Stepbrother: Impossible Love (7 page)

A week later the second semester started, and my life quickly became pretty hectic once again. On top of my classes, Annie and I decided that after the two classes we had together this semester – English Poets Post-Renaissance and Introduction to Art History – we were going to spend an hour at the gym, which meant four hours a week on the treadmill and lifting weights. Of course there was a gym at home, but we both agreed we were more likely to actually go if we did it together, just after class, and seeing as it was free for full-time students, why not?

Sure, it would be nice to lose weight. While I liked my curves, I think I’d prefer them if they were a bit smaller. But I really wanted to look a bit more toned, and I figured the gym would help me do that.

On top of my studies and my new exercise regime, during which Annie and I read magazines while either walking quickly on the treadmill or using the elliptical, we read magazines and gossiped about everything we could think of.

My mom was getting more and more stressed out about the wedding. I supposed John might have been as well, I was starting to see less and less of him. Apparently the beginning of the year was one of the busiest times of the year for his business, according to my mom, and he’d come home after eleven then leave again before seven the next morning. I suspect sometimes he even slept in the city instead of coming home.

As for Jack, he was back to spending a lot of his time at home, and was as annoying as ever. I hated being woken up by his dumb Lamborghini at midnight when he came home, I hated hearing the loud noise from his music and having him thump around his room. He was always such an inconsiderate asshole. But on the bright side, he stopped bringing random girls over; if he was still nailing them he was doing it somewhere else. I supposed that was something to be thankful for.

Unfortunately, my mom being stressed meant she always needed somebody to whine to, and that person happened to be me.

“Julianne, I need you to look at the choices I’ve made for bridesmaids dresses,” she called out to me one afternoon when I was studying.

“Ok, where are they?”

“Down in the family room, there’s a whole set of them for you to choose from.”

“I’ll go do it in about ten minutes, ok?”

“That’s fine. I have a headache so I’m just lying down for a bit,” my mom replied. I rolled my eyes. Of course she had such a bad headache she could yell at me from down the hall.

But, ten minutes later, I went down and had a look at the six different purple dresses that were an option. I was going to be the maid of honour, but I had no idea who the other bridesmaids were going to be. I knew my mom had at least two friends coming over from New York, so I assumed at least one of them would be one of the other bridesmaids, but that was all I knew.

Settling on the design I thought was nicest, I went up to see my mom. I went into her room without knocking and saw her on the bed for the first time in a few days, and saw she had a bruise on her cheek.

“Mom! What’s that from?” I asked, concerned. It was one thing for my mom to fake illness constantly, but entirely another for her to have an actual bruise.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I was outside and slipped on a patch of ice.”

“Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yes. It hurts, but I’ve been putting ice on it, and John was nice enough to get me some pills to take away the pain.”

“Ok mom, you should be more careful outside.”

“I know, I let myself get too comfortable here, since there’s no snow on the ground. I’ll be more careful in the future.” She smiled at me. “So did you pick out a dress?”

“I did. I like the third one, the one with the princess neckline.”

“I knew you would. You’re such a sucker for princess necklines. Plus the empire waist will look good on you.”

Leaving my mom, I went back to study and was about ten minutes into it when I heard Jack’s car zooming into the driveway. The way he screeched the tires every time he came in, I was surprised he didn’t lose control and go through the front of the house one day. I rolled my eyes and tried to concentrate, but it was obvious a couple minutes later that he had brought a friend over, and then a few minutes later the smell of pot started to creep through the walls into my room.

Nope, that’s it, I definitely can’t study now
I thought, the combination of their loud laughter, the music pounding through his speakers, and the smell of MJ coming through. Not that I was opposed to the drug, especially, but it wasn’t helpful when I was trying to study.

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

As I started my new classes, I also began to meet new people. Tina, a girl in my new journalism class, seemed fun, and she quickly fit in with Annie and I to make our little group of friends a threesome. Unfortunately, not all of these new people were ones I wanted to have hang around me.

In particular, there was one guy in our Introduction to Art History class who sat next to me on the first day. I didn’t really pay attention to him, when he asked to borrow a pen for a second I gave him one, but that was it. Normal looking guy, maybe a bit on the snobby side, probably nice enough, but that was it.

After our third class he tried to strike up a conversation with me. I was friendly, of course, and afterwards Annie told me she thought he liked me.

“You should go out with him! If he asks, of course. Which he will.”

“Meh. He’s not really my type.”

“Are you kidding? Dressed like that? Did you see his shoes? That guy has money. You don’t have to be in it for the long run, but you could probably get some pretty sweet swag if you go out with him.”

I laughed. “What kind of woman do you take me for?”

“I’m just saying,” Annie replied, shrugging her shoulders.

“He looks like his mom still dresses him,” I argued.

“Yeah, he does. That’s true. He looks like he hasn’t realized he’s left Eton and can now wear what he wants,” Annie replied, referring to the super exclusive boys’ high school.

I giggled. She was so right. I mean, I’m sure the guy was nice and all, but he wasn’t my type. Not that I had a type, really. But private school super snob certainly wasn’t it.

“Well, I don’t need no man to buy me bling, I got a step-daddy who gave me an Amex to do it myself,” I joked. “So no, I’m not gonna date that dude.”

“I feel like there’s a certain irony about the fact that you don’t need a sugar daddy as a boyfriend because you literally have a sugar soon-to-be-step-daddy. But ok, fair enough. If he comes onto me though, you can’t get mad.”

“Of course not. You’re welcome to him.”

* * *

Three classes later he introduced himself. Oliver was the name of the mystery guy, and after five classes he did ask me out.

“Listen, I’m wondering if you’d have time to go out with me after class sometime,” he asked as we were packing up our books. I noticed Annie immediately start to slow down her packing so she could watch the conversation unfold.

“Thanks, but I’m really not interested,” I told him politely, a smile on my face.

“Fine,” he replied. “Sorry.”

“No, no problem,” I replied. He left without another word.

“So? How did I handle it?” I asked Annie in a hushed whisper as he left.

“Fine. You were polite and nice. He’ll probably sit somewhere else next class.”

“I’m not used to having to turn guys down.”

“Well get used to it, Julianne. You’re a good looking chick.”

“Thanks, Annie,” I told her, shooting her a grateful smile.

When we got together with Tina at the gym later, who had started joining us in our workouts, Annie told her everything that had happened.

“Oh, Oliver Ryan?”

“I don’t know his last name.”

“Looks nice enough, blonde hair, dresses like he wants to be in a boardroom?”

“Sounds like the same Oliver.”

“That sounds like half the campus here,” Annie argued.

“Well I doubt there’s that many Olivers our age in the class. Let’s assume it’s the same one.”

“This one always wears a blue jacket.”

“Yup, that’s him.”

“Well you made the right call, from what I’ve heard.”

“What do you mean?” I asked Tina.

“I heard from a girl he dated last year that he was pretty controlling. I dunno, just some second hand info, I have no idea if it’s right or not.”

“Well either way, it doesn’t matter. Julianne turned him down, so I’m sure he’ll move on.”

I cranked the speed up on the elliptical and as the conversation moved to other things tried to keep up, but my mind kept going back, wondering if I hadn’t just made a really good choice in turning Oliver down.

Two days later, my mother ended up in the hospital.

This wasn’t exactly a new thing, but every time it happened I still got scared. Usually it was just something simple: she was too tired, her headaches wouldn’t go away. And despite the fact that I knew my mom was a hypochondriac, I also knew that
most
of the time she only went to the doctor unnecessarily, and left the hospitals alone.

So when John called me and told me to come straight away, I had a bit of trepidation.

“She’s going to be fine, but I think it would be good if you could see her,” John explained. I told him I would come straight away, and I got Michael to drive me. I texted Annie, asking her to take notes for me in Art History, as I wouldn’t be able to make the class, and she texted back that it wasn’t a problem.

The closer we got to the hospital the more the bile felt like it was going to rise up in my throat. This wasn’t like my mom. Maybe it was something else. Maybe she had a heart attack. Maybe she had cancer.

It’s funny how the brain immediately thinks of the
worst possible option
when you hear someone’s in the hospital. Especially when it’s someone you love.

When I got there I was immediately taken to her room by a helpful nurse. When I saw my mom on the hospital bed for the first time I stopped in my tracks. She looked so much older, somehow. She looked frail, she looked weak. She didn’t look like the mother I was so used to. I barely noticed anything else. Not the machines at her side, not the IV drip connected to her arm, not the sterile smell that every hospital worldwide seemed to share.

John was sitting at her side, and I knew this wasn’t one of my mother’s bouts of hypochondria.

“Mom? Are you ok? What happened?” I asked, going over to her side, my voice choking up.

“Julianne. I’m glad you came,” my mom mumbled before closing her eyes.

“They have her on some sedatives, she went nuts when they told her she had diabetes.”

“Diabetes?” I asked. “But she doesn’t eat badly at all.”

“It’s type 1 diabetes, it just means her immune system attacked her pancreas and now she can’t produce insulin. Nothing to do with her diet or anything like that.”

“Is that why she’s so weak?”

John nodded. “She hasn’t been feeling good for a few weeks, she’s seen the doctor a few times and he thought she was just faking it, but this morning Anita found her passed out at the dining table and called an ambulance.”

“Oh my God, mom,” I cried, worried to death about my mother.

“She’s going to be fine. She’s only being sedated for her own good; she went nuts when she found out what the problem was.”

“My poor mom. Hypochondriac her whole life, I guess when something was actually wrong with her it was just too much to handle.”

“I think so. She’ll be ok. She’s stronger than she knows.”

“That she is.”

I sat down on the chair and watched my mother as she slept. Type 1 diabetes. It was almost unthinkable. My mom had always been healthy, really. She faked a lot of problems, but there was never anything really the matter with her. Until now.

I felt tears start to well up in my eyes. I loved my mom. She might be frustrating to live with at times, but she was my mom. She birthed me, she raised me, she made sure I always had everything I needed. She didn’t deserve something like this.

“So what happens now?” I asked.

“The doctors are running some more tests to confirm the diagnosis. Then they’ll wake her up, get her on a treatment plan, make sure she knows that she needs to eat on a regular schedule, that sort of thing. I don’t know the details, no one in my family has ever had diabetes.”

“But what you’re saying is she will be fine.”

“Of course. Absolutely nothing to worry about on that front. Your mom will be totally fine.” He smiled at me and I smiled back. I looked at my mom again. She looked so weak, so frail, so fragile. I could still see the very last remnants of the bruise on her face from a few weeks ago. Was that slip on the ice because of the diabetes? Maybe it was, I had no idea.

* * *

I sat with my mom for the rest of the day. After about an hour John told me he had to get back to the city, that he was glad I was here for her in case she woke up, and I nodded. He left, and I texted Annie everything that had happened. She said she’d be there soon, and an hour later she showed up with Tina, their classes all over.

As soon as they came into the room I got up and hugged them. I was so glad my friends had come over for a visit.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Julianne,” Annie whispered in my ear as she hugged me close.

“Thanks, Annie.”

“It will. I agree,” Tina added. “What happened?”

I filled them in with what John told me.

“Oh no, that’s terrible. My aunt has type 2 diabetes though, so it’s not exactly the same thing, but it honestly doesn’t really change her life that much. She just always has to have food with her, and she can’t just like stuff her face with an entire cheesecake anymore, but your mom doesn’t look like she ever did that.”

I laughed a bit, not wanting to wake up my mom.

“No, she never was. She’s the ‘scold her daughter for wanting that extra slice of cake’ type, so somehow it’s probably not going to be that bad for her if it turns out she can’t eat any terrible foods.

Just then my mom began to stir, and the three of us turned towards her.

“Julianne?” she asked weakly, and I immediately got up and went over to her side.

“I’m here mom. I’m here.”

“I’m so glad to see you. Who are the others? Where am I?”

Annie and Tina came up then as well.

“These are my friends Annie and Tina, you remember me telling you about them, right?”

“Of course I do, sweetie. I’m sick, not dead. It’s lovely to meet you girls. Although I would have preferred it to be under nicer circumstances.”

“It’s lovely to meet you as well Ms. Reeves,” Tina answered. “We’ll go out and wait for Annie in the waiting area. I’m sure we’ll see you again sometime soon,” she continued, then her and Annie left as I smiled at them in appreciation.

“I’m still feeling groggy sweetie, but if I remember right, they told me I have diabetes?”

“That’s right, mom.”

“I knew it was something. I knew I wasn’t feeling right, and that quack that I usually go to kept telling me it was nothing, that I needed to sleep more, or that I wasn’t eating right. Look at me, does this look like a body that doesn’t eat right?”

At the moment it was starting to look like a body that didn’t eat at all, but I kept that comment to myself. After all, she’d been sick recently, and going undiagnosed like that couldn’t have been good for her health.

“John said it was the type of diabetes where it didn’t matter what you ate, it was all your immune system’s fault.”

“Ah, well that makes sense. My immune system hasn’t been right my whole life. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle I managed to give birth to you without dying. I think when they told me the first time I got very agitated about the diagnosis.”

“You did, they sedated you to keep you a bit calmer.”

“Well, that’s embarrassing. I’ll have to apologize to the doctors and the nurses. Speaking of John, do you know when he’s coming back?”

“I know he went to work, he’ll probably come back when he’s done. He was here, he stayed with you for as long as he could.”

“Of course he would have. Thanks sweetie. You can go back home now if you’d like, I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone, mom.”

“Well at least go and say goodbye to your friends, you can’t just leave them out there and we both know they don’t want to hang out in the hospital here with me.”

“OK, thanks mom, I’ll be right back,” I told her, and went out to find Annie and Tina.

After a quick goodbye in which they ordered me to get some rest and wished my mom the best, I was back in the room with my mom.

We chatted for a while, a longer chat than we’d had since moving to England. It was nice. We spoke about the upcoming wedding, now only a few months away, and my life in general. When I went home late that night, around eleven when John came back, I had a smile on my face. I hadn’t felt that close to my mom in years. I knew she’d be ok.