All I Ask Of You
By
DemonsInsideMe
Chapter One
Riley Dean's eyes were enigmatic as she gazed out the eighth-floor hospital window, intent on the rush of driving snow that obscured her view of the city below.
The conversation going on behind her meant nothing. She was lost in the turbulent sea of her thoughts, caring little about what transpired between her mother and Dr. Lambert.
She heard fragments and small phrases, meaning nothing, knowing nothing, saying nothing. The things important to her before--school , friends, work-- paled in comparison to this. What could be as pertinent as what had unfolded before her eyes earlier that day, indeed, only moments ago? Nothing was as life-changing as this.
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"Jesse!" The plate Riley was drying fell noisily to the counter as she herself knelt at her brother's side, shaking his slim shoulders. When he would not respond, she grabbed the phone from the counter, tried to dial her mother's cell, slipped, and tried again. This time she was successful, and as the phone rang endlessly, she checked Jesse's wrists for a pulse, finding it very faint.
She hung up after leaving a panicked message on her mother's phone, swiftly dialing 9-1-1. Within minutes, an ambulance arrived at her door, and paramedics were attending to her brother. She leaned against the refrigerator, breathing deeply, praying he would be alright.
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Her jaw clenched in sudden resolve, and she left the hospital room, with a stunned mother and a puzzled Dr. Lambert in her wake.
She hadn't known, couldn't have, since she paid little attention to her family in general, much less her brother. Now she wished she had.
He was so young, so vulnerable. Why did he have to be sick? Why had God chosen him, her only brother, to have this disease?
"God," Riley sank into the driver's seat of her car, placing her head in her hands. "Why?"
She drove swiftly onto the freeway, the road signs barely registering in her scrambled mind. Eventually, she exited into a residential area, pulling up outside of the townhouse owned by her best friend, Tyler Connelly.
Knocking sharply on his door, she stamped her feet, standing in the bitter winter wind on his front porch.
"Rei?" Tyler leaned groggily on the door frame, peering at her in a way that would have been most humorous had the situation been different.
"My brother's in the hospital and he might die," Riley blurted.
Tyler's eyes snapped open.
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"Wow," was all Tyler could say, after Riley had reiterated everything she had learned. Her brother had a life-threatening disease, and she hadn't even known!
"No one knew. He hadn't said anything, not even to Mom. Lord knows why," Riley threw her hands in the air, pacing Tyler's living room anxiously.
"Here, have some comfort food," Tyler tossed her a pint of ice cream and a spoon, which she caught deftly.
"Thanks," she replied.
Tyler sat on the arm of the couch, watching Riley eat the ice cream, and said thoughtfully, "It's not your fault, you know."
"No one said it was," Riley snapped angrily.
"Rei, I'm your best friend; have been since we were kids. I can tell you blame yourself."
Riley sighed, closing her eyes in defeat. It was true. She blamed herself for Jesse's sickness, for not being there when he needed her. For not being a better sister. Tyler stood and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, rubbing her back as her tears soaked the front of his shirt.
Tyler finally coerced her into watching Pretty Woman. By the end of the movie, the ice cream was gone, Tyler was trying not to cry during the scene where Edward arrives at Vivian's apartment to whisk her away in a black stretch limo, and Riley was out cold, wrapped safely in Tyler's arms on the over-stuffed couch.
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