aTRACKion

Chapter Twenty Six

As Doug clenches my fingers, I don't think I have ever seen a man so bound tightly in his own anxiety and fear. Without me even knowing the full story, I can see how much Doug is struggling with his mother's Alzheimer's. He's afraid to be around her. He's afraid to even look at her. And it hurts me, knowing that he is hurting. Using the gentlest tone I have, I look at him and say. "My grandma had dementia. I know that it may not seem like your mum can hear and feel you, but she can." I bring Doug closer, wanting him to simply place his hand on his mother's. "Your mum might not be able to express that she knows you are here, but she really will know." Carefully, I rest his hand on the top of his mother's, then stand aside to give Doug this assuring time with his mum.

I watch him, first looking up at his unresponsive mum, then lowering his head with an exasperated sigh. "I can't." Doug snatches his hand away, then rushes from the room in visible distress.

Not far behind him, I hurry to catch up with Doug. I find him leaning against the hallway wall, with both his hands flat against it as his head is hung low between both of his straightened out arms. He is shaking his head from side to side, grappling with the many emotions that are fighting for their freedom. "I'm sorry. I just can't. Touching her, being close to her...I just can't do it, Frankie." In his fractured voice, I can hear the heartbreak he has suffered, the heartbreak he is still suffering.

Wanting to comfort him in some small way, I start running my hand softly across his back. "I know this is hard for you, Doug. I remember how hard it was for my mum about grandma, but hidden within her Alzheimer's, your mum can still be reached."

Shaking his head, harder and stronger, Doug is agitated. "She can't be reached. My mum has gone from being able to walk and talk, to being completely dependent on other people, Frankie." He then lifts his unhappy head, looking at me as he slowly turns to stand with his back flush against the wall. "She can't even go to the toilet by herself now. She's wearing incontinence pads and has to have her ass wiped by her carers. Believe me, my mum has long gone." He closes his eyes, almost too pained to tell me the torturous extent of his mother's condition. "Her body is still sat in that chair, but my real mum left that body a very long time ago." He's now banging the back of his head against the wall, becoming more and more distressed. "I just want it to end, Frankie. I hate being here. I hate having to see the pathetic shell of my mum in this place. I hate me for hating her. I hate it all." That is when Doug emotionally disintegrates in front of me. His heavy head hangs down by his chest and he just cries.

Quick to hold him, I hold his heartbroken body tightly and just let him cry in my arms. Doug might be letting go of his anguish, but I'll not let go of him. Through his tears, I try to listen to the strangled with sadness words that start falling from out of Doug's distressed mouth. "I'm scared of how I feel about my mum. I'm scared that I'll one day end up like her. I couldn't cope with someone I love seeing me like that. I couldn't. Maybe that's why I did that coke last night? Maybe I was trying to sabotage what we have? Maybe I don't want to put you through what my mum is putting me through now? I love you, Frankie, but I don't want you to ever see me like that." Despairingly, he clings onto me even tighter, holding me with his devastated arms while he sobs harder against my shoulder.

There is so much sadness and uncertainty inside of Doug, and I think it absolutely terrifies him. With him held tight in my arms, I process his sadness and his uncertainty. I process that he's just admitted he loves me in the most emotional and unexpected of ways. In between his sobs and his clinging onto me, I process it all. I couldn't truthfully say how long Doug cried in my arms for, but after some time, his sobs eventually became quieter, and his grip on me became less urgent and desperate. When he finally lifts his head up, he looks back at me with his brown eyes now bloodshot and dull with an unsaid embarrassment. Stroking one side of his sad and harrowed face, his inhaled breath is jagged and overcome by the touch from my loving and understanding fingertips. "Tell me again what you just said about me?" Is the whisper that I lovingly give to Doug.

Again, he inhales an overcome breath. "I said I love you." He blinks a few times, the soreness of his crying so sadly evident in his eyes. "Before you, Frankie, I never cared whether I had a tomorrow or not. But with all that I feel for you, I now care. I have fallen in love with you, and I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with, is you walking away from us because I screwed up last night. I'm not perfect. I occasionally screw up. My mother is usually why I screw up. I sometimes crack under the pressure. I sometimes lie to myself just to get through each difficult day. There's so much I want to tell you. So much I want to explain. That's why I brought you here today. I know I screwed up last night, I know I did. But I don't want to keep doing that. I don't want to screw things up with you, because of what is happening with my mum. I know you run from things, and I know I am running too, but I don't want either one of us running from what we could have. The running has to stop. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of always lying to myself. I brought you here to show you all of me. The true me. To show you all of my damage and my screw ups. I don't know what the future holds for us. I can't promise you that I won't end up just like my mother has, but the one thing that I have learnt from this really shitty disease, is that we are all on borrowed time...and I want the rest of my borrowed time to be with you." Tears begin swelling on his dark, lower lashes. Doug is ripping away the fleshy layers of his lies to himself, just to get to the bones of his truth. "If that's not enough for you, Frankie, then do your worst, because I'm going to love you anyway."

Now tears of my own are filling my eyes. "Do you really think that all of this is not enough, Doug?" My question is cracked and timid as I seek out his tear-filled brown eyes. "Thank you for bringing me here, for being brave enough to show me what I truly mean to you." My fingers loop together around the back of his tense neck. "I have also fallen in love with you, Doug DiCarto. I have fallen for your talent, your inspirational music, for your honesty and even for your screw ups...I love you." My lips seek out his, wanting to seal our admissions of love with the most softest of kisses. As our emotional mouths meet, I know that Doug has already branded my heart. His DiCarto love is now seared somewhere upon it. And I couldn't be happier. A smile of that happiness is soon everywhere on my mouth; enough to interrupt our soft and united kiss. "I really am glad you have brought me here." Is what I softly have to tell him.

Doug looks exhausted, but a little happier with his exhaustion. He knows that he has finally got his girl. "I can't say I am happy to be here, but I'm glad that you are here with me." His lips gently pucker up, to just kiss me on the tip of my nose as he cuddles me that little bit tighter. "I know we still have a lot to talk about, but I really do love you. I can promise you that I'll never do coke again." He hugs me harder, wanting his hug to assure me that he will never do it again.

And in the depths of my happy heart, I believe him. "I know you won't." Comes my confident reply. "Anyway, we have something more important to talk about."

Knowing what is coming, Doug gently sighs. "My mum?"

With my chin resting against his chest, I nod whilst looking up at him in a genteel and loving way. "Just because you think your mum has forgotten how to be a mother, doesn't mean you have to forget how to be her son."

Doug is calm, thinking about what I have just said. After a few thoughtful and quiet moments, he starts rubbing my arms up and down. "I will try, okay?" He is smiling at me, but his anxiety is very much back on his handsome yet exhausted face.

"Trying is a good place to start." I keenly say. "And there's no time like the present." Is what I say next, while I'm linking my hand with his before guiding him back inside the communal room that is noisily still alive with piano music and out of time singing.

Doug is trusting me enough to follow me back inside.

He is being brave enough to follow me back to where his mother is.

Which only makes me trust in him and be brave enough to fall in love with him just that little bit more.

**MALLION INTERLUDE 💋**

I know, emotions are all over the place, right?
What are you lovelies thinking?

The beautiful song above is: SEE YOU AGAIN - WIZ KHALIFA. ft CHARLIE PUTH