Chapter Twelve
Third Person POV
The following day...
"...dad, I am so sorry I haven't been here...I should have known to...ugh, what can I do, dad? Tell me what I can do..." Jasper plead with a tremble in his voice as he sat beside his ailing father, clutching his hand but being mindful of the plastic tube running from a prominent vein to the medicine drip bag hanging overhead.
Jasper's father, aged and telling of his failing health but with a pleasant smile seemingly always fixed on his face, opened his matching blue eyes a little wider before regarding his son.
"Jasper...son...there are just some things in this world that are out of everyone's control...this right now...my cancer...is one of them. But I am so happy to see you, son...you look like you're doing real good..." Mr. Whitlock spoke freely to his son, watching with ancient but wise eyes as Jasper continued to cry beside him.
"Dad..." Jasper lamented, asking for forgiveness, asking for advice, asking for solace, all in the single spoken word.
Jasper had not left the hospital room his father had been staying at whence he had arrived late the previous night.
The only time he had had a break from being with his father was when the nurses had made him leave so that Mr. Whitlock could rest.
Jasper had fallen asleep in the waiting room.
All of his fathers' doctors had spoken to him at some point during the passed twenty-four hours, all of them explaining in their own way exactly what was wrong with his father.
Jasper could only make sense of one thing, though.
His father was dying.
Now, as Jasper clung to the man who had raised and cared for him, had accepted everything about him from beginning to end, who had been there for all of it, Jasper could not stop his tears from flowing down his raw cheeks.
As Jasper's mother had already passed away several years ago, Jasper felt like another piece of him was being sectioned off as he now saw his father this way.
"...enough with all that heavy stuff...I want to know...more about that man you were telling me about..." Jasper's father chimed merrily, his cobalt eyes sparkling as they blinked amiably at Jasper's stunned, emotional face, the old man wise to his son's mind having to switch gears with a call for such a topic.
Jasper sniffed before speaking, trying to reign in his usually firm voice so he could try to be strong for his father.
"Edward? Well, he..." Jasper struggled at first to sort his thoughts, his mind having been caught up in a whirlwind ever since the moment the news of his father's declining health had reached him at Mason Manor, but then a single idea formed clearly and concisely within him, shutting out everything else completely.
This might be the last chance Jasper would have to tell his father how happy he was.
"...he's wonderful, dad...he lives in this huge house where suits of armor line the hallways and gigantic paintings cover the walls. Every room is...beautiful with different colors and they're filled with things he has collected over the years. And Edward, he's...so kind to me. He's always so calm and collected and he takes great care of me...he also has this maid named Maria who I've become really good friends with...but Edward...he's special, dad," Jasper spoke truthfully, his mind relaxing a little as he remembered the enormous mansion, the various rooms he and Edward had wandered into like a never-ending adventure, and the wonderland of discovery that had taken place like a forbidden, childhood secret made truth.
"Hmm..." Jasper's father seemed to relish in Jasper's colorful depiction, enjoying his son's exuberance by his bedside, "...he sounds like a real catch, son. Are you happy with him? Does he make you happy...?"
Jasper blinked at his father, their sapphire orbs locked as Jasper knew exactly what the older gentleman was really asking him.
His father wanted to know if Jasper would be alright and have someone there for him after he passed.
Jasper swallowed the lump forming in his throat down upon considering such a notion.
"Yes...he does. I love him," Jasper answered soulfully.
X
Meanwhile, at the Mason Manor...
Sweat flew from the lone man's lovely but screwed face as Edward Masen hurled another elegant wooden chair to the wall with astounding might, smashing the expensive furniture that rained splinters to the soiled floor below.
Edward breathed hard, his body exhausted, his muscles protesting even continuing to stand as the sullen heir wavered on his feet for a moment, barely missing the overturned table and several fragments of destroyed artifacts that lie scattered in every direction.
His clothes were of the day before, soaked through with perspiration from constantly pushing his body passed the point of collapsing, mixed horribly with tear stains from hours ago that had long dried on Edward's cheeks and shirt.
His usually calculative emerald orbs were painfully raw from the seemingly unstoppable bouts of crying that had left him empty and scathing, his eyes now holding no other emotion other than furious rage, as he continued to wreck the things that used to make his home extraordinary.
Edward let loose another terrifying scream from his sore throat as he kicked the closest fallen item, sending it sailing to crash into the corner, before he used both of his hands to push over the towering armoire, the exertion needed to send the heavy item banging noisily onto the floor being exactly what Edward seemed to crave.
The man with fallen locks the color of autumn spice, sank to his knees in despair, his scratchy eyes and aching throat barely enabling him to weep any longer for the pain was too great, and Edward placed his hands flat on the floor in maddening defeat.
Edward had stood his father's inconsolable hatred of him, ever since he had been a child.
Edward had got passed his mother's premature death, even though it had been something he had never fully understood.
He had found clarity in his solitude and forged a certain niche in this world despite every misfortune that had befallen him.
Edward...however...could not stand this.
He could not stand having the one goddamn thing he had ever treasured...the first thing he had ever truly loved...taken away from him.
But, Jasper had not been taken away.
He had left.
Edward's body shook with fear, with anger, with self-loathing and malice towards everything else in the world, as he squeezed his hurting eyes shut and pounded his fists on the floor.
At the back of the room, Maria poked her dark head in through the small opening she had made with the door to observe the master of the house.
"Oh...Edward...no..." Maria whispered to herself, her eyes watering at the pitiful yet frightening sight of her employer like this, self-destructing.
Maria knew that Edward trusted her, as she had been there through the bad and the good with the young Masen prodigy.
The Spanish-speaking woman had been there to cheer him up after his long doctor visits, she had been the one to fetch his medications and see to his needs no matter how eccentric, she had been the one to hear his most precious secrets simply because no one else had been around and he has asked her to stay.
They had an understanding.
They had...a friendship.
Maria knew that Edward trusted her, and the maid was torn inside as she watched as he wrecked his beautiful house and completely lose all care for himself.
"Um...excuse me...Edward...look, I'm coming in..." Maria knew that she had a job to do, one that she was happy to see through as she had long ago accepted that she would be forever loyal to her enigmatic host and personal friend, as she steadied her voice and squared her shoulders before entering the room.
"Get out!" Edward roared to the best of his abilities, his words sounding more like dried paper crumpling, as he ceased his useless beating of the floor and simply remained slumped as he was, his tearless sobs wracking his frame.
Maria swallowed down her fear, forcing her nerves away, as she approached Edward carefully.
"Edward...let me help you...let me help you," Maria said warmly as she neared the unpredictable man in the center of the utterly disheveled room, the maid having to cautiously step over bits of wood and glass and porcelain that littered the floor.
Edward reared his arm back, throwing a broken piece of a chair leg behind him that missed Maria by a wide berth but made the woman halt her steps in panic for a moment.
"Edward...I'm not going to go away...let me help you," Maria continued to speak kindly to her employer, having now come up behind him and slowly knelt down by his side.
"Why did this have to happen...Maria...I did everything...everything that I planned...I still lost him..." Edward began speaking for the first time since Jasper had left, his voice impossibly hard to hear and even more heartbreaking to Maria once he did so.
Maria inhaled a great deal of air, her thoughts clearly coming to her as to how she needed to explain the situation for what it was.
She needed to explain it...as if Edward were a child.
"Edward...sometimes, we can't plan out every single detail. Sometimes things get in the way, life...gets in the way. What happened with Jasper's father could not have been known beforehand. You did nothing wrong," Maria tried to soothe the fragile man crouched so desperately beside her, the maid resting a gentle hand on his shoulder and she could feel the shiver of failing adrenaline, from lack of water and food, coursing through Edward's frame.
Maria knew what she needed to say next, what Edward would really listen to.
"He'll come back, Edward," Maria spoke solidly, her voice certain and powerful, like a golden bell ringing loudly and concisely in the midst of a warring battlefield.
This time, Edward slowly turned his head towards her, revealing his restless, reddened eyes and unhealthy pale skin.
"...you think so...?" Edward asked in a pleading voice, his damp cheeks and dark circles underneath his eyes paining Maria even more, but at the time, strengthening her resolve to see her employer happy tenfold.
Maria smiled in earnest, glad to see even the tiniest ray of hope present within Edward's features.
"I promise."
