’s lap, head on his shoulder and breathing evenly. It comforts Jack to know that at least he’s getting a little bit of rest. Rian and John couldn’t even tell him the last time they saw him sleep more than a half hour in this hospital. Jack thinks maybe he can sleep now because Jack is here, holding him and telling him everything will be fine. He’s lying to him but he doesn’t care. Whatever helps him sleep for a bit.

Joey’s awake, watching some show on the Disney Channel that’s from the nineties. Jack recognizes it from his own childhood and he finds himself being sucked in, watching it just as intensely as his son is. The heart monitor, Alex’s light breathing and Joey’s heavy breathing sort of get tuned out, and Jack feels like everything is normal again. They’re not in a hospital room, Joey’s not dying and nothing’s about to change. But then he snaps out of it and everything sucks again.

Somehow, the reality of it all doesn’t hurt as bad as it did before he left the other day. Before he left, he wasn’t sure how he could possibly make Joey happy, how he could help him feel better about the fact that he’d be leaving his parents soon. How could he? The boy is only eight years old. There’s no possible way that he could be content with and at peace with something like dying. Despite how many times he and Alex have spoken to him about it.

But earlier, when Joey noticed Alex holding onto Jack’s arm, his face, which had been lacking any kind of expression, lit up and Jack realized something. That’s all Joey’s ever really wanted – his parents to be together again, like they were before everything happened. At eight years old, he already knows that it won’t be easy for them after he’s gone. And he knows that being together is the only way they’ll get through this in one piece. He’s too smart for Jack to comprehend sometimes. But maybe that should be a comfort to him. He helped raise such a caring, intelligent, selfless little boy. It’s amazing how you only start to really see those things when it’s coming down to the end.

Somehow, Jack thinks they really will be okay. Him and Alex. Not for a long time, of course. Years, maybe. But it’ll slowly stop hurting so much as time passes. Joey won’t really be gone completely. They’ll have memories and pictures.

Moving on will be hard, but not impossible.

-&-

When the heart monitor stops beeping, Jack’s not too sure what to think first. The room is silent now, aside from Alex’s sobbing and Rian’s hushed attempts to comfort him. Jack can barely register John’s hand on his back and whatever the doctor is saying is being ignored by everyone in the room. As prepared for this moment as he was, nothing can really stop the sudden pain in his chest from the realization that he’s gone. He’s not going to wake up and talk to him about his new Pokémon game or the Spiderman movie that’s supposed to be on later. Jack will never see his smile again or hear his laugh or anything. A huge part of his life is just gone now.

Somehow – Jack isn’t entirely sure how – they all end up in the hallway, the doctor claiming that they weren’t allowed to be in the room anymore. Alex is still crying, but Jack can’t bring himself to do the same. He needs to be strong for Alex.

“If you could go and wait in the waiting room down the hall, I’ll send Samantha over to talk to you about what happens next,” Doctor Bates says, looking down at the clipboard in his hands and writing words that Jack wishes he could see.

As he heads down towards his office at the opposite end of the hall, Alex pulls away from Rian and latches onto Jack, managing to whisper, “I don’t want to know what’s next.”

“It’s okay,” is all Jack can come up with. He pulls the older boy in closer, rests his chin on his head as he rubs his back. “It’s alright.”

“I don’t want her to try and tell me that I’ll get over it,” Alex continues, “I don’t want to talk to her.”

“I’ll do it then. Don’t worry. I’ve got you, alright?”

“I feel like part of me’s missing now.”

“I know…And it’s going to feel like that for a while,” Jack says softly, leaning down and pressing his lips against his forehead. Alex is the only thing in his life right now that he can depend on. “But you’ve still got me. You’ll always have me. We’re in this together.”

Alex sighs heavily, lifts his head as he takes a step back. He manages a weak smile, “That’s all he ever really wanted, I think.”

Joseph James Barakat
April 21, 2001 – May 21, 2009
Forever Young, Forever In Our Hearts