Teach Me To Live (Teach Me - Book One) (39 page)

I closed the door of the pool house, which had been unlocked, as Karen had promised. The lights were off save for a dim glow spilling out from what I assumed was the bedroom. The center of the doors were made of glass, and a soft green curtain covered the clear glass. But I could see her shadow moving toward the door. She heard me enter and she was coming to investigate.

“Mom, I said I’m not hungry.” She moaned as she opened the door. And then she froze. I could see she’d been crying. Hard. It broke my heart seeing this kind of pain inside of her.

“Madison,” her name sounded on a deep rumble. I’m really not even sure how I formed the word when seeing her heightened all the remorse I felt, that I became a part of her life, only to undoubtedly leave it. I didn’t regret her or being in her life. What I regretted more than anything was that I would hurt her. I had hurt her.

She folded her arms over her chest, the loose fitted cream-colored sweater lifting an inch over her black leggings. “What are you doing here?”

She was angry. She sounded angry and she looked angry. But I wasn’t leaving. If she wanted to fight with me, yell at me, scream at me or cry—I wouldn’t leave. I would be here for her and I would help her through the pain of my demise. I would, because I could. I didn’t care how angry she was. I was never leaving her again. Not until the day He called me home.

“Do you want me to go?” I asked the question I knew damn well was a gamble. But her bottom lip quivered. I was certain it was a sign that, although she was obviously angry, she was relieved to see me.

“I . . .” Tears filled her eyes. They were shimmering, and heavy, and so painfully noticeable in the dim amber glow of the lights illuminating her room. “I don’t know, Austin.” Her fingers curled painfully into her arms as she gripped herself tightly. “God, I don’t know.”

“Talk to me.”

“You’re dying.” She said numbly and I fought my flinch. She was processing and I needed to let her process in whichever way she needed to do it. I’d done this with enough people that I knew each person had their own way of processing. At least she was processing. That was what mattered.

“I am.” I nodded.

“You’re dying and you’re teaching me how to live,” she laughed and it was on a pitch that I knew was dangerous. “It’s the worst kind of irony, Austin.” She laughed until her giggles turned into sobs. “You’re dying and you made me fall,” she gasped. “In love—with y-you.”

“It was never supposed to go this far, but,” I whispered, because it really wasn’t. I never wanted to take it this far. I never wanted to be the one who hurt her this much.

“But what?” She screamed. “You can’t predict how deeply someone will fall, Austin!” She lowered her voice. “I fell. I fell all the way for you!”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You made me love you. You took it all—everything I had to give,” she smirked sadly. “And you’re dying.”

I asked the question I had to ask. The one question I needed the answer to. For me.

“Would you take it all back?” I swallowed the rising fear in my throat. “If you could, would you take it all back?”

Minutes passed as the silence surrounding us began to suffocate me. I was terrified of her answer, but I needed it.

“No.” She finally whispered. And then, as though she just couldn’t take it anymore, her knees buckled and she started to crumple to the floor. I moved quicker than I thought I could, catching her body in my arms as we connected with the floor together.

I held her for a long time as she cried silently in my arms. I rocked her gently back and forth, my hands moving in slow and comforting circles over her back. I knew she liked the circles against her back. I knew because over the weeks we’d spent together, I knew almost all there was to know about her. And yet there were still so many things I wish I had the time to learn.

I wanted to know the woman she would become. I wanted to know what she would finally choose to do with her life. I wanted to know the man she would choose to spend her forever with. I wanted to know she would be happy and I wanted, more than anything, to know she would live. I wanted to know it all.

I just didn’t have time.

It was killing me.

“Have you eaten?” I asked into her hair when she’d stopped shaking so hard from her cries.

She tipped her head back, frowning. “What?”

“When I came in here, you said you weren’t hungry,” I shrugged. “That’s kinda a red flag that you haven’t eaten.”

She sighed. “I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat, sweetheart.”

“Austin,” I could hear her irritation, but I pressed anyway.

“Madison, please eat. For me.”

“Fine.”

“Do you want to go out somewhere?” I offered.

“It’s late. I doubt anywhere is open.”

“We have a few options,” I assured with a grin I knew didn’t meet my eyes.

“I have food here,” she sighed. “If you’re okay with it, I’ll just make some soup.”

I nodded. “Definitely okay with it.”

On a long sigh, she pulled herself up from the floor and my body, before offering her hands to me. I took her hands mainly because I just wanted to touch her, maintain contact with her, so she wouldn’t have a chance to pull away from me again. When we were standing, she walked into the kitchen and I followed close.

I watched with amusement as she began pulling the thin green curtains closed over all the windows in the pool house. “Are you trying to hide the fact that I’m here?”

She blinked. “Yes.”

“My truck is in the driveway,” I stated and she paled.

“Oh my,” her hand moved to her mouth and her eyes widened. “My Dads going to lose his mind if he knows you’re here.”

“Really?” I raised a brow.

She bobbed her head cutely. “Definitely.”

“Well, considering the fact that your Mom told me to come here and she assured me that she would tell your father, I’m thinking the fact that I’m here right now is cool.”

Her mouth popped open and her gaze swung to the clock on the stove. “It’s 12:36 am.”

“It is.”

“I’ve never had a boy here this late.”

“Have you had a boy here at all?” I asked, smirking now.

“Well,” she blushed. “Uh, no.”

I stood from the island stool to walk toward her. I gripped her waist in my hands and pulled her against my chest. I didn’t miss the pain that flashed in the deep brown depths of her eyes, but I didn’t acknowledge it. I couldn’t.

“We’re fine,” I announced. “I’m staying the night tonight.” She stiffened and tipped her head back, but I continued before she could get a word in. “If you’ll have me, I’ll stay in here where it’s nice and cozy with you.” I shrugged. “But if not, I’ll chill in my truck until morning. It’s up to you.”

She thought for a moment before mumbling. “You can stay in here with me.”

“Great,” I dipped my head to press a kiss to her forehead. I figured going for her mouth wasn’t exactly the best idea at the moment. She was still feeling the rawness of my sickness. “But you need to eat, and I won’t lie, I’m kind of starving.”

Madison moved about the small kitchen as she poured a packet of chicken noodle soup into the boiling water. She chopped green onions and dropped them into the soup, all without saying anything to me. I figured she needed these moments of silence between us so she could go through everything in her mind. She had a lot she needed to accept and understand. She had a lot she needed to process.

I was expecting questions, because that’s normal when someone finds out you’re sick. The first question asked is, how long?

It’s fucked up. Really, it is.

Who the hell wants to know how long they have left before they die? Even if you’re twenty-one years old and you’re told you’ll live until you’re eighty. That’s only fifty-nine years. That’s not long in the grand scheme of things and you’re bound to wonder if those fifty-nine years are long enough. It’s the same damn thing when you’re told you have between six months and five years to live. Yeah, miracles happen. But we were all born with an expiration date. We weren’t built for immortality. We were born to live and we were born to die. It’s all a part of the great big circle of life. We learn that from the Lion King when we’re in pull-ups, for fuck’s sakes.

We’re born, we live, and we die. That’s hard enough to wrap our minds around without knowing when that death should be expected. And yet we all want to know how long we have—because that time is going to determine the way we
live.

But, she’s not asked the one question that must be burning into her every thought. She’s not asked me how long I have.

We started eating our soup in silence and we finished eating our soup in silence. When we were done, she took our dishes and she placed them into the small dishwasher in silence.

Then she looked at me.

I could see through her eyes that something was coming. Something big was about to knock me straight onto my ass. I just didn’t know what.

“I love you, Austin.” She began, her eyes were sad. “I don’t want to know how long you have. I just want you to promise me that you—that we will keep living every day as we have been living them. I want you to promise me that we will live each day fully and that we will live them hopefully. I don’t want to spend the time I have with you thinking about the end. I can’t do that, because I only just found you.” A tear slipped from her eye to roll quickly down the length of her face. “I don’t want to know the details of your dying. I just want to know the beauty that is your living.”

I’m so painfully in love with her.

I didn’t think as I moved quickly around the island into the kitchen. I gripped her tightly against me, lifting her body into my arms as she wound her arms around my neck. I kissed her roughly against her lips and she kissed me back, holding nothing back from me.

We were naked and tangled in her bed after we made love roughly and full of need. It wasn’t planned as our first time had been. It was quick and it was heated and raw. There was little thought, although I had remembered to pack a condom in my haste to leave the house earlier tonight, and I had used it. The last thing I wanted to do was leave Madison with a child I could never be there to protect.

“You filled your heart.” She announced as she traced my newest tattoo with her fingertip. It was still a little raw, but it was healing nicely. She was propped up on her elbow, looking down at my body. Her eyes flickered to mine in question and I smiled.

“I did.”

“Is it,” she blushed deeply, nibbling nervously at the corner of her lip. “Is it for me?”

“It is,” I said softly.

“But why a dandelion?” She asked, tracing her fingertips over the white needles of the bloomed flower. It was one of those white dandelions you pick when you’re little. The one you’re told to make a wish on. It was the perfect representation for her.

“Because you’re my wish,” I caught her hand, placing her palm flat over my heart where the tattoo for her lived on my skin. Her eyes snapped to meet mine and her breath caught in her throat.

She spoke breathlessly. “Your wish?”

I nodded. “My wish.”

“You wished for me?”

“I didn’t know it until you came into my life,” I watched her eyes mist, but her lips were smiling. “But as soon as I saw you, I knew. I’d been wishing my whole life for you.”

“Austin . . .” My name on her lips was like listening to the sound of love. It was perfect.

“You’re my dying wish, sweetheart,” I said softly and a single tear slipped from her eye. “You’ve brought me more life than you can possibly know.”

“I love you.”

“I love you so much more than you will ever know. So much more than you can ever understand,” I spoke the words I felt in the deepest place in my soul, willing her to feel their meaning. “You’re it for me, Madison.”

I held her tightly as she continued tracing the white dandelion I’d had inked into my flesh. Throughout all the other tattoos, pieces of the flowering seed plant that is my wish to have her, and love her, until my end, are fluttering in places all over my body. They’ve been added to almost every tattoo on my body, tangling with everything else I’ve lived and loved. Because they have all steered me to her.

Showing her to live was my purpose and loving her was my wish. She was my reason and knowing that I’ve fulfilled that very purpose was all I needed to move forward onto the next stages of this earthly life. She made it all worthwhile. She made being here worth every moment of pain and loss I’ve suffered. Because seeing her live and knowing I had a part in that, is how my soul will live on.

Her finger moved from the dandelion on my heart to a dusty gray ribbon that weaved itself through the tattoos on my left arm. “What is this?”

“It’s a race track.”

“Really?” She cocked her head. “For what?”

“I used to run track. I was really good. Really fast,” I felt her eyes on my face, but I was looking down at the track that had once been my life. “I was the best in high school.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“One day, I just started feeling breathless while running. Couldn’t catch a breath no matter how hard I tried. My life was running, sweetheart. I ran in the morning before school with Kai, and I ran at school whenever I could. I trained all the time. I loved it.” I sighed. “And then one day I couldn’t run anymore.”