Last Chance

Chapter 3:

At first, he would just pop a Tylenol and go about his day for his students’ sake. But then, he collapsed during one of his lessons and one of the students ran out of the gym to a nearby classroom to get help. The paramedics were called and he was brought to the local hospital. At this point, Joel hadn’t seen his parents since his second year of college. We’d spent all the important holidays with my family. They hadn’t called, texted, emailed or even sent letters to him. I was thinking they had estranged themselves from him.

I arrived as they were taking Joel up to radiology. One of his colleagues stayed with him until I was able to get there. He was up and alert by the time I arrived and assured me, he was fine. But his colleague, Brent looked concerned. Brent stayed with me well they took him up to radiology. As concerned as he looked he tried to reassure me, probably not to cause unnecessary worry, Joel could have been dehydrated for all we knew. It was mid-May at this point and possible.

Joel came back still complaining of his headache but the doctor wanted to monitor the pain until they had results so he wasn’t given anything.

Brent had a class to get back to. I was glad he left. The doctor came in with that look on his face. The one doctors put on when they’re about to deliver bad news. You see it in movies all the time.

I grip Joel’s hand tightly and the doctor takes a seat on one of the rolling chairs with no back. He opens the file to the MRI of Joel’s brain and tests from the biopsy.

“I’m sorry to inform you but you have what is called a Grade III Anaplastic Astrocytoma. It’s a type of brain tumour that is fast-growing and difficult to treat. You have options, surgery, and chemo. Without treatment, if you decide not to treat it, you have a life expectancy of three years,” the doctor explains quietly.

We tried everything in the first two years when the doctors said we still had hope, Joel got multiple brain surgeries, and he lost his hair and became deathly thin and pale from the chemo. I would go to work and visit him in the evening, the wedding was put on hold till he was better, because he wanted to stand on his own two feet at the altar.

Joel tried the first year to get in contact with his parents. Since we received no reply the second year we endured alone without attempting to contact them. Joel, I and our friends made it through that year. Some of the students and the teachers at his school came to visit. They all had Get Well Soon cards, balloons, and stuffed toys. After two years, one last surgery to clear what they thought was the last of the cancer cells and one last blast of chemo to ensure it, Joel came home.

Everything was fine for eight months. He was clear at his six-month check-up, went back to work soon after and the same thing that happened two years ago happened again. I was called out of work again. We had just started talking about the wedding again. Brent was at the hospital again, he’d volunteered to stay this time rather than being around when it happened. Joel was sent to radiology and another MRI was done and sure enough, it came back with those evil star-shaped cells in his brain.

The doctor explained the tumour was back and worse. It had progressed to stage four. He gave Joel a year, considering his prior history. He said we could try more surgery and chemo but at this point, it was unlikely to rid Joel of the tumour and most likely only extend my time with him.

This was when I started calling Joel’s parents, texting them, emailing them, and sending them letters. My numbers and email address were all quickly blocked, I don’t know if they even bothered to listen to or read the messages I sent them and the letters came back unopened.

I was angered, Joel was dying and they didn’t even know thanks to their own ignorance. He could have passed away and they wouldn’t even know.

Joel said to leave it alone, and that they clearly didn’t care even after us being together for eleven years. Sean took a day off work and came to be with Joel so he wouldn’t be alone well I went to their house. I quickly realize I’d never been there. I was even a little nervous about going but I knew I needed to. There was a black Jeep in the driveway and the lights were on inside. I approached the door, wondering if they’d recognize me after all this time. Not that they’d ever seen me in person but I was sure Joel had shown them pictures when he was still visiting them.

I knocked and stepped back to wait. An old gray-haired man with blue eyes similar to Joel’s staring back at me answered the door.

“Yes?” he asked in a grouchy old-man voice, like I was some teen vandalizing his property.

“Hi, Sir. I’m Luca. I’m engaged to your son,” in retrospect maybe I should have said Joel was dying first but I thought he needed proof so I told him who I was first.

“Get off my property,” he growled.

“Joel’s dying,” I said quickly.

“Joel has been dead for seven years,” he replies.

“No, he hasn’t. He’s dead to you because you can’t get over the minor detail that he loves me and not some girl. He’s in the hospital with cancer. Don’t you want to see him? He has a year to live. After that he’s gone, you will never see or hear from him again,” I exclaim.

“I told you to get the hell off my property,” he yells.

I didn’t want to make a scene but I didn’t want him to regret this either. Maybe I could get the doctor to come with me and explain the seriousness of the situation or something.

“He’s dying and he hasn’t seen you in seven years. Are you really not going to visit him?” I ask. “He’s your kid.”

“He stopped being my kid when you infected him and confused him. You made him think he liked boys. He’s dying because of you and he’ll go to Hell because of you,” he growls.

“He asked me out. I was living my life, I wasn’t friends with him or even pursuing him. He asked me on a date and he asked me to marry him. He started it, I just reciprocated the feelings,” I explain.

“It’s all a lie, it’s what you people do. You corrupt others, confuse them, and poison their minds. He won’t have kids thanks to you. I won’t get grandchildren because of you,” he shouts.

“He’s dying and all you’re thinking about is yourself. He’s in pain and sick. He has cancer, he has to go through chemo and surgery. It isn’t supposed to be about you,” I retort. “It’s not about me, it’s about Joel. As much as I’m supposed to be there for him in sickness and in health, for better and for worse, for richer and poorer, so are you and his mother,” I explain desperately feeling I’m gripping onto some crumbling sandy ledge with him watching me struggle, if I let the door close I will have slipped and fallen from the edge of the cliff and came crashing down and back defeated. I will have failed Joel even though I shouldn’t have been doing this, they should have just been there for Joel.

“A year from now he’ll be gone. Do you really want the guilt on your conscience that you weren’t there for him in his last days? That you didn’t make amends?” I question.

“If he wanted me to be around he would have listened to me about you. He would have become something more than a worthless teacher, he wouldn’t be dying right now, and he’d have kids. This is all your fault,” he bashed my ego into the pavement, not that I had much of one before that.

He slammed the door in my face and sighed. I walked back down the street to my car and sat there for a few minutes before starting the car. Before leaving I looked back at the house and saw the curtain slide back into place. Maybe his mother was watching? I took a breath and drove back to the hospital. I rode the elevator up to the floor Joel and Sean were on.

Joel smiled when I entered the room, I slid into the chair beside his bed and kissed his pale knuckles.

Sean looked at me, I just shook my head. I hadn’t told Joel I was trying again. I hadn’t told him I was going to their house. Sean knew though.

“I don’t want to stay here if I’m going to die,” Joel said quietly like it hurt to talk and it might have honestly. “I want to come home with you.”

Joel had been in the hospital for most of the past two years aside from the few months he’d spent with the hope of no recurrence and clean MRI scans. I smiled sadly. A lot had become home computer repairs that my colleagues dropped off. It was a little less money than full shop hours but they understood. Some of them had come to visit Joel and made me dinners. Not that I wanted to eat them because they reminded me of funeral gifts to help with the coping of someone’s death. Joel wasn’t dead, yet. I didn’t want to think about it. I had been holding on to every trial run and chemo and drug that the doctors had tried. Hoping it would be the miracle cure he needed. That I needed to keep him around.

He seemed to have accepted and know he was dying now though. That was why he wanted to come home.

“Okay,” I whispered with tears in my eyes. “I’ll tell the doctor to set aside the paperwork.”

He reached up and touched my cheek, I leaned into it. He lifted himself and kissed my forehead which I lowered so it would be easier for him.

“I love you,” he murmured.

“I love you, too,” I replied.

“Go home and get some sleep,” he continued. “You look beat.”

That was a joke I made after he came home from school. I smiled and nodded still holding his other hand.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” I murmured.

“Goodnight, Luka,” he whispered.

I got up and kissed the top of his head one last time before leaving to drive Sean home.

“Do they seriously still not want to see him? Even though he’s dying?” Sean asked once we were in the elevator.

I had told one of the nurses to tell the doctor about the release forms since he’d left for the night already.

“Yeah,” I sighed with a sad smile trying to locate my car and house keys as a distraction even though I already knew where they were, in my left coat pocket.

“It’s ridiculous, you love him, and he loves you. You’re happy, he’s happy, why can’t they just accept it?” he mutters annoyed.

I shrug. Honestly, at this point, I didn’t know what could make someone reject their child that much. Sometimes I think they don’t hate the fact that Joel’s gay, they just hate me.

I drive Sean over to the apartment he shares with his current girlfriend, Alyssa. She was a pleasant, nice girl. Sean had ended up falling for one of the geek girls in college, he and Alyssa had been together for two years.

I waved to him from the car as he unlocked the front door to his apartment. I then drove myself home and got myself a glass of wine and a late dinner. I threw my coat on a hanger and sat on the couch. That was when the doorbell rang. I don’t know who I was expecting to be there or why they’d be there but when I opened the door a baby-faced teenager stands in front of me. At first, I think we were equally confused and that he must have had the wrong house.

“Are you Luka?” he then asks.

“Yeah, who are you?” I ask.

I’ve never for the life of me seen this kid.

“Jamie, umm…I’m Joel’s cousin. Is he here?” he explains.

“No, he’s in the hospital,” I explain. “Why are you here?”

The last time Joel would have seen this kid he would have been about ten probably. How did he even find this place? He seemed nervous. He was obviously not expecting to explain his situation to someone he’d never met.

Then I spot his backpack and the bisexual flag pin on the side of it. I think I get what’s going on. This kid came out to his family, but they rejected him and now he figured this was the only place he had.

“How old are you kid?” I asked.

I didn’t want to get charged with the k********g of a minor as much as I wanted to help him.

“Seventeen,” he answered.

I sighed. I couldn’t leave him outside. I’d have to take the risk.

“Okay,” I replied opening the door. The kid steps inside.

“Joel will be home tomorrow, we’ll talk about what happened then and figure out what to do,” I continue nervously spinning my wedding ring. “I’ll go make a bed for you upstairs, you’re welcome to find yourself something to eat if you’re hungry.”

“I’m just tired,” he replied quickly.

His face was flush like he’d run here. I still had no idea how he’d gotten our address. I doubt Joel’s parents even knew where we lived since they had no interest in it.

“Okay, come on,” I replied gesturing upstairs.

I walk upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms and show him in.

“I’ll go get you a blanket and some pillows,” I reply quickly.

He sets his bag down as I walk to the master bedroom closet where we store all the extra bedding. I come back with two pillows and a thick comforter.

“Who told you about us?” I asked.

I asked because it was bugging me how this kid found us.

“My mother works with your dad. We’ve talked a few times, he stays out of her way, though. I never understood why until he told me. I had been thinking about coming out until he told me your and Joel’s story. I still told them so they wouldn’t wonder why I was just gone, but at least I was more prepared for their reaction,” he explains.

“My dad told you where we live?” I asked.

“He showed me pictures of you, said what area you lived in and what you drove. I scoped the area out and found it myself. It wasn't hard, you spend a lot of time at home and go to the hospital I presume,” he replies. “Is Joel going to be okay?”

This kid had just been through one of the worst things in his life he didn’t need to be told by someone he’d just met that Joel was dying, too.

“I don’t know, I just know he’s coming home tomorrow,” I reply.

He nods.

“Thank you, Luka. For letting me stay,” he replied quietly.

He was surprisingly polite, for a teenager.

“Goodnight,” I say and walk back downstairs to grab my glass of wine and throw the rest of my dinner back in the fridge, having lost interest in food.

I bring my wine upstairs and into my bedroom. I lay down exhausted from my work, attempting to get Joel’s parents to accept us and from the early rising.

I lie down and fall asleep before I even finish my wine.