Don’t Leave Me

by Sm1l3n0wcrylat3r

Gordo, a talented football player is certain he’ll receive a an athletic scholarship to a top college and Lizzie intends to follow. When Gordo can’t shake what he thinks is a virus, Lizzie persuades him to see a doctor. Gordo’s test results are alarming

12. His Message

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Lizzie McGuire characters.

Chapter 12-His Message

Sam: "Lizzie, your mother and I are very concerned about you."

Sam McGuire sat on the side of Lizzie's bed, looking helpless, his big hands folded in his lap.

Lizzie: "I'm fine, Dad."

Jo: "Your not fine! You don't eat, you don't go to school, you don't see your friends. Lizzie, you've laid in that bed for over a month. You've lost so much weight we hardly recognize you. Please, honey, snap out of it." she interjected.

Lizzie peered dully at her parents. She wondered why they didn't leave her alone. Food had lost its taste and appeal. And she'd tried to go back to school after Gordo's funeral, but she couldn't concentrate and she couldn't keep up in her classes. All she wanted to do was sleep. Because when she was asleep, she could forget how much she hurt.

Lizzie: "I'll try to get up later. Right now, I'm too tired." she said in an effort to placate her parents.

She saw her father glance up at her mother. He sighed and touched her shoulder through her bedcovers.

Sam: "I miss him too, Lizzie. Every day, I think about him. But what you're doing to yourself isn't right. You can't curl up and die too."

Curl up and die. The idea didn't sound so bad to her. Without Gordo, she certainly couldn't think about living.

Sam: "Why don't you get up, get dressed, and come into school with me."

Lizzie: "I'll make you late."

Her bedside clock read eight-thirty. Usually, he was gone by seven-thirty.

Sam: "Who cares? I'm the coach, remember? Besides, first period is my free period this semester. Come on….drive in with me."

Lizzie: "Not today. You and Mom go on without me. I'll rest and maybe when you get home this afternoon, I'll feel better."

Her father rose, but her mother kicked off her shoes.

Jo: "If you're staying home again, I will too."

Lizzie was mildly surprised. Her mother had just recently got a job as a secretary for a lawyer. She rarely missed work.

Lizzie: "You don't have to stay home. I'm just going to stay in bed today." her thoughts grew fuzzy.

Lizzie heard her parents whispering at her door. Then her father left and her mother came back to her bedside.

Jo: "Miranda called last night. She wants to come over after school."

Lizzie: "I don't think I'm up for visitors. Tell her I'll call her later."

Jo: "Lizzie, you've been putting her off for days. She's your best friend and she calls everyday asking about you."

Lizzie felt tears brim in her eyes. All this conversation was confusing her, upsetting her. She sniffed and turned over to face the wall.

Lizzie: "Please, not today. I……I just don't want to have to see anybody today."

Minutes later, she heard her mother softly close the bedroom door, and soon afterward, Lizzie fell into the welcoming arms of a deep, dark, dreamless sleep.

Afternoon sunlight streamed through Lizzie's bedroom window, awakening her. Someone had pulled up her window shade, and the winter sun cut a path across her bed and pillow. She buried her face under her covers, but the light was relentless. She wondered who had done such a thing.

She sighed and realized that the only way to shut out the sun was to get up and pull down the shade, but her arms and legs felt almost too heavy with exhaustion to move. She forced herself upright, staggered to the window, leaned over her desk, and fumbled at the cord for the shade.

From the kitchen below she heard her mother moving around and smelled the aroma of simmering chicken soup. Normally, the aroma would make her mouth water, but today it made her feel nauseous. She yanked down the shade and returned to her bed, then buried herself under the covers until she heard her mother come into her room.

Jo: "How about supper in bed?" her mother asked cheerfully.

Setting down a tray with soup, crackers, milk, and green Jell-O inside. When Lizzie wasa small child, green gelatin had been her favorite.

Lizzie: "I'm not hungry."

Her mother at on the bed and pulled Lizzie's covers from off her head.

Jo: "Look at me, Lizzie."

Lizzie struggled to focus.

Jo: "This has got to stop. Your father and I can't bear to see you wasting away like this."

Lizzie: "Please, Mom, don't-"

Jo: "No. You listen! I've talked with our doctor, and he says that the way you've been acting is a cause for alarm. When I told him how much weight you've lost, he said it might be necessary not only to get you counseling, but to hospitalize you and put you on an IV."

Lizzie wanted to be angry, but she didn't have the energy for it.

Jo: "So sit up and eat or I will drive you to the hospital personally and check you in."

Wearily, Lizzie obeyed.

Lizzie: "I'm up, but I still don't want to eat."

Jo: "You have a visitor." her mother announced without preamble.

Lizzie: "Tell Miranda to come back tomorrow."

Jo: "It isn't Miranda."

The bedroom door inched open, and Roberta peeked into her room.

Roberta: "Hi, Lizzie. Can I come in?"

Lizzie hadn't seen her since the funeral, and seeing her now caused fresh pain to stab at her heart. Still, although Roberta looked tired and she'd lost weight, she also looked serene.

Lizzie: "Sure. Come in."

Jo moved so that Roberta could take her place on the bed.

Roberta: "Your mother tells me your not doing so good."

Feeling betrayed, Lizzie glared at her mother.

Lizzie: "I'm tired, that's all."

Roberta: "You're depressed. I've been depressed too, but not like you."

She placed her hands on Lizzie's.

Roberta: "I lost my only son, Lizzie. I'll never get over the pain. But I will get on with my life."

Lizzie: "What do you mean?"

Roberta: "I'm moving out to New York. Steve's offered me a job. He and Nancy are starting a small production company and they need an office manager. Gordo talked to him before the surgery and asked Steve to take care of me."

A wistful smile turned up the corners of her mouth.

Roberta: "Just like Gordo, to be worried about me. Anyway, I'm going where there are no memories to haunt me every day."

The news jolted Lizzie. Her last link with Gordo had been broken.

Lizzie: "When will you go?"

Roberta: "Just as soon as my house sells."

Tears filled Lizzie's eyes.

Lizzie: "I'll miss you."

Roberta: "We've been through a lot together through the years. I've grown to love you like a daughter. That's why it hurts me to see you harming yourself this way."

Lizzie dropped her gaze, unable to speak around the lump in her throat.

Roberta: "Gordo wouldn't have wanted you to do this to yourself, you know. He wanted the best for you. He wanted you to be happy."

Lizzie: "How can I be happy without him?"

Roberta: "I don't know…….all I know is that someday, you will be. You'll be happy……and you'll fall in love again."

Lizzie shook her head adamantly.

Lizzie: "I'll never love anybody the way I loved Gordo. I won't risk being hurt again."

Roberta: "Love is always a risk. Just like Gordo's surgery."

Roberta smoothed Lizzie's tangled hair.

Roberta: "Just before he went back to the hospital, the bone marrow donor program had found him a match."

Lizzie gasped.

Lizzie: "They did? Why didn't he tell me? Why didn't he get the transplant?"

Roberta: "Because even if the transplant had worked, the tumor wasn't going away. He made the decision to risk surgery and do the transplant afterward."

Lizzie: "Are you saying he knew he might not live through the operation from the start?"

Roberta: "Yes."

Lizzie: "But why?" the information tortured her.

Roberta: "Because in his mind, the benefit outweighed the risks. With the tumor gone, the bone marrow transplant had a better chance of working."

Lizzie: "But if he'd had the transplant first, maybe he'd still be alive. He took the risk for nothing."

Roberta shook her head.

Roberta: "He told me that life is full of risks and that if a person doesn't take them, life is very shallow. And he said to me, 'Mom, dead is dead.' Gordo hated dying by degrees. He told me that he'd rather have dying over with all at once than have it happen bit by bit."

Lizzie felt no consolation.

Lizzie: "What am I going to do without him?"

Roberta: "You're going to live your life. You're going to honor him by doing things you would have done if he'd never gotten sick and died."

Lizzie: "How can I?"

Roberta: "The same as all of us…..one day at a time."

Roberta put her arms around Lizzie and held her for a long time.

Roberta: "I'll let you know when my house sells. Please come see me before I move. And once I settle in New York, I want you to visit me there. Please take care of yourself, Lizzie."

When she was gone, Lizzie flopped wearily back against her pillow, going over the meaning of Roberta's words in her mind. Gordo had known he would probably die, but he had the surgery anyway. She saw his face, his thumbs up, his broad, sunny smile as he disappeared behind the OR doors.

Her mother stepped forward, holding the food tray. She set in on Lizzie's lap and picked up the bowl of soup, stirring it, until the aroma and warmth filled the air.

Jo: "Listen to Roberta, Lizzie. She knows what she's saying. Life is for living."

Lizzie felt an unbearable weight of sadness press against her chest, but her mother looked so expectant, Lizzie reached for the soup spoon.

Jo: "Please let me help you." she said softly.

Their gazes locked, and Lizzie saw a tenderness in the depths of her mother's eyes that shook her.

Lizzie: "All right." she whispered.

Her mother smiled, ladled the soup into the spoon, and held it to Lizzie's lips, feeding her slowly and expertly, as she hadn't done since she was a tiny child.

It took Lizzie another three weeks to regain her strength and begin putting on lost pounds. She also began studying at home, attempting assignments, doing take home test. She began to talk to her friends again and decided to return to school the first of April.

Her return was bittersweet. Gordo's presence haunted the halls, and sometimes she could swear she saw his baseball cap bobbing through the crowds as they moved between classes. But kids were genuinely glad to see her, stopping her, talking to her, sharing memories of Gordo with her. Her mother helped her tremendously with makeup work and arranged special tutoring for the classes Lizzie was too far behind in to catch up with on her own. She structured a summer tutorial program, so that even though Lizzie wouldn't technically graduate with her class in June, she would at least be able to receive her diploma at the end of the summer.

One Saturday, Lizzie was reading on the back deck in a patch of sunlight, a blanket thrown over her lap, when her father rushed out the door.

Sam: "Honey, quick! Come with me!"

Startled, she gawked at him. His eyes were glowing, his expression excited.

Lizzie: "What's happening?"

Sam: "I can't tell you. I have to show you. Come on."

Lizzie: "Dad, I really don't want-"

He tugged her to her feet.

Sam: "You have to some with me to the football stadium and see this with your own eyes. You're not going to believe it, Lizzie. But you have to see it."

Lizzie hadn't thought about the new football stadium in months. And she didn't want to see it now, but her father was so excited, she couldn't refuse him. At the stadium, he screeched to a halt, leaped from the car, and hurried to open the door.

Sam: "You need to get up high. Then you can see it better." he said taking her hand.

Lizzie climbed the cement bleachers obediently, forcing herself not to think about all the times she'd come to the stadium with Gordo.

When they were about a third of the way up, Lizzie had to stop and catch her breath.

Lizzie: "Sorry, I'm out of shape."

Sam: "No problem. This is high enough anyway. Look."

He pointed down toward the field. She turned and let her gaze follow his fingers. A fine stubble of wild grass blanketed the rough, rutted field with green fuzz. But there was something else sprouting in the center of the field. Green stems, arranged in neat rows, were emerging from the caked earth. She squinted.

Lizzie: "What's growing?"

Sam: "Tulips."

Lizzie: "Why would you plant tulips in the middle of your football field? You told me it had to be smoothed out."

Sam: "I didn't plant them."

Slowly, the truth dawned on her.

Lizzie: "Gordo?"

Sam: "I'm sure of it. It'll take a couple of weeks until they're all up and blooming, but once they're finished, I think you'll see a pattern f some kind. Like a design he planned out."

She remembered Gordo's words: "If it's possible to send a message from heaven, I'll get one to you." Tears blurred her eyes.

Lizzie: "But how? When?"

Sam: "He probably planted it in October, or November at the latest."

Lizzie: "Right after he went back on chemo."

Sam: "Probably so."

She clapped her hand across her mouth to stifle a sob. Her father pulled her into his arms.

Sam: "Lizzie, it's all right. Go ahead and cry. He meant this for you, honey. He did this even though he knew he might not be here to share it with you."

She imagined Gordo arriving in the dark of night, digging holes in the hard ground, dropping each bulb into each hole, and covering it over so that no one could tell what he'd done. Like thawing snow, she felt her grief begin to soften, her terrible pain began to melt.

Every day afterward, Lizzie returned to the stadium, climbed the steps, and watched Gordo's testimony of tulips bloom in a rainbow of spring colors-red, yellow, purple, hot pink. The stems stood tall and straight, one series arranged in a single line, another in a crudely shaped heart, the final one in the shape of the letter U. I love you. Just as Gordo had carved on the oak tree in her backyard the summer before.

Late one afternoon, while she waited for her father down on the field, a bulldozer roared to life and rolled through double gates at one of the end zones.

Lizzie: "No!" she cried, bolting toward the big yellow machine.

Suddenly her father emerged from one of the stadium tunnels and parked his body squarely in front of the dozer.

Sam: "What do you think you're doing?" he yelled up at the driver.

Driver: "Got a work order, buddy. I need to level the field so the sod trucks can come in and get planted tomorrow." he shouted over the noise of the engine.

Lizzie: "Dad, don't let him." she begged.

Sam: "Not yet. It's not ready to be leveled yet." he told the driver.

Driver: "But this work order-"

Sam: "I'm the football coach at this school, and I'll take responsibility for changing your order."

The driver looked doubtful.

Driver: "I don't know…."

Lizzie: "Not today." she said boldly.

Driver: "Okay. So when?"

Lizzie: "When the tulips finish blooming."

Driver: "What?!"

The driver looked at her as if she were insane.

Sam: "You heard the lady. When the tulips are gone." he told him.

She left them arguing about it and walked out onto the field, where she knelt next to a row of colorful flowers and gently fingered the waxy petals.

In her mind's eyes, she saw Gordo's face, his playful grin, and she smiled back at him.

Lizzie: "So you're still sending me flowers. Do you think you can fix everything with flowers?" she said to his image.

In the hazy sunlight, his image nodded, gave her a thumbs up, and faded away into the spring air.

Lizzie blinked, glanced around, and realized that she was standing by herself in the middle of a football field blooming with tulips. Gordo was gone. But he was waiting for her somewhere. Somewhere, on the other side of all her tomorrow's…

'Found myself today

Oh I found myself and ran away

Something pulled me back

The voice of reason I forgot I had

All I know is you're not here to say

What you always used to say

But it's written in the sky tonight

So I won't give up

No I won't break down

Sooner than it seems life turns around

And I will be strong

Even if it all goes wrong

When I'm standing in the dark I'll still believe

Someone's watching over me

Seen that ray of light
And it's shining on my destiny
Shining all the time
And I wont be afraid
To follow everywhere it's taking me
All I know is yesterday is gone
And right now I belong
To this moment to my dreams

So I won't give up
No I won't break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around
And I will be strong
Even if it all goes wrong
When I'm standing in the dark I'll still believe
Someone's watching over me

It doesn't matter what people say
And it doesn't matter how long it takes
Believe in yourself and you'll fly high
And it only matters how true you are
Be true to yourself and follow your heart

So I won't give up
No I won't break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around
And I will be strong
Even if it all goes wrong
When I'm standing in the dark I'll still believe
That I won't give up
No I won't break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around
And I will be strong
Even when it all goes wrong
When I'm standing in the dark I'll still believe
That someone's watching over
Someone's watching over
Someone's watching over me

Someone's watching over me'

A/N: And that's the end of my story. I hope you guys liked it, please review. The song was "Someone's Watching Over Me" by Hilary Duff. Please read the next chapter it's an author's note for everyone. I still have some things to say. Please review!