I’m flabbergasted, not expecting that at all. “He what?”
“Yeah. Fucking dick, right?” he tries to smile but a tear slips down his cheek instead. “Sorry I’m just…I’m so fucking angry. So angry. I mean, I’ve stuck with him over so much. His last break-up, his cat dying, his STD scare. Then he lost his job and I had to support him, remember that? And then…and then he says he can’t be around me anymore, that I’ve changed too much. I’m too sad. Sad! Of course I’m fucking sad!” He hits the dashboard with his fist. “I’m sad and I’m fucking pissed off. Why couldn’t he love me through that?”
I make a little growling noise. “I can’t believe it. Who dumps someone when they’re going through a hard time? I mean, I know my work probably wants to get rid of me but they’re holding off out of courtesy.”
“Well I got no courtesy from him. Normally I wouldn’t even want that but fuck, honey, just fucking fake it until I’m better.”
I’m absolutely livid on his behalf. Toshio had been with Sean for at least a year. “I’m going to kill him.”
“I’ll kill him first,” he says, narrowing his eyes out the window. “You just help me bury the body.”
We lapse into silence. I can’t believe that asshole would break my brother’s heart like that when it’s already breaking. I can’t imagine the strain on him.
But then again, I can. I’m living it. Only it’s my own fault, not Lachlan’s. Lachlan who was reaching out for me every day, all the time, Lachlan who loved me with all his heart, even when there was no chance of loving himself. Lachlan who would never leave because I was hurting, grieving. He would only offer me his arms and kiss me until the pain was a memory.
He gave me everything he could, every part, even the dirty, cold, terrible parts. He was fucked up, entirely, a slave to demons he never asked for. And yet in the end, I was the one who couldn’t handle him. I’m the one who left him emotionally. I had the best thing and I lost it, lost myself in the process too. Even though it would never be easy and it would always be a struggle to help him be free from his shackles, to keep the dragons at bay, that didn’t mean it wasn’t a good thing. Love is always good, no matter who is giving it to you.
Once we get to the hospital, we have to wait around for Brian to show up since his work isn’t always so lenient. So we stand around, eying each other, arms hugged across our chests, stepping from foot to foot. No one wants to speak until we are complete.
Then Brian comes and Paul launches into it.
“I’ve spoken to the doctor as well as the neurologist here and…” he closes his eyes, shaking his head. “We can’t let this go on any more. She doesn’t have a hope in hell. I wish she did, we all do but…I think we have to think about what she would have wanted.”
“She wouldn’t want us to give up,” Toshio says, his heart extra soft now. “I don’t want this to be the end, not yet. I’m not ready.”
“None of us will be ready,” Nikko says. “I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to dad either. I’m still not, you know. Sometimes I see him in my dreams and I’m so relieved that he’s not dead, like it was all some bad joke. But…we can’t keep her like this. Paul, the doctors, they are right. She’s in a limbo, between us and dad. It’s selfish to keep her here for us.”
“It’s for her,” Toshio says angrily, his hands curling into fists. “What if she would have come back to us? What if she has a chance? If we end her life, we kill her.”
“She’s already gone,” Brian says quietly. “She was gone the day this happened to her. We’ve just been kidding ourselves.”