The Dating Game

Chapter Thirty-Three

Justin

"Can you meet me at the park now?"

Nervously, I pulled my phone from my ear and checked the time. "Yeah, I can. How long will this take though?"

Pause. "Not long hopefully."

"Alright. I'll meet you there in about ten minutes."

"Thank you, Justin."

With a goodbye from me, Juliet hung up and I got ready for leaving the apartment. I checked in on Jazmyn who was sat at her desk doing some homework. She preferred not to leave it to the last day and waste it away in her room and do homework so she spread it out over a couple of days and still managed to find free time in those days for reading – typical of her really, when you think about it.

"I'm going to the park to meet Juliet, Jaz," I announced, holding the handle of her door.

She turned around slowly. "Mom will be home soon, anyway with Dawson. They're cooking lunch together so it may be done by the time you get home then. I'll say you've just popped out. She won't mind much."

I nodded. "Thanks, Jaz. I promise I'll try not to be too long."

And there it was. My feet were already taking me on the trek. I found myself wandering into the park nearly ten minutes later. Juliet was sat on a bench near the end where not many people were. The little children who were too dazed and animated by the jungle gym, swings and slides to bother with this side of the park. This side was full of benches and plants and trees where elderly people could rest or people could eat their lunches. There was a little stall at the end where you could buy some food from including sweets, drinks, chips and even more of a variety.

"Hey," I murmured, standing opposite her. I sat beside her and kept a respectable gap between us. What I didn't need was for her to end all of this and make me out to be a fool. God, she had me under such an intense trance.

"Hey," she whispered. "Thanks for coming."

"Did I have much choice?" I remarked.

She chuckled apprehensively. "Perhaps not." Then she sighed. "I don't know whether to explain it all and then tell you or just tell you first and then explain it?"

Before I had time to reply and settle for the decision, Juliet beat me to it.

"I'll go with the former, I think," she mumbled to herself. "Are you prepared for a story?"

I nodded. "Yeah," I breathed, observing an elderly man utilising a cane as he stumbled past us to the nearest bench.

"I bet you're wondering about my Coke lid necklace or my material bracelets?" She drew in a profound breath. "My mom had a disease called Long QT Syndrome or LQTS for short."

"I've never heard of that," I interjected. My throat was constricting as I mused about it and wondered all of the diabolical outcomes. Where on earth could she be going with this?

A wind picked up as it was already quite chilly. It would be January tomorrow. Today it was the last day of December today.

"It means there's a disturbance in my heart rhythm, basically. For my mom, her sodium channels in her body were affected and too many sodium ions were allowed into her cells which shouldn't happen. This causes a delay in the impulses. There is also a potassium channel which can be affected by a similar disease. For my mom, it was the sodium channel. Consequentially, she had more of a chance of an abrupt death when she was sleeping. And that's what happened. She died in her sleep, Justin."

Juliet had managed to keep her voice. I had watched her the entire time through her speech and she kept her eyes in front of her, avoiding my own eye contact. I abhorred my mom sometimes, but I don't know how I'd feel if she died abruptly in her sleep. How could a child go through that?