~ Chapter 40: Go dog sledding. ~

I woke up the next day a little later than planned and turned around to see if Damon was still sleeping. As expected, he was awake, looking at something on his phone, smiling. I bet he hadn’t slept at all or maybe just one of two hours.

“Hey.” I whispered.

He locked his phone and smiled at me.

“Hey. Did you sleep well?”

I nodded, yawning. Damon got out of bed, searched for something in the suitcase than got back next to me and opened the notebook. Together, we ticked the little box next to Celebrate one last Christmas and the other one next to Go skiing. The list was long, but most of the things were ticked off already.

“Today, we have to go dog sledding.” Damon says. “The reservation is for three but we could go ski before? Can you text Jenny or Seth to see if they’re awake?”

“Yeah.”

Jenny answered right away that they were, adding of course they that hadn’t slept much though due to their respective presents, to which I responded ‘ew! Please don’t send the details’. Her response was a sad smiley face and another one winking. I put back my phone on the little bed table and looked at Damon.

“I know we have to get out of bed but I feel like staying inside of it all day.” I said, stretching my arms over my head.

“Me too.”

He kissed me and then it was it, I was already on top of him, not even needing to take his shirt off because he was already chest-naked. Good. My shirt followed his clothes on the floor. He looked at me for a few seconds, placing a strand of hair behind my ear, and his eyes were so full of love and desire it made me burn inside.

“I love you so much.” He said, still just looking at me, his hand cupping my cheek.

“I love you too Damon.”

I started kissing him again and heard him moan as my hands traveled down his body. Knowing I could make him feel like this was so new and had been unexpected before. My past self would have never guessed Damon could ever be in love with her. Tough he was before I even knew it, when we were just best friends. All this time wasted when we could have been together already made me really mad but there was nothing we could do to change the past and maybe things were meant to happen this way.

“Yo guys, where are you?” I heard Seth shout from the living room.

I stopped dead in my tracks and Damon pouted when I took my hands off him. Shit. We were both naked and before I could even have time to get off Damon, Seth barged in, shouting something like:

“Jenny is waiting by the … OH MY GOD NO!!!!!” He screamed before slamming the door behind him as he saw us on the bed.

I heard him repeat “Ew, ew, ew, ew!!! Mental image!!! Ew, ew, ew!!!” and I couldn’t help but laugh, although I was blushing because this was definitely not something I had wanted my brother to see. Ever. This would be awkward. But in a way, I guess we were even now, from the awful time I had walked in on him with this random girl at my house when I was supposed to be gone to college.

“We’ll finish this tonight.” I told Damon before grabbing my clothes and getting dressed quickly.

I got out of the room to find Seth still walking in circles whispering “Ew, ew, ew” like a mad man. I laughed again and he turned around.

“Oh my god now I can’t stop seeing you naked! Why would you do this to me?! I’ll need months of therapy to feel sane again.”

“Seth you’ve never been a sane person. And stop being a baby, the same thing happened to me and I got over it.”

“You didn’t even know the girl! Now I won’t be able to look at Damon the same way either.”

“Oh come on! What were you saying anyway about Jenny?”

“Shit! I forgot to call her! She’s going to be pissed!”

He quickly grabbed his phone to dial her and got out to talk. I could hear him say ew a hundred more times and laughed again. Damon joined me in the living room fully dressed and wrapped his arms around me from behind before kissing me on the cheek.

“Who’s Seth talking to?” He asked, seeing him raising his hand in the air outside while talking on the phone.

“Jenny. I think she was waiting for us or something. You’re ready to go?”

“Yup. Just need to put on my god damn awful shoes.”

After putting on our shoes, ski coats and helmets, we headed outside and saw Jenny already at the ski lift, by the top of the awful hill we had to climb to get to the lift.

“Sorry, we didn’t know you were already there.” I said when we reached the top.

I was already breathless. God I really needed to get in better shape!

“Yeah, Seth told me everything. And said ‘ew’ at least a thousand times. The poor guy is traumatized. You’ll have to pay for the therapy, I refuse to be the one taking him to his sessions for years!”

“What a drama queen!” Damon remarked and Seth shoved his shoulder.

“Well, come on, we lost enough time already and we’re blocking the line! Let’s go already people!” Jenny urged us.

We took the lift, Jenny and Seth in one and Damon and I in the next one. Damon mocked me when I closed the zipper of my coat so that it would cover my mouth and nose but I was too cold to look remotely normal.

“I’ll talk to Seth at lunch. I’ll tell him.” Damon said.

“Ok.”

“I feel a little bad for asking you that but could you um… be there? When I tell him?”

“Of course!”

“You look like a terrorist by the way.”

“Shut up! I’m cold!”

“I gathered.” He laughed.

I wanted to stick my tongue at him but my mouth was covered by my coat so he wouldn’t even see it. We reached the end of the first lift, took another one then slid down the slopes. The snow was perfect and there weren’t too much people on the slopes. I almost got ran into by a little boy but he turned in time.

We took many lifts and slid down a lot of slopes, some easier than others, than stopped to get lunch in a restaurant down at the ski station. There were a lot of foreigners and I could only recognize French, Spanish and German but I didn’t know the other languages. We sat at a table outside because it was sunny and Jenny wanted to tan a little. She sat in a chair further to get the sun while our food was getting prepared and Damon cleared his throat. I guess it was the perfect time to tell Seth.

“So, Seth, I wanted to talk to you about something…” Damon started.

My brother raised his eyes from the drinks menu.

“I um… you remember yesterday when I had headaches?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, they’re not just headaches. It’s actually more complicated than that. I have a rare diseases. A brain disease.”

“What? Man, are you fucking with me? It’s not funny.”

“No, I’m serious Seth. I’ve wanted to tell you for long now but I never found the right time and you’re my little bro so you deserve to know… I have a disease and it will kill me in a few months.”

Seth looked at him, then at me, then back at him.

“What?” He repeated. “You knew?” He asked me.

“Yes. I’ve known since he came back.” I explained.

“What the fuck? You’re dying?”

“Yes. In a few months.”

Seth blinked a few times.

“This is… I’m sorry, this is too fucked up man, I need to get some air, I need…” He got up quickly and almost fell down because of his ski shoes but didn’t and walked away.

“I should probably go talk to him.” I told Damon, getting up too.

“Yeah… He took it pretty badly, didn’t he?”

“Knowing Seth, he’s probably denying everything in his head and trying to find a reason why you would invent such a thing not to believe it’s true.”

Damon felt bad, I just knew he did, but I had to go talk to my brother. So I walked after him (I couldn’t exactly run in those shoes) and found him sitting on a pile of snow, his face in his hands.

“Seth?” I called, before sitting next to him.

He wasn’t crying, he was just overwhelmed I think.

“What the fuck is wrong with him? He knew he was dying but still makes you fall in love with him? He knows he’s going to die in a few months but he still spends all his time with you, marries you!! For fuck’s sake, and just… He doesn’t even give a shit! The guy is dying but it doesn’t give him the right to hurt you and be so god damn selfish!!”

Seth was mad. Really mad. But I knew him and it was usually his way of dealing with hard news. The day my mum had told him our aunt had died because she was driving drunk, he got mad at her and cursed the guy who sold her alcohol instead of dealing with his grief. That’s just how my brother was.

“Seth… Damon told me right away because he wanted me to choose if I wanted to see him and be friends with him again even though he would be gone forever in a year, or a year and a half tops. I chose to spend as much time with him as I could, to take advantage of the moments we had left to share them with him. He didn’t purposely make me fall in love with him, I just fell in love with him the same way he did me and we had a crush on each other since forever but neither of us had dared said anything and then there was the crash and we lost touch for five years. So when he came back, I didn’t want to let him go again.”

Seth shook his head slightly, like he couldn’t believe it.

“I was the one who wanted to marry him, I just knew I would regret it if we didn’t do it otherwise and we had promised we wouldn’t have any regrets. All those crazy trips, those things we’ve been doing, it was for the Bucket List we put together of all the things he wants to do before dying. And I wanted to do them with him, so I dropped out of college for this year. That’s also why we celebrated an extra Christmas yesterday, Damon wanted to celebrate a last one before dying.”

“I can’t believe this. Why didn’t he tell me right away? I mean, I’m his friend, sort of, not a stranger! We’ve known each other forever and he just doesn’t tell me, acts as if everything is fine!”

“He wanted to tell you, believe me, he did, but he just didn’t know how to break the news to you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

“Oh my god! And all those things I said about you having kids and your future together and… Oh my god! You made me pass for a total idiot! And a total jerk to you!”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m the one who’s sorry! You must be feeling so… terrible already without me rubbing in the fact that your boyfriend, or more like husband, is dying. I should have been there for you to comfort you but you didn’t even let me.”

“It’s ok, Seth.”

“No it’s not! It’s so not ok! It’s the most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe Damon is… that’s just… he can’t be dying! He’s only twenty-one!”

“I know.”

“How come he’s not bald or super tired or just… why doesn’t he look like a sick person then?” He asked.

I smiled. “That’s one of the first things I asked him when he told me. He’s not bald because he doesn’t do any chemo and that’s what makes hair fall out. And he looks good on the outside but his brain is… badly damaged and it could snap and make him die, which is what will happen in a few months.” I tried to hold back my tears, this was definitely not the time to cry. “In the mean time, he has terrible headaches, and other symptoms and he’s suffering a lot but he tries not to show it. The other day, on the slopes, he got one of those horrible brain thing and couldn’t even talk or move. It’s bad. But he had pills to make sure they don’t happen that often.”

“I just can’t believe this is happening.”

“Me neither.”

“I’m so sorry.” Seth said before taking me in his arms.

He never hugged me. Which made the tears even more rapidly fall down my cheeks and I cried in his arms for a few minutes before taking deep breaths to calm down and wiping my eyes.

“We should go back now, the food is probably cold by now but we have to eat. I’m starving.” I said.

“Me too.” He got up then offered me his hand that I took to get up too. “Hey, does Jenny know?”

I nodded, feeling a little guilty she did and he hadn’t until know. But Seth just said “ok” and we walked back to the restaurant. The food was already here and Jenny was almost done with her pizza.

“Sorry, we didn’t wait for you but it was getting freezing cold…” She apologized when we sat at the table.

“No problem.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner Seth.” Damon said, looking like he felt really bad about the whole thing.

“It’s ok.”

Seth put as much food in his mouth as he could to signal he didn’t want to talk about it anymore and I ate too, even though I really wasn’t hungry anymore.

“You ok?” Damon whispered to me.

He had probably remarked my bloodshot and swollen eyes.

“Yes, don’t worry.”

We finished eating in a somewhat good mood thanks to Jenny who talked to us about her ass, which made us laugh, then we got back on our skis.

“Damon and I made a reservation to go dog sledding.” I said, when we reached the lift. “We’re supposed to be there in an hour.”

“Ok. Well Seth and I will just go down more slopes and we’ll meet you at the chalet tonight.”

“Sounds good. We have to get to another part of the station so you can go with us if you want or we separate now.”

They ended up going with us in the other part of the station. Damon and I slid down the slopes to get to the place where we would meet the person in charge of the dog sledding activity. We could have gone with a lift but we wanted to enjoy skiing as much as we could so this was better. We got to the place a little early and saw the beautiful huskies already attached to the sled.

“Hey! Are you guys here for the dog sledding?” A guy with a beard and who frankly kind of looked like Santa asked.

“Yes, we’re Damon and Leah, I booked under the name Hollins.”

“Let me check.”

He went inside the little cabin and Damon bent down to caress one of the dogs. They were big but, surprisingly, not scaring us at all with their big blue eyes. Santa came back a little minute later and said we were all set so he explained everything to us then we got inside the sled and the huskies started running to we were sliding on the fresh snow.

“Oh my god, this is awesome!” Damon exclaimed.

“Totally!”

We had done so many amazing things lately but this one was definitely in the top ten. The huskies were beautiful and we were watching the landscapes of snow-covered mountain with the sun shining on a bright blue sky. This couldn’t have been more perfect. We were going fast but it wasn’t that scary, just really enjoyable.

“I wish we could adopt one of the Huskies.” Damon shouted over the wind. “I wanted to put it in the list at first, adopt an animal, but I thought about it and then realized that there would be no one to take care of it when I’d die.”

“I could.” I screamed back.

“You would? I wanted a cat at first but I don’t know, now I want a dog.”

“Let’s talk about it when we get off the sled, I can’t keep screaming like that!”

The ride ended about thirty minutes later and we got back to the starting place. The huskies slowed down and then completely stopped. We got out of the carriage than back on the ground.

“That was so awesome!” I exclaimed.

We looked at each other than got the same idea at the same exact moment. We fell on the big pack of snow then laughed.

“You really are my soul mate, aren’t you?” Damon said before rolling on the snow to get next to me.

“I think we’ve figured that out by now.”

He smiled then took off his gloves to place his hand on my cheek.

“Your hand is freezing cold.” I stated, smiling.

He shrugged then kissed me, still cupping my face.

“I love you.”

I smiled, keeping his face close to mine.

“I love you too Damon.”

“So, about that animal thing… You were serious?” He asked, raising himself in a sitting position.

“I don’t know, why not? But I’d rather have a cat though, a dog is too much work.”

“But how will you take care of him when you’re in college?”

“I hadn’t thought about that. Or college at all for that matter.”

“Leah, you have to go back to college next year.”

“I know. I just haven’t figured out in my mind that it will actually happen. And I still don’t know what I want to major in.”

“You still have some time to think about it anyway.”

“Yeah…”

“And, just for your information, I would rather have a cat too, I mean, come on, they’re the cutest animals ever.”

I laughed. “You’ve always been kind of a cat person. Whenever I would say something bad about your mum’s cat, you would get so mad at me it was like I had insulted one of your children!”

“You should never insult Harry Potter or you will suffer great consequences!”

“Who names his cat Harry Potter anyway?”

“I don’t know, he just had the head for it.”

I laughed and put back my gloves on before getting up. I helped Damon get on his feet too and then we get back on our skis to slid down the slopes to the station. Jenny and Seth were already at their chalet and we got back into ours, sweating from the effort.

“I would really like to continue what we’ve started this morning but I stink so we’ll have to wait a little.” Damon said, taking his sweater off, revealing his yummy back.

“I stink more so dibs on the shower.” I answered before rushing to the bathroom.

I closed the door and heard Damon groan.

“Not fair!”

I got rid of my stinky and wet clothes with a grossed out face and put them in the sink so that I could wash them afterwards, then hopped in the shower and let the hot water run down on me. Then I heard the door being opened. I smiled to myself, already knowing who it was and at the sound of clothes hitting the ground.

“Let’s kill two birds with one stone.” Damon whispered in my ear, when he got inside the shower too.

I couldn’t help but shiver even though the water was hot. But to be fair, so was my boyfriend/husband in our hearts.