May 1, 2016
1:30 pm
Timberlake Residence
43 Berry Hill Rd, Oyster Bay, NY
Our wedding was supposed to take place a month ago, but as it turns out, that won’t be the case after all. Am I happy about it? I’m not sure. I haven’t had much time to dwell on all the crap I’ve had to cancel, because I’ve been in too much pain, and been so short of breath and low on energy that it’s been hard waking up most days. Hannah understands, and she’s not going anywhere. She keeps saying that all of this will work out in the end, that our lives will get back to normal.
I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel this time. It’s been too much wear on me, my most recent heart attack and the surgery that followed. There was no eight week recovery period this time around. I’ve been weak since I came home from the hospital, and after seven months of rehabilitation and trying to get better I really…I have no idea when I’ll be able to be myself again.
Maybe it’s a never. Maybe I’ll just be laid up like this…turn into Fay, slip away after a few years of telling people that it’s not the worst thing that could happen. My doctors say that I could recover quicker if I wasn’t so depressed. They all keep asking why I am when I have so much going for me. Great career, amazing woman that wants to marry me, no money troubles, plenty of real estate and valuable assets to pass on to my children, when the time comes.
None of that matters though. Not to me. Not when Fay is gone and the one person that…that I love, isn’t ever coming back to me.
They just don’t get it, not even Hannah, as much as she tries. And I know she tries. I don’t hold it against the poor girl. Lord knows, she makes more of an effort to help me than anyone else right now. I keep her close, so close, because if I were to lose her, I think that might just put me over the edge. It’s funny, I’ve started talking to her a little bit, just a little…late at night, as she lays next to me, stroking my scarred chest and telling me I can say anything I want to her and she’ll listen. And so I talk, and she does exactly what she said she would, no matter how dark my ramblings might become, no matter how hard I cry. She’s just there.
I love her for that, but I still don’t love her like a man should love the woman he’s about to marry. Is it wrong? I know it is, but she looks the other way. I want to beg her not to, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m too dependent on her, and I think I might always be.
After that Christmas with Fay, I didn’t think I would have a shittier holiday season for as long as I lived, but this one came pretty close. Having a massive heart attack in the middle of a room filled with three hundred of Benjamin’s closest colleagues and our extended family wasn’t just embarrassing, but really fucking scary. Part of me was hoping I would die right there on the priceless oriental carpeting, cocktail frank hanging out of my mouth, so I wouldn’t have to face the surgeries, the pain, the prolonged rehabilitation period, or the scarring that was sure to follow my episode.
Not in the cards.
Not in the fucking cards.
I swear I saw Fay while the paramedics were trying to revive me. She was standing over me, a look of utter disappointment on her face, because she knew it was my fault. It was. There was no denying it.
I can’t understand how I survived the night. My doctors were baffled, as this attack was even worse than the first one I suffered. I should have died on that operating table. I flatlined twice. The second time was for a straight up ten minutes, and they went in the hallway and told my family I was dead, sending Hannah into a hysterical breakdown. It was the only thing I was really, seriously angry about when I finally woke up again. I care about her…in that way. I can’t stand to see anyone make her upset, and I screamed at my doctors for a good hour because of it. They had to sedate me, otherwise I would have torn the stitches in my chest wide open, or worse.
I’m alive, for whatever fucking reason, seven months later. It’s been an extremely long road to recovery, and I’m still not up on my feet, still have to rely on an oxygen tank to help me breathe, but I’m determined not to let this thing get the best of me. I want to work really hard, I just…have to get more strength back.
I go to therapy four times a week and use hydraulics and cardio machines, massage therapy on my chest, anything I can. Nothing has quite kicked in yet, but we’re hopeful. Hell, even if I could get up and walk more than thirty feet without getting winded I would feel like I had accomplished something. My butt in is a damn wheelchair so much I think it might fall off one day. I’m fucking sick of it. I try to pass the time working from home. Barry sends me casework to look over for him. I give him advice, and edit things that his secretary misses. It’s pathetic work for someone of my experience, but it’s the only thing I can do right now.
A fall wedding is perfect, September, still enough time to enjoy a Caribbean honeymoon, as long as I’m okay to fly. That’s what Hannah keeps telling me, and I keep fucking smiling. The hope is I’ll be able to walk in there on my own and take my vows without a cane in my hand and tubes shoved up my nose. She doesn’t hold it against me, and Benjamin hasn’t complained about the fees he’s had to put out because of all the changes we were forced to make at the last minute. Everyone I talk to keeps telling me they’re just glad that I’m okay, that things will get easier before I know it.
“Baby?”
I groan, press my face into my pillow just gently enough so I don’t knock the oxygen tube out of place, and pray she forgets I’m here.
“Baby.” A gentle knocking comes before the door is slowly pushed open. I glance at her slightly, see her standing there with my tray of food complete with bud vase and flower. “I fixed you lunch. I have to run to the studio for a few hours, but I promise I’ll be home to have dinner with you and we’ll talk about what you want to pack for Montauk, okay?”
Montauk for my birthday. It was her idea. She said we could invite a bunch of people to the beach house and really celebrate. I don’t see why she’s making a fuss. I don’t even know how I’ll feel and it will be complete shit if I have to lay in the bedroom while they’re all downstairs partying the weekend away. I said that to her too, but she insisted that we go despite my attitude. I didn’t fight her, I just gave in, like I always do.
“Elijah said he would stop by and take you for a walk in the wheelchair though.” She smiles brightly and kisses my cheek after she sets the tray down on my lap. “I know how much you like that.”
Oh, my favorite person. It annoys me how naive she can be at times. Can’t she tell how much that guy annoys me? “I think I’d rather be on my own for the afternoon, baby.”
“Justin.” Her voice gets a little more stern and her eyes narrow as she helps me sit up in the bed. “You know Doctor Albert said it wasn’t healthy for you to be on your own so much. It’s why you get depressed.”
No it’s not.
Hannah still doesn’t know the truth about Mags and I. They’re still best friends, and Hannah just thinks that the two of us get along so well because of our camaraderie at the firm. I guess it’s easier…her not knowing, but I had a hell of a time hiding my feelings during all of those double dates and outings we went on together before my heart attack.
They hit it off, Tad and Mags, that night we went to dinner. I really wasn’t expecting it. I mean, it was so fast. The guy is usually so damn quiet and the minute we all sat down they just started talking like they were old friends. I felt it, that pain in my gut. The one that told me she was going to fall for him, hard. That he might possibly turn into the love of her life.
And he did.
They’re always together now. He recently moved into her place on the lower east side. We went there for dinner a few times before my attack. It’s nice. She’s done well, and I’ve never really…had the guts to say it to her like I want to, but I’m so proud of her. She’s so strong now, so independent, so unlike messy Mags who hung around Hunter for way too long. She left that woman behind a long time ago.
I guess I showed her how, when I decided to throw what we had away like the trash.
I miss the fuck out of her. Sometimes, I think I might just miss her more than Fay, but I won’t readily admit that to myself. My heart aches when I think of her smile, and her laugh. Sure, we’re friends, and I guess I should be more thankful for that than anything else, because in the beginning, she didn’t even want to be that close to me. When I was in the hospital, she must have come to visit me three times a week. We never talked about us, or the past, all she wanted to do was cheer me up, bring me little gifts to keep me busy while I was in bed, and make me laugh if she could. She never brought Tad with her. I think she knew that it might have killed me, seeing them together like that. She says he loves her. She’s never said whether she loves him.
She must though. She has to. It’s obvious. I’ve seen the way she looks at him, the way she smiles, the way he can make her laugh as he holds her in his arms. He cherishes her. It’s what I wanted, I know…it just hurts that I was stupid enough to let her go, because I could have had that. She could have been here by my side instead of Hannah.
Actually, I don’t even know if I would have all the complications I do, if we’d stayed together. Maybe…I mean, I guess I would have. I was pretty strung out on that cocaine by the time I broke it off with her, already on the decline, already poisoning my heart in such a way that I would never be completely healthy again.
I was so fucking stupid.
“Baby you have to eat.” Hannah sits beside me and strokes my hair gently. “Please?”
I look down at my half grapefruit on a plate with my skim milk and try not to make a face. “Sure honey. Sorry.” I sit up a little straighter, wincing slightly, and let her help me settle back against my pillows before I dig into the fruit and take a mouthful.
“I love you.” She kisses my cheek and flicks the tv on for me as she gets up to leave. “Three hours, and I’ll be on the first train back, I swear.”
“Have a good day baby.” I yank out a smile so she won’t worry.
One last wave and she’s out the door. I don’t want to hold her back. She just got word a couple of weeks back that the show is going national, and I’m happy for her. I know it’s her dream, to make it big on that kind of daytime talk show circuit, and I’ve told her that. It’s only made her love me more, which should be a good thing. I should care more that a woman as beautiful as her loves me like this. It makes me a bastard for not caring, but then again, I’m my fathers son. I told her that I’d be willing to sell the house and move into the city before the wedding if it comes down to that. It’ll be easier for her, commute wise, and she’ll be able to network herself in other ways, being so close to everything. I know she’s looking to advance in the entertainment world, and I guess the best thing I can do is stand by her and be supportive, since I can’t love her like I’m supposed to.
We’re looking to put the place on the market in a month or two. Hopefully, I’ll be a little bit stronger by then. I mean, I have things to go through if we’re going to do this. Fays room isn’t packed, because I haven’t been able to take that step, but I refuse to hold Hannah back. It wouldn’t be right, after everything she’s done, and the shit she puts up with from me. My father has offered to help if I realize that I can’t do it. He said he would hire people. I’d rather not have strangers rummaging through Fays things…our memories, but I’m sick, I may not have a choice, and I’d never ask Hannah to do it for me.
It’s so fucking depressing, and a big part of my problem right now, I think. A part of me is still latched onto Fay. It hasn’t let go. That combined with my feelings about Mags, are probably what’s holding me back the most, and I can’t say a damn thing about it.
What do I do?
The phone on the nightstand beside the bed begins to ring, and it takes me several painstaking seconds to reach out and pick it up. “Hello?”
“Baby hey, sorry…”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just that Elijah said he can’t make it after all.”
I try not to sound pleased. “Oh…damn. Well, I’ll just have to go for a walk tomorrow or something.”
“No well…I mean, Maggie offered to come in his place. I was just talking to her when Eli called me, and I told her, and she said she didn’t have anything else going on today. Would you want her to come and do that?”
Shocked isn’t the word. I mean, what are the odds of this? Alone with Mags? I don’t know if I can handle that right now. I’m so fucking weak. What if I fall, or start rambling on and on about how much I miss her?
“I uh…well er…I mean, yes. Yes I would like her to,” I say it as subtly as I can as to not arouse suspicion. “Baby, thank you.”
“Oh Justin, great! I’m so happy. You really need to get out of the house. You’re so pale all the time. I’m going to call back and tell her. It’ll probably be about an hour, but she’ll be there. I left the back door open, so she’ll just come in that way.”
“All right.”
I’m in my jammies.
“I’ll see you later. Ah! I’m so excited.”
She hangs up.
Shit. What am I thinking about? How is this suppose to work? I mean, why the fuck would she even want to do this, first off? A favor for Hannah? I guess. She knows what her friend has been going through, and is trying to be supportive.
It doesn’t make me any less nervous though. I’d like to keep topics of conversation light between us, but this is Mags. Mags who I used to lose myself in conversation with for hours, and she was the same way with me. I’ve never laughed, or joked, or related to anyone like I related to her…the love of my life.
This is probably a bad idea, but will I call Hannah back? No, because I don’t know how many more opportunities I’ll have to talk to Maggie like this. I mean, I know my luck. She’ll probably marry that guy and her life will change again. She won’t have time for me, she’ll be too distracted by her busy, married world.
So this is my chance, I guess, even though I’m in no condition for it. Chance for what? I’m not really sure. I’m not sure what I’m going to say.
I just know that I still love her, so damn much.
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