Second Chances(60)

"So things went on for years. I went through the motions. I don't know that many people noticed there was anything wrong. And maybe there wasn't. Maybe I had convinced myself that I actually was happy. I still didn't let people in, but..."

She nodded in understanding.

"I guess part of me had settled and come to accept that my life was basically how it was going to be. And then you...then Paige came into my life and everything changed. I was woken from a sleep I never knew I was in. The rest...well you've seen the journals."

Paige wanted to reach out and hug him. If she was truly like his Paige, then it was easy to see why they had bonded. She had many questions, but she was aware it was unfair of her to expect only him to be the one answering them and she still wasn't ready yet. Besides, she saw that a flight attendant was making her way down the aisle asking people to bring their seats into position for landing and could feel the plane dropping in altitude.

A moment later the pilot came back on the intercom and announced that the local time was ten thirty-seven, the temperature was fifty-six degrees and it was partly cloudy with a thirty percent chance of rain. Paige decided she would be optimistic. There was a seventy percent chance it wouldn't rain. She only wished the butterflies in her stomach would agree to be optimistic as well. The more the plane descended the more active they seemed to become.





CHAPTER FORTY-THREE



Not giving into the pain, maintaining a calm outward appearance was hard, but trying not to look her in the eyes, that was the hardest part. It hadn't been bad for the first twenty minutes or so. The injection site hurt a little, but after that he had felt completely normal. Well what passed as normal these days, which he was clear enough to know was a far cry from what anyone else would classify as normal. He'd continued to do what he had been doing for so long now, playing as much of what Julie had said to him over and over again in his mind. Playing her words in an endless loop was the only way he could hope to remember them. He was certain he had lost much of what she had said and he cursed himself for it, but he couldn't help it. He had to sleep, no matter how hard he tried sleep would eventually take him. And when sleep released him from its grip it always took some of her words from him. Important words, he was certain, but he was powerless to recall them.

Sarah was kneeling by him, saying something to him, but he refused to look at her. He could hear the frustrated sadness in her voice. He knew her as well as his brain would allow. She was constantly with him. She cared for him he knew. Not just in the physical sense that she was his caregiver. He believed she had come to care for him as a person. They had been together a long time, though he did not have a clue just how long that actually was. Time had stopped having any real sense of meaning for him long ago. It pained him to do so, but he ignored her words and focused on Julie's and sadly he couldn't even remember them correctly, but he knew what they had meant.

Paige was in trouble.

The pain was returning now, slowing building. He did his best to ignore it, to shift his focus.

He knew that Julie had started to lessen the dose of his medication. Was it daily? Weekly? Monthly? How often did she come? He wished he knew, but he didn't. He was certain she had started some time ago. She had told him that. That he did remember. She had actually given him precise details of just how much she was decreasing the drug, but he couldn't hold onto those details. Hell, he couldn't even remember what the drug was called. He was quite certain at one point he knew that information quite well. He was quite certain he knew a great many things at one time and prayed one day he would again.

Paige was in trouble.

Sarah reached out and touched his chin, turning his head to face her. He kept his gaze off to the side as much as possible, even though he knew it would distress her. He feared meeting her eyes. He was certain that if he did then she would see immediately that something was different. How she might view that, better or worse, he didn't know, but certainly she would see it.

Paige was in trouble.

"I know she loves you, Jason," Sarah said. "So very much. And it kills me to see the effect the visits have on her. But its the effect they have on you that bother me even more. I see the difference in you when she is here and I can't tell you how happy it makes me, but when she leaves you..." She stopped and took a slow breath in and out. "When she leaves you, you leave us a little bit more as well. I'm sorry, but I wish she would stop coming. Either that or that she would simply stay."

Paige was in trouble.

He felt her hands holding his and forced himself not to look.

"I honestly don't know how much more I can take this. We all get attached," she said. "It's impossible not to. But you aren't like the others. You are still so young. You are going to be with us for a very long time."