Weeping Lily - 17. Chapter 17

Cal kept his promise to Jayden. He was there. He was always there. The only time he left Jayden’s room was to eat, use the bathroom or when Helen was there with him. Not even the doctor tried to get him to leave when he was working with Jayden. He was no longer cautious and started talking about what would happen when Jayden left the hospital.

Day by day, as Helen and the physiotherapists, who appeared as soon as he was strong enough to lift his head and move his body, worked with him and on him, he grew stronger, mentally and physically. But Cal wasn’t easy about any of it. Everyone reassured him, even Jayden himself but Cal knew him better than anyone, had learned to look behind his eyes and he continued to wonder.

On the surface Jayden became calm, his old self again, and more. Helen was pleased with him. The boys were pleased with him. The doctor was pleased with him. There was no more talk of institutions. But Cal wondered.

With enormous frustration he came to realise that everyone was so focussed on getting Jayden well again they couldn’t see that they were not achieving what they thought they were. He couldn’t help feeling that somehow he had let Jayden down, again. He wanted so much to help him but now it was too late. The lid was back on the box and it seemed that no one else could see how broken the lock was.

He tried to tell them. Over and over he tried to tell them but no one would listen. While Jayden was fighting his battles Cal tried to focus on other things but he couldn’t. And every time he stopped the silence was filled with screaming.

Not that Jayden was screaming, not any more. He never spoke of it, except in the sessions with Helen and neither of them ever discussed those. To all intents and purposes it seemed as if he was gradually and finally getting over it. Except that he wasn’t. Only Cal could see it and no one else wanted to know.

As soon as he was able, Jayden started to write again. This time it was cohesive, made sense. In fact it was beautiful. He asked for his laptop as it was easier for him than paper which was invariably scored with things crossed out and added. This was not the way that Jayden wrote. It interfered with his creative flow. In the end the doctor agreed, but only because he could see the potential for his patient to lose himself again.

Physically Jayden continued to recover well and surprise everyone with his capacity to heal. Now that he had an outlet in Helen and his writing he no longer tried to run, although there was still a sense about him for those with eyes to see, of a butterfly on a pin in a case, fluttering frantically against the glass.

With fingers that were stiff and uncooperative he spent hours tapping at the keyboard, letting no one see what he had written. When he did occasionally allow someone to read the pieces they were dark and troubled but hauntingly beautiful.

There was one piece which particularly disturbed Cal, but when he raised his concerns no one else was able to or wanted to see beyond the undoubted artistic genius, that had lost none of its edge and sparkle.

One part of the song in particular sent shivers down his spine. It was titled, simply... The Doll,

Although I’m loved I cannot love

Cherished china cold as ice

Encased in glass, my womb, my tomb

Blind eyes and frozen smile

Stiff limbs that bend for no one.

Empty head, no heart, no soul

A void that is screaming

..... and then at the end...

Shadows crawling, cracking glass

Cold fingers of a long forgotten past

Cold eyes cannot widen, cold lips cannot help but smile

Cold heart broken, Cold soul stolen

Shattered from within: falling, falling.

Reaching hand too late to grasp

Fool... fool to think that something good can last

Blood splashed kiss of splintered glass

Fragile beauty broken, burned and past.

The first time he read it he had almost said something... almost, but the shutters had come down and when Jayden turned away there was nothing he could say.

Maybe he was being too sensitive, reading too much into it. Jayden’s work was always dark, always had been. But this was... this was...

For the remaining weeks he was at the hospital Jayden spent every waking moment writing. Cal knew what he was doing. He was pouring the anger, pain and betrayal; all the negative emotions brought to the surface and thrown in his face; into the words, words that flew from him mind like angry moths to settle on the digital page.

Most of the work no one ever saw. There were journal entries, stories of dark twisted torments, poems and snippets of prose. They were all locked away behind a password protected wall that no one was ever allowed to peep behind.

But there were also songs. Beautiful haunting songs that were among the best he had ever written. By the time he left the hospital, leaning heavily on Cal’s arm, his face as pale and white as the shirt he was wearing and half delirious from the heavy medication he would have to take for some time there was enough for an album. He wanted to start on it immediately.

Cal was horrified.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’ve never been more serious. I know I’m not up to performing on stage but there’s no way I am just going to sit here, turning into a vegetable. I want to work on this. I really want it.”

“But Jay, you’re not well enough, not by a long way. You can’t stand up to practice sessions let alone recording...”

“I know but I won’t need to, not at first. We can at least get together and have the boys work on some music. It’s a long way from being ready for practicing and recording.”

“I don’t know... you get so tired...”

“And I will, but if they all come here I can flake out when I want to. I just need to DO something Cal.”

“I think of plenty of things you can do without involving the boys at all. In fact I would kill you if you did.”

Jayden was staying with Cal until he was fully recovered. In fact there was an unspoken understanding between them that he would be staying period. They had been sleeping in separate rooms as Jayden still needed a lot of pain medication and was highly restless as night and often got up to sit in the window staring out into the night... sometimes writing, or even wandered in the garden.

Now they were lying together on Cal’s bed, which was a double, and Cal was absently playing with Jayden’s hair, which lay like an ink blot across his arm. As he spoke he stroked Jayden’s cheek and combed them through his hair. Jayden closed his eyes but he didn’t seem to be enjoying the sensation, there was no smile on his face. Cal sighed and gently slid his arm out from under Jayden’s head, propping himself up on his elbow. It was time to have a talk.

Jayden opened his eyes and looked up at him in surprise.

“We need to talk Jay.”

Instantly he saw the shutters come down and he started to cry on the inside. Jayden tried to turn his head away but Cal stopped him.

“I need to know Jay. I need to know what you feel... what you feel about me.”

“I love you Cal.” He whispered, but he couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I know you do Jay. In your own way, I know you do. But I need to know where I stand. I would never push you into something you’re not ready for but I need to know that I’m not wasting my time that I’m not waiting for just more heartbreak.”

Finally Jayden managed to drag his eyes up to Cal’s. “I don’t know.” He whispered. “I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know what I want. I can’t... I want to but I don’t... I don’t know how to... feel. I don’t feel... anything.”

“You talk so much nonsense.” Cal smiled as he stroked Jayden’s hair. This time he didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, he looked... curious.

“I do?”

“Of course you do. You say you don’t feel and yet you are writing songs that are full of feeling. You don’t have to lie to me. You don’t have to hide anything. I know that you are hurting Jay, I know that it’s hard for you to pull yourself back from that, from all of it. What happened to you now and what happened to you then. I’m not asking you to be well, or whole, or... anything. I’m not expecting you to be anything Jay. I just want you to be yourself, to give what you can and to relax and let things happen without over thinking them.

“I love you Jay. I have always loved you and will always love you. That doesn’t mean that I own you. I haven’t asked you to marry me yet.”

Jayden gave a thin smile. “Yet?”

“That’s next week.”

Jayden’s smile widened.

“For now all I want to do is to be able to hold you in my arms without you turning into a corpse. I don’t want anything of you Jay I swear. I just want you to stop being afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you Cal. I swear I’m not. I’m just afraid of the way you make me feel.”

“And how do I make you feel?”

“Confused.”

“How confused? What’s confusing you?”

“The way I feel about you.” He shook his head. “No... not that. I mean... I know how I feel about you.” He took a deep breath, looked away and then looked back. “I love you Cal. I really do. I love you like crazy but...” He closed his eyes and let the breath out in a sigh. “I’m scared of it. I’ve never loved anyone else, never. The only... Whenever I’ve... “ He compressed his lips and ground out between his teeth. “The only times I have ever had sex it was... I’ve never had anyone touch me with love.”

“Oh Jayden. I... I never thought. I’ve been selfish.”

“No Cal... It wasn’t you. It wasn’t you being selfish, it was me. I thought I could do this by myself, that if I shut it out it would somehow sort itself out but it never did.”

“Of course it didn’t. These things never do. Look... I promise I won’t hurt you Jayden. I won’t...”

“But what if I want you to?”

The soft words and direct look knocked the stuffing out of Cal. Tears stung his eyes as he stared at Jayden.

“I... I don’t know... I don’t know if I can.”

“You see...?” Jayden closed his eyes and turned his head away.

“No. I don’t see. I see the one I love in pain and I want to stop him hurting. I know I can’t do that and to be asked if I can add to his pain is like... But I know that... I know the way it’s been for you and the fact is... the simple fact is that for you I would walk through fire. It would be hard for me, incredibly hard, to do anything that I knew was hurting you but if I had to I would.”

Jayden opened his eyes again and stared up at him. “You would?”

“I would do anything for you.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I thought you knew that. I thought you understood. I love you Jayden, and that’s not something that I say easily. I love you totally, absolutely and completely. I have spent a long time searching for a love like this and I never found it. I could never have found it. How could there ever have been room for another love when I was filled to the brim with this one.

“I have dated hundreds of girls, some of them I even though I cared for but there was always something missing. Nothing was right. I would always come back to you and I never knew why.

“There has been a huge hole in my soul, something that I tried to fill with music, and partying, and... sex. But nothing worked. The music almost did... for a while. The partying just made me sick the next say and the sex was nice, sometimes it was great but it was... hollow. It was... wrong.

“I thought it was just that I hadn’t met the right person but I was dead wrong. It was because I had met the right person and no one else compared. No one else could ever compare.”

As he spoke he gently stroked Jayden’s hair and then his cheek encouraged by the fact that he didn’t tense or pull away. He seemed to be mesmerised by the words, his eyes wide and his lips parted. When Cal brushed his lips with his finger Jayden closed his eyes and sighed.

Encouraged but terrified that he would do something wrong, go to far, frighten him away, Cal slowly leaned forwards until his face was close to Jayden’s.

“Are you okay?” He whispered.

Jayden opened his eyes and stared into his. His lips twitched into an uncertain smile. In response to Cal’s question he raised his head and brushed his lips across Cal’s. After a moment he raised his hand and buried it in the wildness of Cal’s hair, drawing his head down.

Tentatively Cal put his arm around Jayden resting his hand lightly on his waist. He felt the muscles tense but then they relaxed and Jayden sighed opening his mouth to let Cal in for the first time.