Everything Left Unsaid (8 page)

‘So tell us.’

‘All right,’ I grumble. ‘But don’t laugh . . . Tai and I were at the beach last night, right, and we were kissing and stuff . . .’

‘And stuff?’ Lina smirks.

‘Not important, Lina.’ I sigh. ‘I told Tai that I loved him last night. And he didn’t say anything back.’

Gen looks thoughtful. ‘Did he kiss you again afterwards?’

‘After I told him? Yeah.’

‘Well you know then, don’t you?’

‘Know what?’ But the bell is ringing and she’s getting to her feet, conversation over.

As we walk to class Rae tells me there’s a party on Friday night and Lina adds, ‘You should come, Juliet, you haven’t been out with us in ages. Come on. Make Tai come, too.’

It occurs to me that I’ve barely hung out with the girls in weeks, and though I’ve had good reason to be distracted, I still feel guilty about neglecting them, especially Gen, when her olds have just split up.

• • •

Tai doesn’t arrive until that space between first and second period, where everyone’s distracted and hurrying to their next class – but they’re not so distracted that his arrival goes unnoticed.

We walk to class together, trying to be Normal Normal Normal, when nothing is. People are either over-friendly or they just stare at him without speaking. I’m not much better; we can’t talk about the tumour, or What Happened Last Night, so we don’t really talk about anything, we just silently hold hands.

It seems so much easier to avoid class that morning, avoid the stares and whispers. After lunch Tai gets called to see Mr Edwards, the guidance counsellor, while I go to chemistry with Lina.

On the bus on the way home Tai smiles at me and holds my hand. But he doesn’t talk about the counsellor visit and I don’t ask.

• • •

On Friday night, I get ready at Gen’s, and it feels good to be doing something so familiar. We walk to the party and are freezing by the time we get there. We huddle together for warmth, and I curse her for convincing me that wearing a singlet was a good idea. She rolls her eyes at me, shivering. We look
so cool
. Literally.

It’s better inside, and we claim a spot by the heater, watching the drinking game that’s going on. Tai’s winning, or at least he’s close, and refuses the glass of water I try to push into his hand, looking at me like I’m an annoying parent. I give up, and Gen and I go back outside. We rub our bare arms as she tells me the latest about her parents’ divorce. She’s just filling me in about her mum’s new boyfriend when Tai stumbles towards us. Gen quickly gulps down her drink and says, ‘
Oh damn, look at that
. I’ll have to go and get another one,’ leaving Tai and me alone.

Tai smiles at me blearily and grabs my hand. ‘Hey, Juliet. I’m glad I found you. You know the other night at the beach, how you told me—’ I hold my breath, waiting for what comes next, but instead of finishing his sentence Tai turns his head and throws up in the rosebushes.

I go find Gen and tell her I’m going to walk Tai home. Tai has finished spewing when I get back outside, and is digging in his pockets for gum. He’s still all hopped up on alcohol, and the party, and is full of ideas as we walk down the street.
Let’s go down to the beach, go swimming. Let’s go for a midnight walk. Or something
. But I’m cold and tired, and just want to go home. He kisses me when we reach the spot halfway between our houses.
Goodnight, Juliet
. He hasn’t said another word about the other night.

• • •

Tai has a doctor’s appointment on Monday and doesn’t come to school. It seems too hard without him there so I hide in the toilets for most of the morning. When I go round to his place that afternoon he looks kind of drained. We lie on the lounge room floor, watching television. Mia comes in with a glass of water and hands him a pill. He catches my questioning look and shrugs it off.

‘New drugs. No biggie.’

‘What are they for, Tai?’

‘They’re not going to make me better, if that’s what you mean.’ He twists his lips in a bitter kind of smile. ‘They want me to take all these drugs and have surgery then radiotherapy, but it’s only to buy me time, not to fix anything. Then, when I’ve had enough, or they’ve decided it’s enough, they’ll leave me alone.’

We sit there in silence for a while, and I’m biting my lip, trying not to cry, when Tai goes greyish. He gets up and races to the bathroom.

Eventually he reappears, pale and embarrassed. Mia comes in with another glass of water but he’s barely had a sip before he throws that up too.

‘That’s it,’ Mia says. ‘We’re going back to the doctor.’ Tai smiles at me weakly as she makes the call, and then she ushers him to the car. I trudge home, shocked by the sudden change in Tai. He never seemed sick until now. It didn’t seem real. I wonder how much sicker he’ll get.

• • •

The doctor changes the dose of Tai’s medication, and gives him another medicine, something called Zofran, that’s supposed to stop him being sick. It does, but he’s more headachy and tired instead. I notice that he bruises easily, too. When Hendrix throws a Matchbox car at River and hits Tai instead, it leaves him with a bruise as big as my iPod on the inside of his elbow.

One night we walk down to the beach, and sit on the jetty. He drums his fingers on the wood, watching the ocean.

‘What are you thinking about?’ I ask.

‘Nothing. I just . . . I don’t know why I even bother with the chemo meds; they make me feel like shit. I wouldn’t even take them if it wasn’t for Mum. They say I can stop any time I’ve had enough, but I can’t stop them now – it would kill her. But they’re just delaying the inevitable, you know?’ Tai’s hands have balled into fists. ‘They reckon I’ve got a year at the most. One year. That I’ll just get sicker and sicker, and then . . .’ His voice trails off, but it doesn’t matter. I can fill in the blanks. ‘They keep talking about how I’ll have to decide what to do, like whether I want to stay in hospital or go home. How am I supposed to know?’ Tai looks like he wants to burst into tears. Then he shifts down a couple of steps and rests his head in my lap. I feel him crying before I hear it.

‘I’m sorry, Tai,’ I whisper, ‘I’m so sorry,’ over and over as he weeps.

Afterwards, he wipes his face on the hem of his shirt, then looks up, vulnerable now. He shrugs.
Sorry about that
.

I shrug back.
It doesn’t matter
.

We walk back to his house slowly, holding hands. At the door he scrabbles in his pockets for the key and looks at me. ‘It’s not that late. Want to come in for a while?’ I check my phone for the time. Mum has threatened to ground me for a month if I miss curfew on a school night, and it felt like we were at the beach forever, but Tai’s right, it’s not that late. ‘Sure.’

Tai sticks his head into the lounge room as we pass by. ‘Mum, I’m home. We’ll be in my room, okay?’

Mia waves to us absently. ‘Have fun, you two.’

I wait until we’re in his room before I ask, ‘What’s up with your mum? Since when are we allowed to be in your room with the door closed and everything?’

He grins. ‘I’m allowed to do whatever I want now.’

We laugh about what we could get up to with our newfound freedom but there’s no desire to actually go through with any of it, not tonight. We just lie on the bed and hold each other tight.

I get home with about two minutes to spare, ready to hide in my room and drown out the world with my iPod, but Mum is waiting, ready to pounce with a lecture on The Importance of Schoolwork. She’s segued into the latest version of What Will Happen If You Fail All Your Exams when I cut her short.

‘You know what’s vital for passing exams, Mum? Sleep. Which you’re depriving me of right now.’

‘I’ve got your best interests at heart, Juliet, you know that.’

‘Yeah. Whatever.’

‘You don’t have to be like that, you know,’ she says quietly. ‘I know things are hard for you—’

‘Hard doesn’t even begin to cover it.’

‘But,’ she says, ignoring me, ‘it’s not all about Tai, honey. You know I love him. But I want you to still have options next year, when he’s—’

I grit my teeth. ‘Don’t say it, Mum.’

‘Juliet, I wish this wasn’t happening, I really do. But the reality is what it is. You’re going to lose Tai; I don’t want you to lose everything else. The school called today, and told me you haven’t been going to class. Is that true?’

‘Can you stop?’

But she doesn’t, not yet. ‘Do you really think that Tai would want you to miss out on uni, to miss out on all your plans for next year, after all your hard work?’

‘I just know he doesn’t want to die, Mum.’ I’m yelling now. ‘I don’t care, okay? I don’t care about school, and I don’t care about uni, and I don’t care about the exams. I just care about Tai.’ I storm off to my room, locking the door behind me.

Mum follows me. ‘Juliet, talk to me. Let me in.’

‘No.’

‘Open the door, so we can talk about it.’

‘No. You don’t want to talk about it; you want to tell me what to do.’

‘Okay, Juliet, if you want to act like a child and not do your schoolwork you don’t really give me another option. You’re grounded.’

I stick my face in my pillow, and cry. It’s not fair. How can she possibly deny me time with Tai?

I hate her
, the message reads.
I’m grounded again, for nothing. I hate her
.

I’m sorry, girl
, I text back. But I’m kind of relieved that I won’t get to see her tomorrow. I’m still a bit embarrassed about crying on her at the beach.

Wish I was still in your bed
, her next text reads.

Me too.

You have no idea, Juliet. Lying together on the bed tonight . . . we didn’t even do anything and it was amazing. I close my eyes, and put my face in my pillow, breathe in the scent of her. But I’m distracted by the headache that’s still lingering, the one that’s constantly there – only it’s getting worse. Slowly, but definitely. This week is worse than last week, worse again from the week before that. Funny how I notice it more now. How before when I had headaches I just brushed them off or took a Panadol but now . . . now it’s The Tumour, The Thing That’s Going to Kill Me.

• • •

The next day I meet Sam and a few of the other guys down at the beach after school, the first time we’ve hung out since they’ve heard the news. They tease me about neglecting them for a girl, and we all know they’re lying, but act like it’s true. We pull off our shirts, throw them into the sand, and I pretend not to see the shock on their faces at the bruises, the ribs poking through, the hip bones starting to jut out.

Sam, his face puckered with sadness, is the only one who can look me in the eye. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he says quietly, and at that Tom and Alex take off towards the water. I know they just don’t know what to say, but somehow that doesn’t make it any easier. I can handle strangers at school giving me that pitying look, but it’s a bit harder to swallow from my mates.

In the water, things get closer to normal, and I start to breathe again. After a swim we all put in a couple of bucks and buy some fish and chips, and a big bottle of Coke, and sit at one of the tables outside. There’s a guy walking along with a screaming toddler and a baby in a sling. When his back is turned Tom goes to throw a chip to the kid, like you’d throw it to a seagull, and we crack up laughing.

‘What are you guys up to later?’ I ask.

Tom’s got to write an assignment, he groans, sliding his banned-during-school-hours eyebrow ring back in, fingers effortlessly tightening the ball.

Alex has to work, he says, pulling his Maccas uniform out of his bag with a sigh.

Sam looks at me. ‘Want to come to my place?’

‘Yeah, okay.’

We grab our gear and start walking towards his, sun on our backs. Sam’s house is further from the beach than mine, but his olds have a pool table and he’s got no little brothers to fight over the Xbox with. His dad is halfway through a game of pool with one of his friends when we get there, so we play one of those racing games. We’re at it for a couple of hours, lost in the game, and the first time I look up is when Sam’s mum comes into the room and says, ‘Hi, boys. Dinner’s in half an hour. Tai, you can stay if you like.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

‘Use the phone if you want to ring your mum.’

‘I will, thanks.’

She’s almost out of the room when Sam yells out, ‘Hey, Mum, can Tai stay the night?’

‘Fine with me,’ she calls back.

When I ring home, Hendrix answers. ‘You’re in
trouble
, Tai,’ he says gleefully.

‘Why, what did I do?’

‘You didn’t come home from the beach and Mum’s super freaked out. You’re so grounded.’

‘As if. Put Mum on, will you?’

I hear a clunk, like he’s dropped the phone, and then yelling, and when Mum picks up the phone I can hear the tension in her voice.

‘Tai, where are you?’

‘Just at Sam’s place.’

‘I was so worried, Tai – you should’ve called. You didn’t even answer your phone. I thought . . .’
You were dead
. She doesn’t say it, but it hangs there in the air between us.

‘Sorry, Mum. My battery must be flat.’ I wait for her to say something else, to tell me off like Hendrix predicted, but that’s it. ‘Um, anyway, can I stay at Sam’s tonight?’

She sighs. ‘I suppose that’s okay. Your dad has to pick River up from his soccer lesson soon. I’ll get him to drop off your medications. But, Tai? Don’t ever worry me like that again.’

• • •

Sam’s dad’s friend stays for dinner too. His name is Mark, and he works as an investment banker. He asks me what I’m going to do when school finishes at the end of the year. Sam gives me an apologetic look and his mum changes the subject, but I don’t really mind. Sometimes I stare in the mirror and can practically see that I’m dying in my eyes; it’s kind of nice to know that a stranger doesn’t always see that too.

After dinner I offer to wash up and Sam looks at me like I’ve gone mad but I can’t help it – I swear Mum’s brainwashed me into it or something. When I’m done Sam raids the pantry before we settle down to watch this horror movie, one where the killer dismembers people and stitches them back together to each other. It’s kind of like Frankenstein, but way worse, and the special effects are really good – they actually gross you out and don’t just look like fake blood poured on sausages. It’s almost midnight by the time it ends, so we head up to Sam’s room. He pulls out the trundle from under his bed, grabs blankets and stuff out of his cupboard.