Finding Jaime

Jaime POV

I rolled outside after Dad and I got back from physio. I usually go outside when we get home or after my therapies.

I rolled outside, past the pool, towards the back of the yard, where I could see into the hills. Whenever the wind blew, I imagined I was out in the hills running. My body wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. My mouth wouldn't get the words I wanted to say out the way I wanted to say them. Everything took so much more time to do. Every thought required time to get out. I just wanted to get up and run. I wanted to be free of this broken body. 

Two steps. And barely that. I had barely managed to take two steps before my legs betrayed me, and I nearly fell. 

I know Dad is supportive. I know he wants me to heal. I know he worries about every setback I have and every time I'm in a mood because things didn't work the way I wanted them to. I was tired of disappointing him and the family. 

Marvel misses me reading her stories and taking her swimming. She misses making pancakes with me because I need help getting out of bed and downstairs. Because I need to sit in a fucking wheelchair because of what Frank, his cousins and Justin did to me. 

I don't know if Mom and Dad have any idea about how I'm feeling. Dad probably does. Yeah, Mom probably does, too. But I don't know if they realize how bad it is.

This isn't my life. This isn't the way it was supposed to go. Mom, my birth mom, was supposed to raise me until it was my turn to take care of her in her old age. She was supposed to get to old age. Maybe I wasn't supposed to ever meet my dad. Maybe I was supposed to stay in Santa Monica, finish high school, think about college, and maybe have a future that would have allowed me to pay Mom back for everything she did and sacrificed just to raise me. I never did get the chance to thank her for everything she endured to make sure I had a good life. 

And I did. I had a really good life with Mom until she got sick, and I got mad at her for that. How stupid is that? I got mad at my mom for getting sick. It's not like she chose to get brain cancer. However, she did choose to die from it. 

Or did she? I mean, I know her treatments were hard on her. I'd hear her getting sick in the bathroom after her chemo sessions, and having been through it myself, I get it. I get how she couldn't go on. It felt easier to die than to continue with treatments that made her hair fall out, and her throat fill with sores from the vomiting and the constant fatigue. I'm 16, and that was hard for me. She was in her 40s and had spent 15 years by that point dedicating every minute at home to making sure I was fed, clothed and loved. And how did I thank her? By ignoring her when she wanted to talk to me. When she tried to tell me, she knew my dad. That when she died, she was hoping he would take me in. She'd put all of that into motion, and I had ignored everything she wanted to tell me, hoping, stupidly, that it would keep her alive. 

In the end, I'd failed. She died, and I wound up living with a stranger. 

But Dad turned out to actually be pretty cool. Once, I stopped being so mad at him for not helping Mom out when I was growing up. I didn't know that Mom knew who he was but had never told him I existed, let alone that she had been pregnant. She'd told him in a letter. Instead of being brave and telling him when they were younger, she wrote a fucking letter to him to find out that he had a son. He didn't have to take me in. He could have denied it and let me wallow in foster care purgatory for three more years until I'd have aged out and been left to my own devices. Instead, he took responsibility for me. He welcomed me into his home and his family, hoping I wouldn't cause huge problems - personally and professionally. I had accused him once of only worrying about his image when I'd gotten in trouble. But upon reflection, I realized then that he was right. Now that I was part of his family, anything I did could reflect on him negatively. Not to mention, it would also affect Joe, Patrick and Andy. And I couldn't do that to him. To them. Not on purpose. 

So I'd tried to get away from the things that could cause the most problems for Dad. For me, too, of course, but most importantly, I didn't want Mom, Dad or the kids to be hurt by anything I could have gotten involved in, especially after I'd been detained by the police for being Frank's lookout. 

But I had never expected that telling Frank I was done hanging out with him would result in this. Would I ever get better? Would I ever walk again? And if I did, would I ever walk unassisted? Would I ever be able to run again? 

Tears streamed down my face as I contemplated how life was right now. I hated this. I hated being reliant on people to help me to the bathroom. I hated that I had to wear a fucking diaper to bed because I can't just get out of bed and go to the bathroom when I need. I hate that I have a nurse sitting in my room every night watching that nothing happens to me in my sleep. And to change my fucking diaper if I take a shit in it. 

I wanted to go back to the day before I agreed to meet with Frank and Justin. I wouldn't have gone if I had known they'd destroy my life. 

I wiped my eyes and nose on my hoodie sleeve and kept looking out at the hills behind Dad's house. 

"Jaime?" I heard a little voice behind me. I turned around and Marvel was standing behind me, looking a little sad. 

"W-wh-at's u-up?" I asked her. 

"You has a sad?" she asked, coming beside my chair. I picked her up and placed her on my lap. My arms worked mostly okay now. Occasionally, I'd have a spasm, and my arm would fling out, but it was happening less and less now. 

I sighed.

"I-I g-g-g-gue-eh-ess," I stuttered out, swearing to myself that I couldn't get two words out without stuttering. 

"Me too," she said. 

"W-w-w-why?" I asked, looking at her. 

"A'cause you has a sad, and I'm sad a'cause you is," she said. 

I sighed again. 

"Y-y-oo d-d-do-oh-n't h-ha-av-ve t-to b-b-b-be s-s-sad f-f-for m-m-me," I frowned. 

"Jaime?" she asked, looking at me. 

"Y-Y-Ye-h?" I asked, looking at her. 

"I love you," she smiled. "You my best big brother."

I smiled at her.

"Th-th-a-an-k y-y-oo, M-M-Ma-ah-ar," I stuttered.  "I-I l-l-l-ov-ve y-y-you, t-t-too. D-d-doh-on't l-let S-S-Sai-ain-t a-an-d B-B-Br-ro-ron-x he-he-ar y-yo-ou."

I smiled at her and she smiled at me. She lay her head on my chest and cuddled into me. I looked up at the hills. 

I would run them again.