Black Sheep Part 3 - 7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“Did you tell her?” I look up as Dr West walks into the garden.
He shakes his head and sits next to me. “She left for France this morning.”
I nod. “To our grandparents on dads side.”
“Yeah. Your mum said she didn’t know when Anne would be back. By the way, you didn’t show up at our session.”
I look at the drawing in front of me, a drawing of Jack and myself. “I was thinking about a few things and lost track of time. I’m sorry.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“I’m never going to fully recover, am I?”
“Even if they are going to find the right medication for you, possibly not fully no.”
“And there is a large chance that I’m going to get worse, right?”
“Yes.”
We are quiet for a few minutes. I’m trying to find the right words to say and not make this sound like I’m giving up on myself.
“I want to…” I pause, rephrasing. “I don’t want to leave everybody behind in the mess it is right now. I don’t want to pull everybody down with the possibility that I might never recover. I want everybody to be happy again.” I stop talking, tears streaming down my face. I take a shaky breath. “I couldn’t make Jack happy, I can at least try to make everybody else happy.”
“Including yourself?”
“I’d be happy knowing that if something goes wrong with me everybody else has a possibility to get over the grief.”
“Can you get over the grief of losing Jack?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why do you expect them to be able to get over losing you?”
“Because… I don’t know, I just do.”
“I’ll help you, under two conditions.”
I look up, staring at Dr West for a few seconds before I nod.
“One, you won’t skip any more sessions as long as you have to attend them and no more slacking off from doing any school work.”
I nod, sounds reasonable.
“Two, you promise you won’t aggravate your illness. You keep to the doctors advise and make sure you stay as healthy as possible. So, no drugs, no tiring yourself out too much and you need to eat healthily.”
I don’t miss a beat. “I promise. Anything that makes them happy and lets me be with them as long as possible.”
“It’s not going to be easy. I won’t let you slack off. You do realise that, right?”
I nod. I realise it all too well. Dr West is nice but really strict if he wants to be.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” Dr west stands up.
“Don’t tell them, please?” I grab his sleeve to stop him.
“Don’t tell them what?” Dr West softly tries to get his sleeve free.
“Don’t tell them about the drugs or how bad it is getting. They don’t need to know yet.”
“They will find out some day.”
“Some day is fine, just not now. They don’t need to get down because of this. Not now, not as long as I can hide it.”
“Are you sure?” Dr West finally has his sleeve back.
“Yes, I am sure. I don’t care if they get mad at me afterwards, for now I don’t want anyone to know.”
“Okay. Have a nice evening and we’ll talk about this in the morning.”
“Thank you. See you tomorrow.” I watch Dr West walk away and look at my drawing. I’m going to make sure everybody is happy before they find out, they deserve it.

I opened my eyes, glad to see the long dark hair and not a white wall in front of me. I reached out and softly caressed Jack’s back. Jack was still deep asleep as I leaned forward and wrapped myself around him. His bare skin was nice and soft against my arms and legs. His breath warm on the skin of my hand. It was good to be back home. No matter how scared I had been before, with Jack around I would be okay.
At least he hadn’t found me repulsive or anything. We had barely done anything more last night than we had done that one time we were drunk but I hadn’t freaked out and neither had he. That was good, really good. It was nice to be able to hold him again in any way I wanted.
I played my fingers up and down, trying to get them under his shirt. As I found his bare stomach I teased, my fingers softly scratching and my lips on his neck. Slowly I woke him up, slowly but steadily.
One of his arms moved and caught my wrist, softly pulling it away. He kept pulling, pulling, until I was lying on top of him.
“Good morning.” Jack’s voice was rough from sleep.
“Good morning.” I lean down and kiss him on his lips. “Did you sleep well?”
“Very well. Especially with you here.” Jack beamed up at me as his fingers traced up and down my back before creeping under my shirt.
His nails scratched on my skin as I let out a soft moan. “Good.” I slid down slightly and kissed down from his jaw to where his shirt started at his neck, small kisses all over his skin. He looked so hot even though he had just woken up. How did he do that? I slid my hands under his shirt again, exciting a small moan from him.
We lay there for a while, just feeling each other, tasting each other’s mouth and skin. We felt we had all the time in the world that morning.

What fools we were. Life soon caught up with us. First a week of school, then the weekend at Adam and Tom. Not even a week and a half after I came back home Jack died. Time had run out so soon we hadn’t seen it coming.
This time I can sort of see it coming. There is no going back now. My illness is going to get worse, no matter what. I want to make everybody happy, give them opportunities Jack never had. I need to create a stable and happy life for all of them before my time runs out.