IMPORTANT! Must Read-
Ok guys.. this is the beginning the second part of this fic. I started a whole new part instead of making another fic so it's easier for people to catch up in case they haven't read the whole story. It begins at the beginning of their secondsemester in college. It'll be confusing at first, but read on and you'll understand. Flashbacks are in italics and will tell you all you need to know about what's going on. There's going to be a whole lot of flashbacks in the upcoming chapters to clue you guys in. Hope it doesn't get too confusing! Enjoy...
PART II- Chapter 1.
Syd's POVThe crisp air of the fall season came creeping into the apartment as I huddled up on Vaughn's side of the bed and stared aimlessly at the TV. San Francisco had gotten cold the in the past week welcoming in the new season.
His familiar scent still lingered on his pillow as I brought it up to my nose and inhaled deeply. It had been exactly 3 weeks since I had seen him. His face was never far from my mind as every second was spent thinking of him.
I thought about his adorably disheveled hair in the morning and waking up to his beautiful green eyes. I thought about the way he kissed my shoulder before falling asleep and how he never failed to tell me I was beautiful and that he loved me. I thought about his forehead wrinkles and the way his jaw would be clenched when I purposely made him jealous.
A knock at the door brought me out of my reverie. Weiss came strolling into the room holding a glass of hot chocolate for me.
"Here you go Syd. I made your favorite before you go to bed." He said cheerfully, taking a seat at the edge of the bed.
"Thanks Weiss." I answered softly.
"You miss him, don't you?" He asked.
All I could do was nod my head as tears threatened to fall from my eyes.
"I know Syd. But you guys are going to get through this because you love each other. You two are the strongest couple I've ever met." Coming over to give me a Kleenex, Weiss patted me on the shoulder.
"It's just so hard Weiss. Being away from him hurts so much. It's not just an emotional pain either. I'm physically hurting without him. I can't eat, I can't sleep, and I can't even concentrate on school. I need him. I need Vaughn."
Sobs racked my body, as I could no longer hold myself together. Weiss pulled me into a tight hug while he told me everything was going to be ok.
Exhaustion soon took over and I drifted off into a restless sleep, thinking about everything that had happened during the summer.
FLASHBACK"Ok, your house or mine, first?" Vaughn asked as we got off the freeway and approached our neighborhood.
"Well, we went to my house first on spring break so let's go see your mom first." I said excitedly while I couldn't contain my excitement for finally being home.
Unloading Vaughn's entire luggage was a pain in the ass because he managed to pack every single article of clothing to bring home. I teased him about it telling him he had more clothes than a girl.
As soon as he unlocked his front door, Donovan came running up to him and lightly scratching at Vaughn's legs.
"Donny!" Vaughn yelled. "How's my little pup doing? I missed you so much Donovan!" Bending down, Vaughn enveloped Donovan in his arms and picked him up.
"Hey Donovan.." I greeted him while I scratched the spot under his chin.
"Hey Mom! Where are you?" Vaughn shouted, letting Donovan jump down from his arms.
"I'm in the backyard!" Amelié shouted back.
Taking a hold of my hand, Vaughn pulled me close to him and lead me through the door of his backyard.
"Oh, my Michael!" Amelié said cheerfully and took him into his arms. "How is my only son doing?"
"I'm good Mom. Your flowers look great out here." Vaughn said as they finally pulled apart and looked around his mother's garden.
"Sydney, my dear. Come over here sweetheart!"
Walking over to Amelié, I gave her a tight hug and then a kiss on her cheek.
"And how are you two doing?" She questioned while she eyed the both of us.
"We're doing great mom." Vaughn answered while he draped his arm across my shoulders and planted a kiss on my temple.
For the next couple of hours, the three of us sat on the patio of Vaughn's backyard chatting away about our upcoming plans for the summer. Amelié whipped up some delicious sandwiches and lemonade for lunch as we munched down on them hungrily.
When we finally decided to take a ride to my house, my dad still hadn't returned home from work. Instead, there was a note on the refrigerator door. It read-
Sydney-
I know you're coming home tonight, but I will be at work until 7:30. Don't make plans for dinner, I will bring home some food from O Solo' Mio. Tell Michael he can join us if he likes.
Surveying the note for a minute, I pinned it back up on the refrigerator and went to inform Vaughn of what was going on. He had already made himself comfortable on our leather couch that was parked in front of a large, flat screen TV. Having that TV never made any sense to me though since my dad wasn't really a TV kind of guy.
Taking a seat next to Vaughn, I slipped off my shoes and brought my legs up to my chest.
"What are you watching?" I asked as I took a sideways glance at him.
"Meet the Parents. It's at commercial though. You know, your dad kind of reminds me of Robert De Niro's character. I can completely see him giving me the 'family circle of trust' speech." He answered laughing.
"So, we have a couple of hours to kill before my dad gets home. What do you want to do?"
Scooting myself closer to Vaughn, I slowly unzipped the top of his sweatshirt and started planting wet kisses around his neck.
"Oh, Sydney. Don't do that. You know what happens when you start doing that." He warned.
I decided to ignore his pleading and continued my assault on his neck. Vaughn could no longer ignore what I was doing and brought his hands up to the patch of bare skin on my back. Swiftly, I slipped my hands under both his sweatshirt and t-shirt and whipped it off of his body.
I climbed on top of his lap to run my hands up and down his smooth chest while he worked on the buttons of my shirt. Bringing my mouth to his, I kissed him hard on the mouth, slipping my tongue in during the process.
A slow moan escaped from both of our mouths while we became lost in our kiss. My shirt soon joined Vaughn's on the floor and I began work on the buckle of his belt.. As he laid me down on the couch and brought his body on top of mine, we both laughed at my poor ability to undo a belt buckle.
Right before, my pants were about to come off, we both heard the garage door begin to open.
"Shit!" Vaughn yelled out, throwing his body off of mine and frantically searching for his clothes.
We both had exactly 20 seconds to dress and compose ourselves before my father came walking in the door.
"Here!" Vaughn hissed, throwing me my shirt.
I've never seen Vaughn move so fast in my life as I watched him put his shirt back on and buckle the belt on his pants. Thank god my lack of dexterity wasn't delaying me from buttoning my shirt or else we would've been in a lot of trouble.
After fully dressing, the both of us hopped back on the couch and acted like we were watching TV. My dad entered 10 seconds later holding his briefcase in one hand, and a bag full of takeout food in the other.
"Dad!" I yelled, jumping up off the couch and running to him to give him a tight hug.
"Sydney… it is great to see you home. You look a little flushed? Is everything ok?" He asked.
"Oh… yeah. Everything is fine. I was just, umm, carrying my luggage upstairs and it was really heavy."
My dad actually accepted my lame excuse and dismissed it without any question. Just then, Vaughn came strolling over to shake my dad's hand.
"Hello Michael. It's good to see you again."
"Thank you Jack, it's good to see you too." Vaughn responded.
"I'd be more than happy to have you stay for dinner." My father offered.
"I'd love to."
END FLASHBACK
Vaughn's POVI awoke in a cold sweat once again in the middle of the night. The dreams I were beginning to have were so vivid and real. In any other situation, these dreams would be thought of as good dreams and dreams to remind you of the wonderful things that had happened. But, these dreams only seemed to haunt me. For these dreams reminded me of how much I missed Sydney.
I would see her face in my head. Her gorgeous, flawless face with her chocolate brown eyes and long eye lashes. I often dreamt of all the times we cuddled up on my bed and kisses we shared in the morning.
Slipping out of my bed, I went downstairs to grab a glass of water. The cold water felt good on my dry throat as I gulped down two full glasses.
Before walking back to my room, I peeked through the open crack of my mom's bedroom to see how she was doing. Her frail little body was curled up under the blankets as it looked like she was sleeping peacefully. But, I never knew for sure since the nausea would sometimes awaken her during the night.
I decided that I wouldn't be able to sleep and sat down on the wooden rocking chair that was next to my mom's bed. All I could think about when I watched her was how she didn't deserve anything like this. After all that she had done for me and for everyone else, she was the last person to deserve this kind of sickness.
Tears rolled down my face while I remembered the day she told me she had cancer.
FlashbackIt was a warm July afternoon and Syd had just left my house to go have lunch with her dad while my mom entered somberly. Immediately I knew something was wrong with her. The look on her face and her tear stained cheeks made my stomach drop to the floor.
"Mom? Mom what's wrong?" I asked concerned while I got up from the kitchen table to greet her.
"Oh Michael… you better sit down for this." She responded softly.
After putting her purse down on the kitchen counter, she sat down on the wooden chair opposite of mine.
"Michael," She said seriously as she took both my hands in hers. "I didn't want to tell you this, but a couple of weeks ago, they found a lump in my breast at my yearly mammogram. I didn't want to concern you over nothing since I didn't know if it was serious or not. But, I went back to the doctor's today and they've confirmed that the tumor is cancerous."
"No!" I shouted while I got up from the kitchen table and pounded my first hard into the wall. "This can't he happening mom! Not to you. You don't deserve this."
"Michael, please." My mother pleaded as she walked to the other side of the table and tried to pull me into a hug. "I'm going to fight this. I have too much to live for, you hear me? I'm not going anywhere."
"I can't lose you mom." I cried. "I already lost dad. If I were to lose you I wouldn't be able to take it."
"Shhh… It's going to be ok, my son." She whispered.
After I was finally able to compose myself, my mom informed me of what they were going to do to fight the cancer.
"First, the doctor's have told me that I have every right to believe that I'm going to beat this. I am in stage II of breast cancer and the good news is the cancer hasn't moved to my lymph nodes. I'm going to have to go under chemotherapy for 8 weeks so the tumor can shrink. After that, I am going to have surgery to remove the tumor completely. Then, another 6 weeks of radiation to get rid of the remaining cancer cells." She explained.
Slowly nodding my head, I took in the information she was telling me.
"When do you start with the chemo?" I asked.
"Next week Wednesday is my first session."
"Does that mean you're going to be sick and lose your hair?"
"Yes." She responded somberly.
I kneeled down in front of her and grabbed both of her hands before speaking.
"I'm going to take care of you mom." I promised. "Every step of the way."
"I know you will Michael. When you go back to school in August, the hospital is going to provide me with a nurse to watch over me."
"No…" I shook my head. "I'm not going back to school. I'm going to stay with you. I'll take a semester off, mom. I don't care. I'm going to be here for you."
"No, Michael. It's fine. You need to go back and pursue your college education. I'm going to be fine." She refused.
"Mom, let me take care of you. You can't convince me to leave because I'm not going to. I'm going to help you fight this."
"You are so stubborn. You are just like your father." She told me, shaking her head.
"After dad died, I promised him I would take care of you. And that's what I'm going to do."
END FLASHBACK
I couldn't shake the memory from my head as it played over and over in my head. The worst part of this whole nightmare was watching my mom's health disintegrate in front of my eyes.
Since I could remember, my mother had always been the cheerful type who was always active and smiling. Nothing ever could get her down. One of her best qualities was her strength and everyone admired it.
And, even though my mom was fighting with everything she had in her, she was slowly breaking down. The nausea was getting to her and she was ashamed that she was losing her hair. Her love was being in the kitchen and cooking, but she could no longer continue her favorite hobby, as the fumes from the food would make her sick.
I'd often have to order takeout for myself since my mom wouldn't be able to cook. The look in her eyes killed me when she saw that she could no longer provide my favorite meals for me. But, I told her that it was ok. I told her that after she gets better that she could go back to cooking everything her heart desired.
It was 5am when I finally left my mom's room and made it back to mine. I still couldn't sleep so I went on my computer instead. I so desperately wanted to hear Syd's voice, but didn't want to wake her knowing she would have to go to class the next morning. Instead, I chose to e-mail her to let her know I was thinking of her.
Although, I tried to hide it from my mom, I knew I was slowly getting depressed. It wasn't the type of depression that made me want to go jump off a bridge. But, I was constantly feeling sad and bummed out.
Besides the fact that I missed Syd to death, I missed how my life used to be 5 months earlier. I missed school, living in San Francisco, hanging out with Weiss and Francie, and not having to worry about my mom.
She would have chemo treatments every three weeks and for that one week after she had it, she would be miserable. I'd have to constantly be by her side to make sure that she was fine.
For those two weeks after that, it was like a glimpse in the past because she would be ok. She wouldn't be sick and she'd be able to do pretty much everything she had done before. Sometimes we were able to act normal and happy. But, once her treatment rolled around again, we were right back in the nightmare.
The one thing I wished was that Syd was with me and I wouldn't have to go through this alone. Although I had to force her to return to San Francisco, I needed her like never before. Somehow, I knew that if she was by my side, I would be ok. That I'd be able to get through this and know she wouldn't leave me.
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