Vengeance Is a Syn

“Hey grandpa!”, I smiled as he picked up the phone.

“Hailey!”, he said happily. “How are you, darling?”

“I’m fine, thank you!”, I said. “Grandma’s here…”

“I know… She went there to talk with your mother, didn’t she?”

“Yes…”, I said sadly. I took a deep breath and almost begged him. “Please tell me she’s lying, please!”

He let out a hearty laugh and sighed. “I wish she was lying, Hailey… But it’s true… The treatment isn’t being as effective as it was before.”

I swallowed the lump on my throat and nodded. “I know you’ll fight this! You’re strong! In a couple of years we’ll be laughing at this!”

“It’s not that simple, Hailey…”, he said. “This time… This time it’s not the same as my other relapses.”

“But they’ll find something that will get you better!”, I said hopefully. “I can’t wait to get back there on holidays!”

“Hailey…”, he sighed. “You know I may not last that long…”

“Stop saying that! I can’t lose you, grandpa!”, I said and I could already feel some tears forming in the back of my eyes.

“It’s life, honey. People grow up, others die, others are born…”, he said matter-of-factly. “We can’t change that.”

“But…-“

“You remember that time when I took you, Matt and the guys downtown to do some Christmas shopping and we lost Jimmy?”, he said with a light chuckle.

“I do… We found him later running after the pigeons!”, I smiled. “He still doesn’t trust them this day!”

“He’s a really nice guy.”, he said and I smiled. “I’m really glad you have such warm hearted friends.”

“They love you. You were always there for us when we were little.”

“Those were some great years.”, he laughed. “I hope you remember our stories when you have your own kids… They’ll love hearing those crazy stories!”

“I know! And you’ll be there to tell them in person!”, I said. “But I’m not planning in having kids soon!”

“I hope you’re not!”, he laughed. “You’re still too young!”

We stood there talking about our memories for some time until he yawned.

“I’m looking forward to visiting you on Summer time!”, I smiled. “Matt will take his girlfriend with him so you can meet her! You’ll love her; she’s one of my best friends! And the rest of the guys will come too!”

“Hailey… We talked about this before…”, he said. “I may not last one month…”

“Don’t say that, please!”, I begged, closing my eyes.

He sighed and there was some silence before he spoke again. “I love you, Hay.”

“I love you too…”, I said, smiling sadly.

I put down my phone on the bedside table and took a long breath. I had to calm down, I didn’t want to cry! I had already ruined the night; I didn’t want to make Brian feel bad about me being like this.

But this talk looked like he was saying goodbye to me, and I can’t stand that! I can’t lose my other dad – that’s what he is for me. My second dad!

I felt a tear roll down my cheek and started crying. I buried my face on my hands and let my emotions finally transpire. I heard the door being closed and Brian approaching me, pulling me into a tight hug.

“What happened, baby?”, he asked softly, rocking my body back and forth.

I clung to his shirt and started crying even more, burying my face on his hard chest. I sobbed for quite some time until I felt myself calm down with his soft humming.

“Calm down, Hay…”, he said, kissing my hair. “Just calm down…”

I took some deep breaths, trying to relax, and nodded.

“Thank you.”, I whispered, taking my head off of his chest and cleaning his shirt from the tears that had fallen.

“Don’t worry about that.”, he said, grabbing my hands and kissing them softly. “You want to tell me what happened?”, he added, his voice nearly reaching a whisper.

“I… I talked with my gr-grandpa…”

He nodded and I sat on the border of my bed. He sat next to me and put an arm around my shoulders, in a soothing way.

“He… He told me… He told me he may not last m-more than one m-month!”, I said, breathing quickly so I wouldn’t cry again.

He looked at me with sad eyes, and cleaned my cheeks with the back of his hands. He took some hair out of my face and kissed my forehead. “Don’t cry… I know how you’re feeling…”
“But it’s so hard, Brian!”, I said. “I can’t lose him, I can’t!”

He pulled me into another hug and kissed the top of my head.

“You know this is the way things happen…”

“I know… But…”, I sighed.

He stroked my arms and shot me a small smile. “Come here.”

He lied down on the bed and pushed me to him, placing my head on his chest and stroking my hair.

“I’m so sorry… I’m such a mess lately!”, I sniffled.

“It’s not your fault…”, he smiled reassuringly. “Things aren’t working perfectly for you now… But they’ll get better with time, I promise.”

“You can’t promise that. You can’t protect me from everything and everyone!”, I said, raising my head to look at him. “First it was that thing that happened in the store, now this situation with my grandpa… And the darn scar just won’t disappear!”

“Think about it in the bright side.”, he said, caressing my chin and kissing the space between my shoulder and my neck, where the mark was.

“There’s no bright side about it…”

“There is… Think about it as a reminder of what already happened. It happened and you survived. It only made you stronger, and when it disappears…”, he looked at me in the eyes. “When it disappears it means you already overcame that memory, and you won’t need to remember it anymore!”

I smiled honestly and nodded, approaching my face to his and kissing him promptly.

“You’re the best thing that happened to me lately, you know?”, I said, looking down at his chest.

“The same thing goes for you.”, he said, using his fingers to lift my chin. “And I don’t want to see you sad… Smile, even if it’s just for me, will you do that?”

I nodded and gave him a small smile.

“That’s not good enough…”, he shook his head. “I think I know what makes you smile…”, he added with a playful smirk.

“What are you doing!?”, I asked, trying to figure out what he’d do. He straddled me and started tickling my belly and ribs, which made me laugh and try to grab his hands so he’d stop. “Oh, my god, Brian! Why are you such an asshole!?”, I said between laughs.

“Because I want to see you happy!”

“But that’s not fair!”, I grabbed his hands, stopping his attack.

“Of course it is.”, he grinned goofily. “I can always get the results I want, see?”

I laughed and shook my head. “What would I do without you?”

“Nothing.”, he said cockily. “You wouldn’t survive without me!”

“Idiot!”, I chuckled. “Of course I would.”

He laughed and kissed my forehead.

“I really like you, you know?”, I said, stroking his face.

He smiled and kissed me passionately.

“You know… We can go there sometime.”, Brian said after a while, looking down at me. I cocked an eyebrow at him and he explained what he meant. “We can miss one day of school and go to Colorado. If we leave on Thursday afternoon we can stay there from Friday afternoon to Saturday. We could leave by night and get here while it’s still day.”

“No… That would be too tiring!”, I said.

“If we did that before Saint Patrick’s Day we’d have Monday to rest. What do you think about that?”

“I don’t know, Brian…”, I said, biting on my bottom lip. “I don’t want to make you guys travel so much because of me and Matt.”

“But we want to go too. And we’ll have to travel so much when our band gets famous… It won’t bother us!”

“You sure?”, I asked and he nodded.

“We’ll just have to set things with everyone and we can leave.”, he smiled.

We stood there watching TV for some time until Brian stood up. He kissed my cheek and walked to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

I furrowed my eyebrows with confusion and waited for him to come back.

When the door opened I looked immediately at it. I smiled; surprised with the fact that Brian was carrying a tray with two mugs that had some hot liquid.

“What do you have over there?”, I asked curiously, sitting straight on the bed.

He chuckled, placing the tray on the bedside table and crawling to the place where he was before.

“Just a little surprise for you, to stop with all the drama.”

He picked up the mugs and handed one to me. I grinned, seeing it was full of hot chocolate.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe you got us some hot chocolate!”, I said excitedly, hugging him and kissing his cheek.

“Careful with that! You’re going to spill it over us!”, he laughed, holding the mug so the hot chocolate wouldn’t fall on top of us. “Your grandma helped me, but we had to be silent, because we didn’t see your parents and Val is already home.”

I took a sip on the liquid and stared at him with a confused look.

“She’s home? I thought she was going to stay here!”

“She thought it was better to go home because your parents were here…”, he said before drinking what he brought.

I nodded and rested my head on his shoulder.

“But you’ll stay here, right?”

“Hum-hum.”, he nodded. “Though I’ll be sleeping in Matt’s room…”

“I know…”, I whined. “I wish you stayed here! But my dad would kill you if you did that…”, I pouted.

“And I don’t want to die at this age!”, he chuckled, pecking my lips.

“No!”, I chuckled, placing the mug on the nightstand and holding his face between my hands, reconnecting our lips. “You can’t stop kissing me while you taste like chocolate! This is a rule you have to follow!”

“Then I’ll eat a ton of chocolate if it means I can have you just for me.”, he said, making me laugh.

There was a knock on the door and I blushed as I saw my dad entering the room.

He smiled and I sighed of relief as I realize he hadn’t seen us kissing. He was fine with us dating, but he wouldn’t like seeing us doing that…

“I think it’s time you two get some sleep!”, he said with a friendly tone.

“But it’s still…”, I said, glancing at my watch and stopping my sentence as I saw it was already 1 AM. “Oh! I didn’t realize it was this late!”

Brian stood up and kissed my cheek.

“I’m going to your brother’s room.”, he said, making me pout.

My dad nodded and smiled. “You know you’re like family to us… But I won’t let you two sleep together.”

“Don’t worry dad!”, I sighed. “Even if we spent the night together we wouldn’t do anything bad!”

“But it’s safer if he is in the other room!”, he replied and I rolled my eyes.

They both left the room and I waited for a little while, so I could leave my room and go to Matt’s.

10 minutes after they left, I got out of the room on my tip toes, trying to create no noise and crept to his bedroom.

I heard someone clearing his throat and turned back, blushing as I saw my dad with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Where are you going, Hailey!?”, he asked.

“I… Hum… Am… I’m going to… to the bathroom…”, I excused myself. “I need to pee.”

“I always thought the bathroom was that way!”, he said, pointing at the opposite direction.

“Well… Ye-… Yeah!”, I said turning on my feet and walking to the opposite side. “Of course! How could I be so dumb!”, I laughed nervously.

“Just so you avoid being caught again… Don’t try to sneak on your brother’s room again… I’ll be here.”, he said and I nodded.

I entered the bathroom and groaned in frustration. When I came out, my dad was still on the corridor. I smiled at him and got in my room. I sighed and lay down on my bed. I wouldn’t sleep next to Brian tonight…

On Thursday’s afternoon we all got into my dad’s car so we could go visit my grandparents. Since he had a huge car we could all sit without being on top of others. Matt, Brian and Zacky would be driving by shifts and we hoped we’d arrive there by Friday’s midday.