Page 96 of Everything's Better With You
They went up to Leslie’s rooms and Sandy stood there while Leslie took his medication. Sandy didn’t speak for a long time, so long Leslie finally turned around to look at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Joe’s right, you know. He cares about you.”
Leslie opened his mouth to speak and then he shook his head. “I can’t do this now. I need to rest.”
“You can’t hold onto him so tightly. You’ve gotta let him go do what he needs to do if you want to keep him in your life. He’ll come back to you. He loves you. And getting upset about it before you even know what’s going to happen? It’s not fair to him, Leslie, especially since he doesn’t know everything about you.”
Leslie blew out a breath. “I was going to tell him. But now…if I tell him and he does stay, he’ll be staying because he feels obligated.”
Leslie felt like a broken man on a good day. Today, he felt destroyed. Stabbing pain in his head, aching back, knives in his knee. Every movement tore him down a little more. The roar of the crowd today at the cheer competition really set off his migraine. It had been coming on since the night before, but he’d thought he could dodge it. The acupressure Joe taught him seemed to work. Sometimes. But when the screaming continued and got louder during the award ceremony, that had been it.
Maybe he had been harsh with Joe, but he was just facing the inevitable. Joe wasn’t going to stay with him. Leslie wasn’t enough to keep Joe in Ayre Valley. Fifteen years had been a long time to wait for his chance, and it seemed as if it had been in vain. If Joe was leaving in May, Leslie might as well just let him go now.
“Fine. Rest. We’re seeing Dr. Taylor Monday. Remember, you’ve got your test results to go over. And then you need to talk to Joe. Tell him why you’re in such a damn rush to be with him.”
“I’d hardly consider fifteen years a rush.”
“He’s been here for three months, Leslie. That’s it. That’s not enough time for you to expect him to drop everything.”
But did Leslie have much longer to wait? The migraines had been somuch worse these past few months. Sure, he’d been under more stress—some of it self-imposed—but he was worried. It was a vicious cycle. The more he worried, the more his head hurt, the more he worried.
There was no way to diagnose Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, the disease that killed his father, until after death. At forty-five years old, Leslie was nowhere near the level of concern his father had been. By his age, Rick Payton had already started to have major mood swings and aggression. He’d become violent with his family. He had majorly impaired cognitive function, couldn’t remember people he’d played the sport he loved with, couldn’t remember his childhood. Couldn’t remember things from Barry’s and Leslie’s childhoods.
Leslie wasn’t anywhere near that, but the headaches and their frequency terrified him.
The doctor had done a PET scan, MRI and CT scan and could find nothing out of the ordinary. They were going to meet with him in Kansas City to start looking at other causes for his migraines and other treatments. The doctor had been hopeful that they could get his pain under control.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Sandy said. “But you should call Joe.”
“I don’t think so,” Leslie said. “Let it go, Sandy. Let him go.”
This time it hurt so much more than Hawaii. He knew he’d gotten his hopes up too much then that the two of them could start something real. But now?
Leslie trudged to his bedroom, vaguely aware that Sandy was still talking to him.
He undressed, showered, and fell into bed, his ears ringing and pain scrambling behind his eyes for purchase.
His phone buzzed and he picked it up, the light searing his retinas.
I’m sorry. Please say we can talk about this tomorrow?
Leslie didn’t know how to answer, didn’t even know what to say.
Talk later. Sleep now.
It was all he could do to keep his eyes open long enough to hit send before he dropped his phone on the floor.
The ruckus the next morning—it could only be described as a ruckus—roused Leslie from sleep and into misery. His door opened and he threw an arm over his eyes to keep the light out. It sounded like twenty people were shouting, but only one came inside. Leslie swore as the door closed, and then a weight settled on the bed next to him and he felt soft hands on his forehead.
“You big infuriating man.”
Joe.Why was he here? Questions flooded Leslie’s mind but he heard Joe shush him.
“Don’t talk. I’m mad at you. You just lay here and let me take care of you, Sasquatch.”
Leslie wanted to laugh, but tears stung his eyes, adding to the misery. He couldn’t imagine why Joe was there, but he didn’t want to fight. He sighed and scooted over, giving Joe enough space to slide in next to him. He focused on Joe’s healing touch, the gentle pressure over his forehead, cheekbones, and cranium easing him into comfortable sleep.
Each time he woke over that day, Joe was there to give him water, to make him eat bits of soup and bread he recognized as being Agnes’s creations. Joe whispered softly to him, but the words were meant to ease, meant to keep Leslie relaxed, allowing his body to shake off this latest impairment.
