“Life story, huh,” Ashleigh quipped.
Court mimicked a laugh. “What I meant was that you haven’t known him that long and you don’t know that much about him.”
“Not true, actually. We’ve been talking a lot and I mean A LOT because, well, we don’t do much else. We’ve been kind of uncomfortable around each other lately since he told me that he has HIV.”
“Isn’t that a sign that you aren’t ready to get married?” J.T. asked.
“No, that’s a sign of miscommunication,” Ashleigh said. “I get so frustrated trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do that I come off as uncomfortable or annoyed at him and I’m not. He’s the sweetest guy in the world and I’ve hurt his feelings at least five times this past week. That’s not who I am, guys. I’ve got to walk back through that door and give him an answer and I have a feeling it is not going to be the answer he wants to hear and that is going to crush both of us. Any ideas how I’m supposed to pull this off?” Ashleigh said in a panicked voice.
“Say not yet,” Heidi suggested. “He has to understand that you’re not ready for the kind of commitment he’s asking for since you’ve only known him a short time.”
“Or say yes, but tell him that you don’t want to get married right away. You’ve got some things you need to take care of first,” Dashelle added.
“Um, Shell, I don’t think that is going to work in his condition,” Ashleigh mumbled.
“Oh, right,” Dashelle whispered.
Ashleigh grunted. “Why does all this stuff have to happen to me? I just want to go back to my dorm room, put on my PJs, and sleep this whole thing away,” Ashleigh remarked.
“There’s a reason for everything,” J.T. said. “This is not going to go away. Just like the idea that I’m not going to be on campus anymore. I’m not dropping out, I’m just moving back to my own place. Some of you people took it the wrong way and went crazy with it. I’d really like my stuff back, so I can move back to my flat.”
“Um, J.T., my dear, that will never happen. You’re going to have to fight us all to get your stuff and leave our little academic paradise,” Ashleigh said. “Now, can we get back to my problem?”
“Problem?” Freedom asked. “You just had an incredibly gorgeous, incredibly romantic, incredibly talented guy ask you to marry him as a dying wish and you think that is a problem? Honey, what planet are you on that you can’t understand what kind of a compliment that is!”
“Freedom, you’d feel a lot different if this was happening to you.”
Freedom raised her hand up to Ashleigh’s face and shook her head.
“So, is it going to be yes or no?” Heidi asked her friend.
Ashleigh put her hands over her face. “I don’t know.”
Dashelle came over to Ashleigh and leaned her arm on her shoulder. “This would be one of those times where you have to be a big girl and make decisions on your own,” Dashelle remarked.
“Dash, don’t down play this. This is a really big step here and I need more than one hour to think about it. For Pete’s sake, I need more than one day to think about it. Of course, if I don’t know the answer now, then it is probably not a good idea to say yes. I mean if I really wanted to do it, then I would know the answer right away. Right?” She looked into Dashelle’s eyes for reassurance. “Right?”
“Ash, it’s not my place to say.”
Ashleigh grunted. “Why does everything with Kelso have to be so complicated?” She paced and finally landed back in a chair.
“He’s an actor, they like that,” J.T. joked.
“Thanks, J.T. That really cleared up things for me.”
“No problem.”
“Um . . .does anybody else want to go see Kelso while I mull this over. He’s probably freaking out and thinking I left the building,” Ashleigh requested.
“I’ll go.” J.T. knocked on the door to Kelso’s room before he went in. Kelso was looking out the window. He had the opened ring box in his hand.
“Hey, man, how ya feeling?”
“Okay, I guess. Is Ashleigh still out there?”
“Yes. She’s really torn up about that.” He pointed to the ring box in Kelso’s hand.
Kelso smiled. “Oh, yeah. Think she’ll say yes?”
“Kelso, take a step back from your life for a minute. Put yourself in Ash’s shoes. She just found out that you’re HIV positive, you’re in the hospital, she thinks you don’t have that much longer to live and you want her to make a life changing decision. What would you do?”
“Oh, man, I am an idiot. Thanks for the hit over the head, J.T. I can’t believe I just made the biggest mistake of my life.”
At that moment, Ashleigh came to the door. Her smile faded.
“Am I interrupting?” Ashleigh asked.
“No, sweetie. I just had an insight given to me by your friend over here,” Kelso said. “J.T., could you excuse us for a minute.”
J.T. put his hands up and backed out of the room.
Heidi came up to him after he got out of the room. “So, you just want to get out of the dorm, but still be going to Julliard?”
“That’s the plan,” J.T. said. “So, can I get my stuff to go.”
“J.T., we need to talk. Let’s go somewhere where we can get some stuff out in the open without any interruptions.”
“Fine, we can go to the hospital cafeteria. I haven’t had anything to eat.”
Heidi agreed and they walked silently to the cafeteria. After they went through the buffet line, they sat down. Heidi sighed.
“:J.T., I really need you right now. I know that I haven’t been the greatest person to be around. I mean, I’ve been moody and I’ve been working too much and I just can’t get out of this all work and no play mode. I need you to be my rock and help me to have fun. I also need you to tell me to stop and live a little every once in awhile. You can’t do that if you’re across town all the time. Please stay, J.T.”
“Heidi, that was a really nice speech, but I’ve made up my mind. I can still be there for you, I’m just going to a little further away.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do when I can’t just walk across the street to get my mind off things.”
“Wait a minute, I thought we broke up,” J. T. said trying to clear his head.
“Well, yeah, we did, but I’m trying to reconcile. It was my fault that we broke up and I’m trying to fix things.”
“Heidi, this is not what I want to keep doing. We’ve been having this on again off again romance. We had a lot more fun when we were just friends.”
Heidi reached across the table and put her hand on top of his. “Don’t do this to me, J.T. You are the only one that I can talk to right now that is sane. I really need you to stay here.”
J.T. looked at Heidi with brooding eyes. “What’s going on with you? You aren’t acting like yourself at all lately.”
Heidi turned her head away from J.T. quickly. “I did something terrible.”
“Huh?”
She slowly turned to face J.T. again. “First, let me say that I’m not telling you what I’m about to tell you so you’ll stay. I’m telling you so that you’ll know how much you mean to me and what lengths I’ll go to keep you with me.”
“Heidi, sweetheart, you are starting to scare me.”
“Well, get ready for this then.” Heidi took a deep breath. “I tried to kill myself last night.” Heidi pushed up her sleeves to show J.T. the slit marks she had made with her nail file.
“Heidi!” J.T. exclaimed. He lowered his voice to a whisper when he heard himself. “Why—what—why—what the heck were you doing?”
“I’ve got too much on my plate, J.T. I thought that if I just went away, everything would go along with it. I thought about calling you last night before I did it, but something stopped me. I don’t know what stopped me, but I couldn’t bring myself to call you. I thought that you would have some kind of sixth
sense and come rescue me like you usually do.” She looked down at the table. “I guess I was wrong,” she mumbled.
J.T. got up from the table, walked over to Heidi and pulled her up from her chair. “C’mon, I think there is someone you need to talk to right now,” J.T. remarked.
“No, J.T., I’m not going to tell anyone about this.” She pulled her arm away.
“Oh, yes you are,” J.T. ordered. He grabbed her arm again and pulled her behind him.
They walked back upstairs to the lobby with all of their friends. Heidi stopped J.T., but he drug her along until they got to the psychiatric ward of the hospital. A nurse was at the front desk.
“Can I help you folks?” the nurse asked.
“Yes, this is Heidi Weirs. She tried to slit her wrists last night and kill herself. I don’t care how long it takes or how much money it is going to cost, she needs to be admitted right away.”
“J.T., what are you doing?!” Heidi exclaimed.
“I’m rescuing you,” J.T. said. “What you did to yourself last night is serious stuff, Heidi. I don’t want to come and see you one day and find you lying on your dorm room floor with a suicide note next to you saying “I just couldn’t handle it anymore.””
“You can’t leave me here,” Heidi hiccupped. Her tears formed pools in the canals of her eyes.
“Believe it or not, doll, I know what I’m doing. I was once in your shoes. Now, they’ll probably keep you overnight for observation and then you’ll be an outpatient for awhile.” J.T. grabbed Heidi in a bear hug and kissed the top of her head. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“I didn’t tell you this so you’d take me back. I told you this because I trust you,” Heidi said.
“And I’m telling you that I was a jerk and I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I’ll stay at Julliard for awhile . . . and I’ll get our curfew problem worked out.”
J.T. wanted to say one more thing to her at that moment, but he held back. He didn’t want Heidi to get even more confused than she all ready was. So, he slipped his arms away from her, told her goodbye, and headed back to the crew waiting in the lobby.
CHAPTER 20
Ashleigh stood by the window in Kelso’s room staring out the window.
“Okay, so I think we need to talk about my proposal,” Kelso finally said. “And in order to do that, I need you to look at me and quit avoiding eye contact with me.”
Ashleigh shook her head. “I’m sorry, Kelso. I just have a lot on my mind right now.”
“So do I and I need to talk to you about it,” Kelso remarked. “I don’t think I should have sprung the million dollar question on you when I’m like this.”
Ashleigh smiled. “Kelso, it’s all right. I just took the question too seriously in my overdramatic sort of way.”
“Ashleigh, it was a serious question. And right now, I’m not going to ask for an answer right now. I should have known that you’ll need some time to think about it and quite frankly, I don’t think I’m going anywhere anytime soon. So, whenever you’re ready to give me an answer, I’ll have the ring with me.”
Ashleigh walked over to Kelso’s bed and leaned over close to him. “Can I try it on?” she whispered.
Kelso smiled. “Sure, babe.” He took the ring out of the box and slipped it on her ring finger.
Ashleigh took her hand away and looked at her hand with the ring on it. “Mrs. Kelso Stark, huh?”
“No, Mrs. Ashleigh Stark. You are your own person.”
“And how long do you think you’ll be in this condition?” Ashleigh asked unsure of how to word her question.
“Oh, I’ll probably be out of here in a few days.” Kelso looked the other way. “But, I can’t make any promises.”
“Yes.”
Kelso was taken aback for a moment. His mouth opened and closed, but nothing happened. “What?” he finally eked out.
Ashleigh took Kelso’s hand in hers and put her other hand on his cheek. “Yes, I will marry you, Kelso. It may not be right away, but I will marry you before you make your final curtain call in life.”
“All right, I’ll book us a chapel in Vegas,” Kelso remarked.
“Cute, but I don’t think so.”
“Come closer.”
Ashleigh leaned closer and Kelso gave her a kiss that made her legs feel like Jell-O.
“I’ve got to tell my friends. Let’s get them in here.” Ashleigh opened the door and was about to tell them to come in when she saw the look on everyone’s’ faces.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Heidi,” J.T. answered.
“Where is she?” Ashleigh asked. “I’ve got some really important news to tell every one.”
“She’s in the psychiatric ward,” J.T. announced with a stoic face.
“Huh?”
“You heard him the first time, Ash,” Court remarked. “Our friend, Heidi tried to kill herself last night and J.T. has decided that it is his fault.”
“Well, it is,” J.T. said. “I was the one that told her that she wasn’t any fun anymore and I was the one that was supposed to be there when she needed to talk to someone and I blew it.” J.T. sighed. “But, enough about me.” He smiled. “What’s the big news that you have for us?”
“Well, I’d rather tell you guys with Heidi in tow, but I guess we’ll be visiting her later.” Ashleigh flashed the ring in front of her friends. “I said yes.”
“HOLY COW!” Dashelle screamed. She got up and looked at the ring. “He must be a darn good actor to get you a rock like that! Where can I get one?”
“First, you need to find a man,” Freedom remarked.
“I’ve got a few prospects,” Dashelle snapped.
“So, when’s the big day?” Brady asked.
“Well, we didn’t really set an actual date, yet.”
“But, any idea when?” Parker asked.
“Sort of,” Ashleigh mumbled.
“When?” Dashelle asked.
Ashleigh took a deep breath. “Before Kelso—”She stopped before she could finish the rest of the sentence and ran down the hall. Dashelle followed after her. She caught up with her friend at the drinking fountain in front of the rest room.
“Sweetie, are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“Yes, I’m positive. I didn’t think that I did, but after talking with Kelso I decided that I didn’t want to be with anyone else. I just don’t want to think about what’s going to become of him down the road. Why do I have to end up being the tortured soul?”
“You had a choice,” Dashelle said.
“No, Shell, I didn’t,” Ashleigh remarked. She started to walk back to the lobby. “Believe it or not, someone else decides who I am supposed to end up with and He thinks it’s pretty funny that I got caught up with Kelso.”
“Oh, I doubt He thinks it’s funny. He probably knows that you’re the best thing that Kelso needs right now.”
Ashleigh put up her hand to signal Dashelle to stop. “If you are planning on making me cry, you’re doing a great job. Just stop talking about Kelso and me. I’m supposed to be happy right now and you are making me really depressed.”
“I’m sorry, Ash, I was just trying to make things easier for you.”
“Well, they’re not, okay. I just told a dying man I would marry him, one of my best friends apparently tried to kill herself last night, and to top that off the glue of this entire crew has decided that Julliard isn’t his place to be and he’s going to leave us hanging. How does that make you feel?” Her voice rose as she turned the corner to see her friends.
“Why do you make everything about you?” Dashelle asked.
“Oh no, we are not going through this again,” Freedom retorted. “You two are going to drive me to an early grave if we have to go through this every time you get mad at each other. So, just chill out.” She turned to Ashleigh. “I’m going to guess that Dashelle was trying to get you to cal
m down and tell you that everything was going to be okay.” She turned to Dashelle. “I’m going to guess that you were just being Dashelle trying to solve Ashleigh’s problems and Ash took it the wrong way. So, just get over it and understand that you two always give each other mixed signals.”
“Well, aren’t you a regular Dr. Phil,” Brady joked.
“Can it,” Freedom snapped. “I’ll solve your problem later.”
“Now, I don’t think you need to apologize to each other because there is nothing to be sorry for, but I do think that you need to explain to each other what you were trying to accomplish.”
“Why aren’t you a shrink?” Court asked.
“They don’t pay as well.”
Court guffawed. “Good reason.” He looked around. “Where’d J.T. go?”
“Probably upstairs to see Heidi.”
“I’m gonna go check,” Court remarked. He headed toward the stairs. Little did he know that through all of the commotion going on, J.T. had slipped into Kelso’s room and was talking to him about his future.
***
Court asked the nurse what room Heidi was in. He walked toward the room. Before he made it to the door, Heidi ran up to him and put her arms around him in a hug.
“Great, Court, you’ve come to rescue me. Get me out of here,” Heidi pleaded.
“I can’t do that,” Court said.
“Yes, you can. We just have to walk out those doors.” She pointed to the doors that were only a few feet away.
“J.T. checked you in here for a reason. I can’t just go against my best friend and take you out of here.”
“He threw me away, Court.” Heidi sniffled.
Court squeezed Heidi. “No, sweetie, he didn’t throw you away. He took you to get help. You know how J.T. is. If something is too big for him to handle he has somebody else help him. I know that he would never throw you away, girlie.” Court tried to console his friend.
“So, why did you come up here?” Heidi asked.
“Well, I thought J.T. would probably be up here. He is really upset that he wasn’t there for you. But, I’m not going to get into that since you have enough on your plate all ready. I have good news, though.” Court took a step back from Heidi so he could see her face.
“Ashleigh and Kelso are going to get married.”
Heidi’s face lit up. “Really? Oh man, I’ve got to get out of this prison!”