RP Log with learninghearts | Heartbreaking

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When Aimee got out of surgery, she was met with no less than seventeen text messages from Serena first asking her to call, but then begging her to come around to their apartment as soon as she was able. Aimee's heart and stomach felt like they had leapt up in her throat, and she had shoved her things into her bag as quickly as she could and managed to get an early mark off Sable now that the patient was stable and would be handed over to the night staff. Of course, Aimee was terrified now that something had happened to Chris or Rick, but wouldn't Serena be at the hospital if that was the case? That was about the only thing that stopped her panicking completely, and she was the doorstep of Chris - and now Serena's - apartment as soon as she could.


It was Mrs Deleo who answered the door looking probably how Aimee expected her to be considering Rick was going through his second round of chemo, though for some reason, she seemed to look worse when she opened the door to Aimee. Very little was said, and Mrs Deleo just led Aimee inside to Chris and Serena's room. Aimee stood in the doorway, seeing that Chris was completely out of it, asleep curled up on his side while Serena lay next to him, her head propped up on her hand as she watched him. "I came as soon as I could," Aimee whispered, taking a small step closer so Serena could hear her. "Is something wrong with him? Has something happened to Chris? To Rick? If there is anything you need, I can go right now and get it," she said, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb.

"No, no," Serena murmured as she sat up and caught Aimee's hand. She held onto it before she leaned down to kiss Chris' temple and then slid off the bed so she could lead Aimee away from the bed slightly. She still kept her voice quiet as she spoke. "It's not Chris. It's not Rick either. Aimee, it's Dave. I didn't want to tell you over the phone, and I know you're going to kill me for dragging you here instead of just letting you stay at the hospital but there's nothing really you can do right now. He's out cold. Aims, I'm so sorry, but Dave has testicular cancer. He collapsed in MT1. He's stage four."

Aimee was frowning when Serena started talking, but as she continued, she ended up just staring at her friend blankly. She continued to stare for a long few lingering moments of silence. Chris wasn't even snoring, so there was nothing to break it. Just... flat silence. But soon Aimee gave a small, dry laugh and looked at Serena in disbelief. "What? I- no. Is this some kind of a joke? He's not- he's at work... he's..." She went back to staring at Serena, her eyes wider now as she waited for her friend to hit her with the punchline of a really sick joke,

Serena just shook her head. "It's not a joke, Aimee. I really wish I was, but I'm not. I couldn't believe it when Chris told me. I thought it was some fucked up cosmic joke, too. That Dave who survived cancer gets hit with another round. I think he's just had a lot of trouble facing it. He didn't even know for sure until recently. None of us knew. None of us had a clue. Not until he collapsed while Chris was finally trying to confront him."

Aimee looked over to Chris passed out on the bed, her face paler now than when she first arrived. "No, I... it can't... he would have told me," she insisted in a small voice, hugging her arms around herself when the room suddenly felt like it was freezing. "He's not sick. He hasn't been sick. He would have said... he... wouldn't he? He would have told me? I mean, we've been having problems and he hasn't been speaking to me because I think he thought I didn't get the whole sex--" She suddenly stopped abruptly and put her hand up over her mouth in realisation.

Serena watched her friend quietly before she moved in to wrap her arms around Aimee. Even if Chris woke up now he'd have to understand why Aimee was there. She rubbed her hand against Aimee's back soothingly. "I know, sweetie. I know. He didn't even say anything to his sister, or his parents. Like I said, no one knew. Well, Bella did, but for obvious reasons she couldn't say anything. He's just put on a really good act that he's functioning, and that he's okay. All he's been doing is working and sleeping."

Aimee gave a tiny shake of her head. Dave had cancer. Again. But from everything he had told her about it, she was supposed to believe he would survive it a second time. "He said... he said he didn't think he would survive it a second time. He said that!" she said helplessly, choking up. "He doesn't want me to know. I'm the last to know, he doesn't want anything to do with me. He's hardly spoken to me in weeks. He doesn't want me touching him. Why are you telling me this?! He doesn't want me to have anything to do with him!"

Serena pulled back so she could take Aimee's face in her hands to force her to look at him. "It's not about that. I think this is just him trying to protect everyone. If he thinks that he wouldn't survive a second round, then maybe he's just trying to stop everyone from hurting too? I don't know, Aims. I don't. But I can't really believe that he doesn't want to have anything to do with you. You also just have to remember that when he had cancer the first time, his girlfriend walked out on him because she couldn't handle it."

"And he just thinks I'm going to do the same? Oh great. That makes me feel even more awesome than I have been these last few weeks. Do you know the things I have been thinking? He disappeared after we tried to have sex again, I don't hear from him again. He ignores my calls, my texts. How am I supposed to know how to be there for him if he doesn't want me to be there? You're telling me he was sick, and he still didn't want me there." Aimee threw her hands up helplessly, the tears coming now. "I thought he was the one, but if this is how he is going to treat me anytime the going gets tough, I don't even know if I want to stick around. He'll have all you there to take care of him and love him, what does he need me for?"

"No, no. Aimee, I didn't mean to make it sound like that. Shit," Serena said as she tried to keep from saying all the insensitive things. No wonder she had trouble with patients when she couldn't always handle her friends. "But he's been hurt before, and sometimes without realising it we just try to withdraw so that it doesn't happen again. I know you wouldn't hurt him, Aims. I don't know what to say other than I'm not sure he really did intentionally cut you off. It's not Dave. Maybe we will be there, but we're no replacement for you. I think when he's awake you should go see him. You should be there."

Nothing could have prepared Aimee for any of this, and she had no idea how she was supposed to react to it all. But somewhere through the shock and confusion, the penny dropped as to exactly what Serena was telling her. What it meant, what the impact was. A small sob caught in her throat as she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. "H-He has cancer! Cancer," she gasped tearfully and glanced over at Chris when he made a soft noise in his sleep and shifted under the covers. Aimee gave a small apologetic shake of her head for disturbing Chris and turned to walk out of the room so she wouldn't wake him up. "Why isn't Chris with him? What is going on? I don't know anything that is going on!" she cried, almost in a panic.

Serena stopped by Chris to brush her fingers through his hair and kiss his forehead before she followed Aimee out of the room completely and took her friend's hand to give it a squeeze. "He's probably also going to lose a testicle. You need to be ready for that. I don't know if he'll want a prosthetic one, or not... He's going to be feeling sensitive about his body for a while yet. He's going to get hit with chemo and radiation therapy as well as surgery as soon as Bella thinks he's stable enough. She's got him sharing a room with Rick tonight so he's not alone. His family's flying in now. As for Chris, he needed to come home. He needed sleep. He's still not one hundred percent yet, and believe it or not, the great Dr C asked me to bring him home. Bella's not letting anyone in to see Dave yet until his family gets in."

Aimee gave a nod, but she didn't even know what she was agreeing with at that point. It sort of felt like Serena's words were going in one ear and out the other, but at the same time, she was absorbing it somewhere. Just probably not the place to accept it rationally. She was trying to run the brief relationship with Dave over in her head. It hadn't been in the process all that long, but he was amazing. She had fallen so hard for him, so fast, and for awhile there, it had been perfect. Until sex started to become an issue, and Dave struggled with his performance. At first he was okay, relieved Aimee understood, and she never pushed anything. But then something must have taken a turn, it was just all a blur for her to try and remember. "I-I- hurt him. I think. I... it was a few weeks ago now, but he was at my place, and we were in bed. It was going fine until it just wasn't. I was touching him and we had a condom, but then he just... lost it when I touched him. I thought it was me. I didn't know he was in pain, it just seemed like he was totally turned off all of a sudden, and then he left. We haven't really spoken much since."

Serena just kept watching Aimee quietly, trying to anticipate when her friend might need a hug, or something else. "You weren't going to know unless he said something. If he never told you he was in pain, then of course you were just going to assume it was you. I think the pain he felt when you touched him though, might have been what sent him to Bella to get answers, only he was still pushing himself hard with work. It's possible he didn't want to talk to you either because he was ashamed of just not being able to tell you what was going on. I don't know. I think you just need to see him and talk to him."

"I should have known. I should have felt... felt something right? Would there be something to feel? I don't know Oncology. How did I not see something was wrong with him, Serena? If something was wrong with Chris, you would know. You would. He was off, but we hadn't been together that long. How was I to know he wasn't just being normal and all the stuff at the start was a smokescreen?" Aimee asked helplessly, trying to brush away the anxious tears. "Then instead of asking him if something was wrong, I took it personally and stupidly blamed myself, when he just needed help and I... S-Stage Four? Did you say Stage Four?"

Serena nodded. "Yeah, Stage Four. I'm in just as much shock as you, Aims, but I've had a little time to try and digest it, and I've got Chris to distract me. I don't know if you would have felt something then, but I'm assuming there would be a lump now. I just don't know, Aimee. I wish I had answers, but this is all I have. I just had to tell you what was going on because I don't think it's fair that you don't know."

Aimee felt a shiver set in all over her body. She looked at Serena with a mix of confusion she couldn't control. "What if he dies?" she asked in a whisper. "We never had a chance, and I-I love him. I couldn't even tell him that."

"Then you need to tell him," Serena told Aimee firmly. "You need to make sure he knows before that happens. I can talk to Bella, get her to let you in to see Dave when he's awake. You might just have to navigate his family in case they're there before you. You can't not tell him, Aimee."

"What if they hate me and don't want me anywhere near him? I've been a horrible girlfriend," Aimee sobbed. "Rick... Chris... how is Chris? Rick is having chemo. I've just been keeping my distance. I had no idea Dave would be pushing everyone away. I thought he was helping you guys with Chris and Rick."

Serena gave a shake of her head as she pulled Aimee in for another hug. "You haven't been horrible. You've been anything but. He was the one that pulled away, not you. You really aren't a horrible girlfriend, Aims. Like you said you never had a chance to find your feet together. Things were only just starting to build up. They won't hate you. Who could ever hate you? He's get everyone at arm's length. Especially Chris and Rick because he thought he was just getting in the way, that he was making things worse for Rick. And then whenever he tried to talk to Chris, shit just kept exploding. I think he just gave up. Chris is just tired, and learning that he still definitely has limits."

"I'm sorry I made it sound like Chris should be there and not here. I didn't know... I don't know anything. I just can't believe this. How is this happening?" Aimee shook her head, needing to lean up against the wall when the exhaustion started setting in. "He was so careful. He did everything right. I mean, painfully so. He ate well, he hardly touched alcohol, he was healthy. How does this happen? Did you see him? How was he?"

Serena pressed her lips together briefly. "I'm sorry, no. I didn't get a chance to see him. I just know that Dave collapsing is pretty serious. Chris was just a mess when I got to him. He'd only just managed to see Dave after weeks of them missing each other, and he was trying to confront him when Dave just hit the deck. This is just a seriously twisted life joke. Dave doesn't deserve this. Neither do you."

Aimee bit down on her lip and shook her head. "I don't know what to say to him. How do I find the right things to say? He might not even want me there. And I realise right now I'm just going over and over things, but I can't think straight. I feel sick. It feels like everything you are saying to me is just some sort of mash up of my worst fears. But he's back there, and he's in a room with Rick, and he's seriously sick. They both are. I don't know what to do."

Serena put her hand on Aimee's shoulder. "You go there and you tell him you love him. That's where you start, and that's what you say to him," she told Aimee softly. "It's okay that you're going back over things. Whatever you need to do."

Aimee nodded and just stood there helplessly, words coming to fail her. She gestured vaguely in the direction of the nearby bedroom. "You should go back to him. He's probably wondering where you are. I'll just... I'll..." She pointed behind her, swallowing heavily.

Serena looked into Chris' room. He'd shifted positions, but he was still asleep. There just weren't any snores. She started to realise he probably was going to surface soon. She looked back at Aimee and smiled a little. "Just call me. Any time for anything. You're my best friend, Aims. I'm always here for you, okay? I just need you to know that because I don't want to lose you."

Aimeed nodded numbly again. "Yeah... sure... of course. I'll see you," she said distractedly and didn't even really say goodbye. She just turned and walked out, even forgetting to say goodbye to Mrs Deleo. Despite Serena's words, Aimee had never felt so terrified and alone in her life. Somehow she needed to get to the hospital. But that was the easy part. Anything after that, she had no idea if she would manage it or not. She just had to at least try.