Cancer

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I stepped out of the cab and he was already there. He sat on the edge of a massive triple-fountain, his lined and weary face twisted into an oddly conflicted expression. Colored lights in the fountain behind him faded from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to purple to pink and back to red again, a misty halo of cheesy Vegas lighting effects framing his dark sillhouette against the night sky.

Beyond the fountain was a casino, and beyond the casino was the rest of the sprawling city, and beyond the city were hundreds of thousands of tiny twinkling lights that faded off into the distance, disappearing amongst the steep dips and rises of the dark horizon. There was a whole world out there--a whole world apart from Brendon and Vegas and everything else that had happened to me in the past few years--but in that moment, when I somehow found inside of me the courage to keep moving forward even though the very sight of him thrilled me to the bone with fear and anxiety, and, yes, hope--in that moment, there was nothing else but me and Brendon, and maybe the city. Vegas seemed to have its own role in this somehow.

He had been staring purposefully at the dirty concrete below his feet, but he looked up as soon as I stepped out of the cab, as if he could somehow sense that it was me without even having to look. He held my gaze as I closed the distance between us, and then, when I stood before him--scared and elated and everything else in between--he didn't say anything. He just stared right at me.

"Your eyes are so blue," he said after a moment. His voice sounded strange, different than it had just a day or two ago--it was strained and hoarse, and cracked once or twice. But maybe that was just because those particular words were so hard to get out.

I searched deep inside the recesses of my mind for the right words to express the aching hurt in my chest, but they were gone; all the forgiveness and sympathy had been drained from me long ago in a desperate act of self-preservation. "Well, hello to you, too," I muttered sarcastically, instead.

"Sorry." The side of Brendon's mouth twisted up wryly in an attempt at a smile, and then slid back down into its usual frown after a moment. "They're just...startling--"

"You've seen my eyes before, Brendon," I reminded him. My own voice sounded cold, calculated, distant. I wondered if he could see the contradiction in my so-blue eyes.

I was briefly irritated by some foreign throbbing in my chest before I realized it was just my heartbeat.

His expression seemed to crumple a little at my snide remark, but it was hard to say why--hurt would have been the natural response, but somehow, the look on his face was almost tender.

Brendon got to his feet, and the sudden movement sent a gust of his unique scent my way, nearly undermining what little poise I had managed to collect during my cab ride. Squeezing my eyes shut tightly, I forced out the memories and turned away for a moment.

"Are you okay?" Concern colored every word.

I didn't reply. I didn't have the strength or the willpower to lie tonight.

With a sweeping motion of my arm, I gestured awkwardly to the sidewalk before us, stretching infinitely, perhaps, towards the horizon. "Shall we?" I murmured.

He nodded once and offered me his arm. I pretended not to notice, to be distracted by something across the street. I just wasn't up to that yet.

-----

Brendon and I strolled as casually as we could manage down the street side-by-side, both too involved with our own thoughts and the presence of the other one beside us to notice the obnoxious tourists pushing past us on all sides, headed towards the Strip. After a while, the overwhelming lights and sounds of the city gradually faded to a more normal level as we slowly put the Strip behind us.

We eventually came across a rather deserted parking lot and Brendon surprised me by walking into it and sitting down on the curb at the far end of the lot. He patted the dirty concrete and I sat down beside him.

"Nice night," he mumbled to himself, his dark eyes darting skyward.

"Yeah."

I saw him turn his head to look at me out of the corner of my eye, but I kept my gaze fixed on the stars glowing dimly above the city instead. I was afraid to see the look on his face.

"Your hair is different," he said abruptly.

I was so startled that I turned to look at him unthinkingly, my hand darting instinctively to my hair. I glanced down at the ends of the dark, choppy hair that I realized must look rather foreign to him. My hair had been long and strawberry blonde (its natural shade) when we were dating; shortly after we broke up, in keeping with the same need for reinvention that had me running away to New York, I got my hair cut short and dyed brown. The strawberry blonde had been gone for a while, but of course he couldn't know that.

"Yeah. It's 'mahogany brown.'"

"I don't like it," he said bluntly.

Of course he didn't like it--he had been so obsessed with the strange shade of my hair in its natural state, and that was part of the reason why I changed it. I didn't want to have to be reminded of all the sickly-sweet things he'd said about me while we were still together every time I looked in the mirror. I didn't want to be that girl anymore.

"You don't have to," I said dryly, shrugging.

Time passed slowly. We sat in awkward silence for a while, listening to the faraway sounds of the city at night. I was starting to wonder why he had even bothered meeting me out here at all when he finally broke the silence.

"Here," he muttered suddenly, and I was surprised to see him shrugging out of his jacket when I finally dared to glance at him.

"Brendon, what--"

"You've got goosebumps," he explained with a small smile as he draped his jacket over my shoulders.

At first I was too bewildered to argue, but after a moment, I came back to my senses and jerked convulsively out of the jacket, letting it fall onto the pavement behind me. "I'm not cold," I insisted stubbornly, refusing to look at him for fear of what emotions the tenderness in his eyes could inspire in me.

Brendon sighed. "Kelsey--"

"I'm not cold, Brendon. I'm fine," I told him, and it was the truth. The goosebumps had nothing to do with the extreme desert temperatures.

Brendon just sighed again, surrendering to my obstinance. He folded the jacket up and placed it in his lap, but made no move to put it on again. He stared down at the rejected jacket for the longest time, his dark eyes deep and intense and sparkling with moisture, and then he finally said, "What happened to us, Kelsey?"

My whole body froze, my mind freezing with panic, my heart going into lockdown. Maybe I was wrong before to call. Maybe I was wrong to come. Maybe I couldn't handle this after all. Maybe I would never beat the cancer.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything.

"I know..." he began, his voice breaking--he cleared his throat and tried again. "I know you're mad at me. I know you probably hate me, and I know that you haven't forgiven me yet and maybe you never will. But I just...I want you to know that...that I'm sorry."

He turned and looked at me right in the eyes and I swear to God, I felt my heart rip completely in two.

I just stared at him, biting my lip so hard that I should have broken the skin, willing myself desperately not to cry or yell or hit him or, worse, kiss him. I just stared at him and tried desperately not to lose control.

"I'm sorry, Kelsey," he said again, and his voice wasn't controlled and purposeful anymore. It was frantic and passionate and bursting with thinly veiled hurt and adoration and pleading and his big beautiful lips stretched into a wide smile that somehow looked more like a grimace and there was so much pain in his eyes. There was just so much pain...

"I'm sorry, Kelsey. I'm so sorry." He looked away suddenly, his words clipped and stinted with the lack of what he didn't have the strength or courage to say--the words we both knew anyway.

He leaned forward, down towards the ground, as if confessing to the pavement, covering his mouth with his hand like the words were vomit he was struggling to supress, and maybe they were just as vile, maybe they would wreak more havoc. His dark eyebrows jerked together harshly, his whole face screwed up in agony. His voice trembled and shook and broke and hitched up in odd places as he choked the words out.

"I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm so sorry. I regret it every day." He took a deep breath and his hand fell away from his face and his expression smoothed slightly as he seemed to gain more control of himself. "I'm so sorry. And I know I don't deserve it, and I know I can't ask that of you... I can't ask you to forgive me, Kelsey, but I'm going to anyway."

All I could do was stare in horror and relief and fear and joy and wait for the rest as he turned his wide brown eyes on me.

"Please, forgive me. Take me back. I love you, Kelsey."

How could I say no?

I had to.

"Brendon..." I whispered, my voice so small and frail that it was nearly inaudible. "Brendon... I can't."

If anything, his eyes just darkened and turned fiercer with their intensity; he wouldn't be discouraged yet. "Why not? Please, Kelsey. Please just--"

I shook my head and turned away--there was no way I could ever refuse those eyes, I couldn't look at them. "I can't, Brendon. You hurt me too much."

He scrambled clumsily at my side, and suddenly he was kneeling in front of me, his warm hands gripping either side of my face, forcing me to look him in the eyes. "I know I hurt you," he said softly, his eyes so sweet and easy and full of love, pleading. "I'll never forgive myself for that, and I can't ask you to forgive me, either. But please, Kelsey, just give me another chance. I swear to God, I'll make it up to you. I'll be so good to you, I promise, I--"

"No, Brendon." I swore I wouldn't, but the tears coursed down my cheeks, searing hot reminders of all those night terrors. "I can't."

"Please." His voice was smaller now, too, and it rang with the passion and hope and fear of a prayer. "Please, Kelsey."

I couldn't bring myself to speak anymore. I just shook my head silently as the tears continued to streak down my face.

"Kelsey. I love you."

There was a question in his strangled voice, and I should have left it unanswered, but I couldn't. I couldn't beat the cancer and I couldn't stop the words from coming out. There was no fight left in me.

"I love you, too," I said, and then I added the rest of the truth in a strangled voice:

"It's not enough."

The desperate look in Brendon's eyes was unrivaled by anything I had ever seen before; his frantic expression when my mother had come to whisk me away to New York on that winter day so long ago could never hold a candle to the way he looked now, when I told him the truth.

"But I love you. I love you so much, and that's not enough? What else is there, Kelsey? What are you asking for?" His voice was searing, unyielding, unbearable agony, and, suddenly, it rang with rage too. "What else can I give you? I love you so much. What else can I give you? Please don't turn me away now. I love you."

He was giving up; I could tell because he was repeating himself, clinging to the desperate mantra of "I love you, I love you, what else?" because there was nothing else he could do. He knew he had lost. There was no fight left in him, either.

His expression crumpled, collapsing into one of utter despair. He didn't cry. He was silent as he leaned forward until our foreheads touched, and then we sat there together for a long time--me sobbing, Brendon still clinging desperately to me, his face pressed close to mine as we both suffered over each other.