Chapter 123

If I can just get through this lonesome day

As tears streamed steadily down her face, Robin was grateful her car knew the route as there was no way she could consciously navigate the familiar streets. She had suffered heartbreak before but this was quite possibly the first time her heart shattered. In one of her most difficult moments, grace, kindness and compassion had all deserted her and she felt as though she had betrayed herself. Had she really told him her failing protocol was his fault? Had she really tried to make him responsible for something that was not his?

She shook her head as her car turned down the well worn street. She had walked out - run out really - and had no idea if she was giving up or taking a break. A noisy discordant symphony played loudly in her head and she could not hear herself think.

Placing the car in park she rifled through her purse for her key and finally finding it, bolted from the car to the front door. Sliding her key in the lock, she slipped inside the house and called out for anyone who might be home. Relieved in many ways to be alone, she climbed the stairs and shuffled down the hall to her room. Even after all these years Mac had kept her room free for her. There were a few extra things stored in there and a desk had replaced the vanity that once filled the far wall but her bed was still there, many of her photos still graced the walls and most importantly, it still felt like home.

Toeing off her shoes, she pulled back the covers and crawled into bed. Her stomach was cramped, as though being slowly stabbed with hot pokers but as her chest heaved with silent sobs, she thought it was a manageable pain compared to what her heart felt like.

When Patrick walked out he had taken a large part of her with him and she had built new, stronger walls around what was left. It had seen her through his cardiac arrest, his two surgeries, his memory loss and his aphasia but it was not enough to get her through this. She was out of strength to power her way through yet another hurdle and that made her furious but what was galling to her was that she had taken all of her anger out on Patrick.

She had reason to be angry with him – there were unresolved issues such as his walking out – but what she had laid at his feet was so much more than that. Personal accountability was something she believed in strongly, at times her need to stick to that principle had caused her great pain but it was so much of who she was that she could not let it go even to save herself some grief. And was why she found her own behaviour with Patrick so puzzling and devastating. There was absolutely nothing she could say or do that would take back what she said. Forgiveness could not be possible. She had taken the one true thing in her life and blown it to bits because she was afraid, embarrassed and angry.

She tightened her grip around her stomach and pulled her legs to her chest trying to make herself as small as possible. She was half tempted to pull the covers over her head and just stay there until the world made sense again though she was not convinced it ever could.

She hated her disease. Hated it. She would go for long periods of time where she believed she was in control, that she ran her disease and not the other way around. But inevitably, the virus would wake up and remind her that she had no control over the situation. It would scream at her that she could take all the pills she wanted, she could invoke all the precautions she needed to live as full a life as possible but at the end of the day, it owned her.

Tears of consequence, tears of sadness, tears of anger, hurt and betrayal all gushed down her face and dampened the pillow under her head. She should have known that meningioma was never going to take Patrick from her, not so long as she could ruin it all by herself.
Rolling on to her back and staring up at the ceiling, she clenched her eyes shut as much to wish it all away as stem the tide of tears.

Opening her eyes, she took one breath and then another trying to slow everything down. She would start over, there was no question about that, she always started over. She was just sick to death of having to.

She reached for the teddy bear perched on the far corner of the bed and hugged it tightly to her chest, crying into its soft fur. A shattered heart was infinitely worse than a broken one. With a broken heart you just glued it back together and got on with it. When a heart shattered you first had to find all the pieces of it and then figure out how to make them all fit once more. And sometimes they just didn't.

xxxxx

Patrick pulled himself up from the floor and started to pace once again. Anger gave way to fear and fear was giving way to heartache. Picking up one of the throw cushions that lay haphazardly on the corner of the couch, he started to literally pound the stuffing out of it.
Smack. Smack. Smack.

He left. He did what he always did when things got tough – he ran. And in running he destroyed the foundation of his relationship with Robin. How could have been so stupid? How could he have ever believed that running away from her would be better for him than staying with her?

Smack. Smack. Smack.

Who had he become in the months before his surgery? Who was he to beat up on his father? To run out on the only woman he ever loved? To put her in a position where her health would be compromised? He had always been a selfish person, he knew that about himself, but he had never imagined himself a cruel one.

Smack. Smack. Smack.

Feathers started to float gracefully to the ground as his fist continued to bury itself in the soft cotton covering. He needed to know more. Even in the very little he remembered what was missing was the emotions. How had felt, how others had felt – he couldn't access that and without that context many of the memories were meaningless. He had made a list of things he wanted to do with her before he died and he wrote his father a letter telling him he forgave him. How did that reconcile with the terrible things he did? He had finally found someone who believed him worthy of being loved, who felt what he had to offer was worth taking a chance on and he had destroyed it. How could he have been so careless?

Smack. Smack. Smack.

Her protocol failed. The drugs that kept her alive failed and she needed new ones. The vice grip on his heart tightened and he sank onto the couch letting the beaten pillow tumble aimlessly to the floor. She must be terrified. She must be terrified because he was. He was not ready to accept that her HIV wasn't dormant, that it wasn't contained and leaving her alone.

I wish there had been an option for you.

He had told her that when he received his first dose of PEP. She had glued herself to his side and made sure he would not be alone as the demons and nightmares took hold. And they did. He dreamt of his death, of wasting away, he dreamt of losing everything that mattered to him but he would wake up and she would be there. He remembered that as clearly as if he were living it now. And here she was facing her own demons and nightmares and she could not tell him about it because he given her every reason not to trust him. Her life had been marked by people who left her and he was just one more name to add to the list.

He didn't know what to do but he knew that he needed to fix it. Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he flipped it open and texted the one person who would know what to do.

xxxx

Hearing the insistent knocking at the door he glanced down at his watch. 15 minutes. That had to be some kind of record. Rising tiredly to his feet, he shuffled to the front door and offered a weak smile as he opened it.

"Patty, what's wrong?" Noah asked, searching his face for a sign, any sign. The text had been simple. I need you. I'm in trouble. Six words were all it took to drop everything and break every speed limit to get to the apartment.

His eyes were huge and haunted as he stood out of the way to let his father in. Speaking was out of the question, there wasn't a word he could form. Knowing that, he had written out what he wanted to tell his father and picking up his white board, he handed it to him.

Robin's protocol failed. She's on a new one and hid it from me. I found out and confronted her. We fought – she said she couldn't tell me because I destroyed her trust when I left her. I ran out on her. Her protocol failed and it's my fault and I don't know what to do to make it better.

Noah's heart sank as he read the board. Taking his son by the elbow he led him to the couch. Seeing the throw cushion with more feathers outside of it rather than in it, he smirked to himself. At least there was still some fire in his son and that was, by any measure, a good sign.

"I am so sorry about Robin's protocol" he told him. "That is scary news for both of you."

Taking the board back, Patrick underlined the portion about it being his fault and handed it back to his father. Noah shook his head.

"No. There is simply no way this is your fault. We are all responsible for our own decisions and choices in life Patrick – including your choice to run away to New York." Noah was grateful that secret was out though he had wished it had not been revealed in a way that was so damaging to both of them.

"Robin's failed protocol is because of the virus, because of how long she has been on the medication not because of anything you did."

Robin said

Noah covered his son's hand with his own. "Robin was probably angry and scared and lashing out."

Patrick sat completely still for several minutes, almost too paralyzed by fear to ask the next, the obvious question. Raising his hand, he touched the Michael the Archangel medal and reminded himself that hiding from the truth was always a losing proposition.

Why did I run away? His eyes welled with tears as he looked up at his father, there was pleading in them as he wanted to know.

Noah blew out his cheeks and leaned back against the couch. He rubbed his hand along his jaw and feeling the stubble realized in his haste to get to his son he had not finished shaving.

"Because you were sure you were going to die. Because you had to go on chemo. Because you were so afraid of having her watch you die that you thought it would be easier on both of you to leave and die alone."

Patrick chewed on his bottom lip, angrily swiping at the lone tear that escaped down his cheek.

How could I have ever thought that would be easier? How could I have
beaten you up? Who the hell was I?

Noah smiled sympathetically. The journey of self-discovery was never an easy one but it was significantly more difficult when doing it in reverse.

"You were a young man whose personality was altered by a large mass in his brain. You were a son who was scared of dying the way his mother did and you were a man in love afraid of leaving the only woman you have ever loved."

I was a disaster. Patrick felt deflated and let down by the person he was. How Robin had even found it in herself to come after him after he did the one thing to her he swore he would never do was beyond him.

Noah fixed his son with a steady look. "You did then what you were able to do and that's all anyone can ask."

He clenched his eyes shut. His head was pounding and he was exhausted by the revelations of the past and of the present. He wanted to go to bed and pull the covers over his head but it wasn't an option.

What do I do?

"You first need to accept that you aren't going to be able to process this all in 30 seconds. Patrick you were just told some very unsettling news both about Robin and yourself and it's going to take you days, maybe even weeks to work through that."

What do I do about Robin? He wrote, underlining her name. He would deal with everything else somehow, but he needed her.

"Do you love her?" he asked him quietly.

Patrick scoffed in disbelief that the question was even being asked. "M-m-more … than…anyth-th-thing."

Noah nodded. He knew the answer before he asked the question but he needed his son to express it.

"Then you go get her."