Believe You Me

I woke up to soft giggles and a hand softly caressing my upper arm. I opened my eyes, seeing Mia wiggling between Julie and me; smiling. Julie was awake, smiling at Mia and softly petting her hair. Her eyes finally looked up at me and she smiled. I took in her appearance.

She was connected to the machines around us, needles in her arm, tubes in her nose, cables peeking under the hospital gown she had to wear. Mia was cooing between us as I looked over Julie.

“How can you stand all that?” I whispered.

“I deal with it for you two.” Julie answered, carefully getting closer and wincing from the plugs pulling her skin. I sat up a bit, helping her and Mia looked between us. “I haven’t seen her laugh this much before.” Julie laughed, hiding the pain.

“She laughs every time your name pops up.” I smiled, wrapping my arm around her waist, my elbow resting lightly on Mia’s tummy. She laughed, showing off her toothless mouth and wiggled even more. Julie laughed and I looked at her, loving her laugh, her smile, her eyes. Everything about her. She looked over at me and wrinkled her nose.

“Stop looking at me like that.” She laughed, playfully pushing my shoulder.

“I just love you.” I smiled back and she sighed happily. “What happened?’ I asked, knowing she knew what I was talking about.

“I cleaned the house a bit and took a nap, but then I got a sort of sick feeling and went to the bathroom but nothing. Afterwards I went outside for some air and next thing I know I woke up here.” I nodded and she carefully looked at me. “I’m not leaving.” She whispered. I nodded and leaned closer, pressing my lips gently to hers. Mia wiggled under me and I pulled away, looking at her.

“Someone’s hungry.” I chuckled.

Julie stayed for a few weeks, constantly getting tests done to see how she was doing. We eventually found out she needed surgery to get rid of some the cancer cells and she agreed. The day she woke up, was the release day of Selfish Machines, giving us an opportunity to go on tour more.

Julie was released in the middle of May, giving us time to start our first tour from our new album. Julie stayed behind with Mia, her parents and mine staying with her. We toured for a month and a half, each day calling Julie and talking about how everything was with us. Mia was pretty happy around the house, learning how to pick her head up and trying to start to crawl.

“Mike…?” Julie asked one night.

“Yeah?” I called from the bathroom in our room, wrapping a towel around my hips.

“I feel like this is our movie.” I walked to the room, Julie laying on the bed and watching TV. Some guy was denying something a girl was telling her before she started crying and running off.

“What movie is this?” I asked, slipping on a pair of boxers and getting into bed.

“A Walk to Remember. The girl has leukemia and the guy is her boyfriend. In the end, they get married and after the summer’s over, the girl dies.” Julie looked up at me and I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close to me.

“Except you’re never leaving me.” I smiled, earning a laugh from her.

Notes

A Walk to Remember inspired this story! I'm sorry for being gone for too long, but I had writers block and it sucked really bad. Please forgive me!