Everything Left Unsaid (19 page)
Read Everything Left Unsaid Online
Authors: Jessica Davidson
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic
Shit. What have I done?
I’m deflated now. Everything she said was right – it’s nothing I didn’t know. I’m staring at my phone and notice the little message icon in the corner. I listen to a voicemail from her, from last night. How she got in to uni and needed me there, needed me to celebrate with her. Shit. I try to call her again, and she still won’t answer.
Hey. Call me. Please. I’m sorry
, I text her, wondering if she’ll reply or not. She doesn’t.
That night, I log on to Facebook, and there are more photos of her at Gen’s. Just her and Gen, this time, dyeing each other’s hair in the bathroom. Gen and Juliet clinking cans of Diet Coke, probably doctored with Sneaky Vodka, eyes lined with eyeliner to match their black fingernails. Juliet’s eyes look red underneath it, I know she’s been crying but it still comes as a surprise. In the last photo they’ve got their arms around each other, and Gen is kissing Juliet on the cheek.
That’s what you should’ve done, a long time ago. But now you’ve gone and fucked things up, haven’t you?
‘Oh, piss off,’ I say to the voice in my head. Juliet won’t answer her phone – but what about Gen?
Gen
, I type.
Tell Juliet I’m really sorry. I fucked things up
.
The reply comes faster than I was expecting, and doesn’t make me feel any better.
Yeah, you did
.
I give up on the phone, put it down beside me. There isn’t that much I can do besides sit in my room feeling sorry for myself. After a while, I text Juliet again.
I’m sorry. Come over? Not tonight, but soon?
(
Just don’t break up with me
, I don’t say.)
Eventually my phone beeps.
Yeah. Okay
.
• • •
Sam comes to visit the next day, pulling up in the driveway in his car. It’s dinted now, and Sam says something about a reversing mishap. The guys have started joking that the engine is kept running by rats, but he still loves it.
‘So weird to think I only made it through two driving lessons and you’ve got a whole car.’ I grin, but it makes him shift uncomfortably.
‘Yeah, I guess.’
I don’t want to piss him off like I did Juliet, so I remember to ask, ‘Hey, how’d you go with uni?’
His face lights up into a grin. ‘Yeah, really good, got my first preference.’
‘That’s great!’ I smile back like I mean it, but we both know I’m faking.
I go over to Tai’s on Friday night, feeling apprehensive. I stick my head round the kitchen door to say hello to Mia, who’s knitting.
‘Is that Fred, still?’
‘No, Juliet, Fred was finished a long time ago. These are just some spare arms, so they’re ready when I need them.’
‘Oh. Is Tai in his room?’
‘Where else?’ She sighs. ‘See if you can coax him out, will you?’
As usual, Tai’s room is dark. I don’t need to wait for my eyes to adjust before I find my way to his bed – I’ve done this enough times now. There’s just enough light creeping through the crack in the curtains for me to see that Tai’s awake and sitting up on the bed.
‘You’re dressed,’ I say, surprised. ‘You know. In actual clothes.’
Tai grins. ‘Want to go for a beach walk?’
He’s slow, and shaky on his legs, but we make it to the beach and sit on the steps that lead to the sand. The air is cool, and I’m starting to shiver, but Tai’s sweating from the exertion. I’m beginning to feel like I’m sitting with a stranger until Tai pulls me into his arms, and then it’s all familiar again, and we talk like we used to. This – this is the Tai I know. This is the Tai I need.
Juliet’s been crying again. Story of my life at the moment. Even when I suggest the beach, we walk there like strangers, like we’re part of something broken that might completely fall to pieces if we push too far, too fast. My head throbs with every step, and I’m grateful just to make it to the beach, sit down on the steps.
Juliet sits beside me, looks at me anxiously. ‘Look, Tai, I’m really sorry about that guy – it was stupid and—’
‘It’s okay. Really. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you. Sorry I wasn’t with you when you found out about uni – I should have been. I don’t know what’s
wrong
with me. Well, apart from
that
. I just . . . it’s just – it’s hard. It’s so hard sometimes.’ She reaches out, takes my hand. ‘I guess the doctor did tell me I was so broken I couldn’t be fixed, right?’
She grimaces. ‘I don’t know why things are so different from how they were at schoolies. We were so happy then, and now – now we’re just falling apart.’
I don’t know either, girl
, I think.
Maybe they did something to me. I mean, they
are
messing around in my brain. Maybe it’s the new painkillers. Maybe it’s the fact that I have to watch you lead the normal kind of life that I should be living. I get to watch everybody else plan out their lives and what they’re going to do next year and all I get to plan is a funeral. And maybe . . . maybe I don’t want you to hurt so badly when I do die that I’m pushing you away now
.
‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I don’t get it either.’ There’s silence for a little bit, and then I pull her in closer. ‘So tell me about uni.’
• • •
Later that night, long after Juliet has gone, when the house is quiet and dark, when even Texy is asleep, I switch on my computer and go online, typing
near death experiences
into the search box. Some of them are crazy, kind of impossible-sounding, with fields of daisies and dead relatives appearing and passing through time tunnels and stuff. Others aren’t too bad. They talk about feeling warm and peaceful – about it being okay. Some of the stories tell how, when they’re told they have to go back, that it’s not their time yet or whatever, they’re angry because it’s just so peaceful and good, they don’t want to leave it.
To be honest, I don’t even know what I’m looking for, what I’m hoping to read. I just want to know what it’ll be like when it happens, and no-one can tell me. The last time I asked the doctor about it, Mum had to leave the room because she started crying. Dad just kind of blinks a lot and stares at the ceiling. The doctor’s answer kind of helps, I guess. He said that in the lead-up I’ll probably get a lot more tired, want a lot more painkillers to help with the pain. That I mightn’t feel like anything to eat or drink and that I probably won’t get out of bed. That I might not have the energy to reply to people talking to me, even though I can hear them okay, and I’ll probably sleep a lot. The most important thing, he stressed, looking more at Dad when he said it, is that I let them know what the pain is like, let them help me with that. He looked genuinely sorry for me when he said that and it’s not too hard to see why – his waiting room is always full of old people; the youngest person I’ve ever seen there is years older than Dad. When I’m sitting in there, everyone gives me funny looks, assuming it’s Mum or Dad with the problem, not me. It must
suck
to be this doctor.
You’ve made progress, Tai
, I think wryly,
feeling sorry for the guy who told you that you were dying
.
SUMMER
December
The week the shops start playing Christmas carols over the speakers, Tai gets admitted to hospital, for his final cycle of chemotherapy. Tai starts falling asleep while I’m there visiting, and I’m trying to pretend it’s because he’s so comfortable around me. I know it’s not true, not really, but the lie feels better than the truth does.
When I’m not at the hospital, Gen and I go Christmas shopping together. She picks out a present for her boyfriend, Bryn, the piercer, while I deliberate about what to get Tai, wondering what you’re supposed to get someone who can only sit, and watch, while the rest of the world carries on around them.
While I’m visiting the hospital one day, and Tai is asleep, I sit with Hendrix and River as they write their letters to Santa. River’s letter is simple – he asks for Tai to be better, and lots of toys. When I read Hendrix’s letter, I have to bite the inside of my cheek, willing myself not to cry. He asks for Tai to be better, of course, but in the next line he asks Santa to make his mum stop crying and his dad smile again.
‘What do you think of my letter?’ Hendrix asks.
‘It’s a good letter, Hendrix . . . but that’s a lot, even for Santa.’
He sighs. ‘Santa only brings presents, doesn’t he?’
I shrug. ‘I don’t know. It’s worth a try, I guess.’
• • •
It takes two weeks for the doctors to discharge Tai from the hospital this time, and every day I get more sceptical that the medication is even working, though I never say anything to Tai. He’s having more scans and stronger painkillers that never quite seem to work – not completely. Back out in the real world, Tai seems thinner, and paler, and he never lingers outside, telling me he’s tired, he wants to sit down. While I’m dressed in little summery dresses, sweltering in the heat, Tai’s in his black jeans, even a jacket.
‘Aren’t you hot?’ I ask him.
‘Nah. I think the drugs have messed with my thermostat. And these are pretty much the only pants that fit me anymore.’ He tugs at the belt loops, pulling them back into place, flashing a sliver of pale skin with a hip bone jutting beneath. People have started to stare, whether they mean to or not, at someone so young, who looks so sick, so . . .
dead
. I stare back at them until they get embarrassed and look away, but it doesn’t help.
One day, Tai tells me haltingly that his mum and dad are taking him and his brothers away for a week over Christmas, and I smile at first, until it clicks. It’s probably selfish to want to intrude on their family time, their
last
family time, but I can’t help it – I want to.
Mum makes me help her bake stuff, decorate a million cookies, put up the tree . . . whatever she can think of to distract me, saying, ‘It’s
Christmas
, Juliet.’
Cheer up
, she means. I draw sad faces with icing on the gingerbread men until Mum elbows me in the ribs. We drive around in the car looking at a zillion gaudy light displays, and I pretend to be interested while texting Tai.
Dad invites me over to his place on Christmas Eve, and when I get there Tina is waiting at the door.
‘How was schoolies, Juliet?’
‘It was . . . it was good, really good. The best time I’ve had with Tai in a while.’
‘How is he doing?’ It’s gentle, but I still want to cry.
‘He’s sick. Every time I see him he’s sicker, and his parents have taken him and his brothers away for Christmas. It’s like what I want doesn’t even matter. It’s just happening to me and I can’t do anything about it.’
I’m ready to burst out crying when Dad appears. I swallow the lump in my throat and try to smile back at him. We do the dinner thing, and after I’ve thanked them for my presents, a bracelet and stuff for uni, then said goodnight, I go home.
Mum is waiting at the door like she always does, eager to see my presents so she can sniff that they’re too expensive, too much, and once she’s done that she says goodnight, kisses me on the forehead, and goes to bed.
I go into our living room and lie under the tree, staring up at the lights. When we were little Tai and I used to lie under the tree trying to guess what our presents were. This year, we swapped presents before he left with his family, promising each other we wouldn’t open them until Christmas Eve, because that’s our tradition. We always opened our presents from each other on Christmas Eve, unable to wait any longer. My present from him waits beside me, a lumpy parcel wrapped clumsily in tissue paper . . . but I’m not sure if I want to open it, not yet.
Just before midnight, I finally peel off the tape, undo the paper. It’s one of those dolls, the kind that pulls apart to reveal a smaller one inside, again and again, until you get down to that tiny last one, half the size of your thumb. In this doll, though, there is no tiny one – just a folded piece of notepaper, with a distinct lump in the middle. I unfold the paper and a ring falls into my lap. It’s the one I pointed out to Tai as we walked past a jeweller’s one day, before he got sick. It’s silver, or maybe white gold, with a square pink stone in the centre surrounded by tiny diamonds. He must have remembered how much I wanted it.
The note says:
Hey, Juliet.
I know I’m getting sicker. You know it too – everyone does. I don’t know how much longer it’ll be before I’ll be gone. Shit. You’re probably crying now. Sorry. The ring, this ring – I don’t want it to be a reminder that I’m gone. You’ll have enough reminders of that.
I just . . . I don’t know how sick I’ll get, you know? I don’t know what I’ll look like when that time comes. I might be hooked up to a zillion machines, covered in tubes and stuff. And I’ll probably be really drugged to keep the pain away. My pain, at least. I might not be conscious. I might not know who you are.
I don’t want you to remember me like that. Remember the beach walks. Remember when I dared you to jump off the roof with an umbrella like Mary Poppins, how I busted my face and had to get stitches. Remember how you made me eat a live beetle as punishment for cutting off Mr Bunny’s head. Remember when I said I loved you for the first time. Remember the good stuff, okay? Remember the guy who really loved you, not the one with his head sewn together, too drugged to know who you are. Don’t remember me as the guy stuck in a box in the ground. Please, girl, not like that. Just remember me as the guy who loved you. A lot.
After I’ve read the letter, and reread it, and jammed the ring on to my finger, I close my eyes – and then I cry.
Christmas Eve. The Last One, though no-one says it; it just hangs there, staling the air inside the holiday house Mum and Dad have rented. I take Hendrix and River down to the beach, try to teach Hendrix how to ride the waves with his body board from my place on the sand. River builds a sandcastle, digs a moat around it, and screams as the waves wash in, fill up the tunnels and swirl around his moat. We skip stones over the water and Hendrix jumps off the jetty, screeching with delight. While they stand belly-deep in the water, jumping as the waves break around them, I sit on my towel and stare at the sea. Everyone’s trying so hard to be cheerful, except for River and Hendrix, who are too distracted by the thought of Santa to really notice. I wonder what they’ll remember about me, if they’ll go into my room later on, look through my stuff.
