One Last Song

by S. K. Falls

  “Why are you running a fever?”

  I forced myself to not touch the abscess. My sweater covered it, so there was no way she knew about it. One reason I was thankful for winter. “I don’t know. Christ. Did you think about the fact that maybe I’m just sick? How about some sympathy?”

  “Watch your language.” She gulped down the rest of her tea and stood up. Abruptly, as if she were just learning to walk, she tottered into the coffee table. A metal vase went crashing to the floor. “Shit.” She bent down and picked it up, set it back on the table. It fell over again.

  Reaching to right the vase, I said, “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” But she wouldn’t look at me as she made her way to the kitchen.

  She came back a minute later with some pills and a thermometer. I opened my mouth and she stuck it under my tongue. When it beeped, she took it back out and looked at it. “102. Do you want to go to the doctor?”

  I shook my head, wincing at the pain deep inside. “Just give me some ibuprofen, please. And maybe a blanket and some warm milk?”

  She handed me the pills and the milk, and watched as I took them. I’d been known to hide them in between the couch cushions in the past. When I was done, she went to the wicker basket at the side of the couch and retrieved a throw blanket for me. “Would you like a book?”

  “Yes, please.”

  I didn’t really read the book she handed me. Instead, I reveled in the feeling of the fever burning inside me, inflaming tissue and muscle. I cherished the feeling of my mother sitting at my feet, casting worried glances my way every few minutes. She thought I didn’t see her, but I did. I always did.

  I’d fallen asleep, when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. Pulling it out, I glanced at the screen.

  Zee’s cool with us hanging on to the car. Still on for the petition thing at 2? –Drew

  I texted back: Yes. Pick you up at 1:45.

  Mum looked up, and I took it as a small sign of her interest in my life.

  “It’s a text from a friend I met at the hospital. He wants to know if I’m volunteering again this afternoon.”

  She nodded, took a sip of tea. I waited for a question, a quiver of her eyebrow, a twitch of her lip. Anything that would show me that she wanted to know more. But her face was a wax mask, as always.

  When I went to Catholic mass with my mum as a little girl, the services always fascinated me. What I found especially spellbinding was the changing of the bread and wine (or grape juice) to the supposed actual flesh and blood of Christ. The priest said it was a mystery, that no one knew how it made that magical transformation. When I got older, I learned the official word for the process: transubstantiation.

  I wasn’t even remotely a Catholic anymore, if I’d ever been one at all. But I still believed in transubstantiation. I believed in my mother’s ability to reverse-transubstantiate, to change from one substance to another; her flesh and blood to smoke and shadows when I was near.

  * * *

  I left for Drew’s house close to one thirty p.m. The ibuprofen had, unfortunately, reduced my fever, so I’d managed to eat a few bites of lunch. I was counting on walking around downtown with Drew to bring it raging back.

  Mum had disappeared into the bowels of the house, so she didn’t see me getting into Zee’s car and driving off. She likely hadn’t even noticed it sitting there like an Easter egg in our driveway. I wondered what she’d think if she knew her forbidding me to drive a car didn’t curtail my freedom to drive one after all. Would she feel impotent anger like a normal parent would? I’d learned it was nearly impossible to predict my mother’s feelings or behaviors, but it never prevented me from trying. She was my Everest.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Drew came out of his apartment the moment I pulled into his parking spot, like he’d been waiting for me at the window. He started toward me with a wave, gingerly treading the grayish slush on the ground. His boots occasionally slid instead of stepping firmly, and I watched, barely breathing, as he clutched his cane tighter, his long body listing like a boat in high winds. By the time he opened the door and got in, concentration had etched deep worry lines beside his eyes and mouth.

  “I fucking hate this weather. Makes me feel like I’m going to face-plant with every step.”

  “Mm.” I stared at him for a long moment, wondering if I should say what had been hovering in my mind while I watched him walking toward me. The intricacies, the customs and courtesies, of Drew’s world baffled me. And yet, I was supposed to be a part of it. I was supposed to know how to broach delicate subjects.

  When he felt my eyes on him, he turned. I looked away quickly, but it was too late—he’d seen me. “What?”

  I shook my head, but knew he wouldn’t let it go. “Nothing. It’s just… Have you considered getting a wheelchair?”

  He had a look on his face I couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t anger or the look of someone who’d taken offense at what I’d said. “Not until I absolutely fucking have to, Grayson. Not until it’s either that or army crawling everywhere. Those have to be my choices before I choose the fucking chair.”

  He said “the chair” like he was talking about the electric chair. And that’s when I realized what that expression was on his face: resolve. It was completely and utterly foreign to me, this determination to stay mobile for as long as possible. I’d give just about anything to be in a wheelchair, to be the very symbol of handicap. People holding open doors for you, peeking glances at you when they thought you weren’t looking—those were the things my dreams were made of.

  “But enough of that.” He put his gloved hand on my own that rested on the steering wheel. “How are you?”

  I smiled as casually as I could and slipped my hand out from under his, not quite able to meet his eye as memories of Thursday night flashed through my mind. How could I explain that things looked—felt—different in the light of day?

  This was all happening much too fast. We were poised at the top of a hill, Drew and I, our sleds almost to the tipping point. I knew once we went sailing over the edge that I wouldn’t be able to hold back. I would choose keeping Drew over telling the truth. And so, now, my only choice was to delay the inevitable. My only choice was to hope that the truth about me would come out so Drew wouldn’t get hurt, while simultaneously hoping to hell he’d never find out.

  I began to back out of the parking space he’d never use. “So, where are we headed first?”

  * * *

  I pulled into a centrally located parking garage so we could walk up and down the streets that had the most shops. Downtown Ridgeland had a more liberal culture than the rest of the city, and Drew felt it would be our best bet for signatures. Most of the store owners were youngish and well educated, their principles in direct opposition to the crowd that owned the mini-mansions in the outer boroughs of the city, like my parents did.

  I watched from the corner of my eye as Drew hobbled alongside me, slowing down so people could pass him on either side when the sidewalk narrowed. I wondered how long he’d last before I’d have to go get the car and take him home. Would it be a blow to his manly ego? Would I have to step in and ask him to stop, insist that it was time to go home, or would that be offensive? Did people with major illnesses have that kind of authority with one another that outsiders would never be permitted? There were so many ways I could go wrong. Thursday night had been easy. We’d been in a safety net of sorts, ensconced in his home where I was the only one to witness it if he fell. But today, we were surrounded by strangers. And I was so afraid to mess up.

  I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and keep calm, see how this would play out. For now, I wanted to just enjoy being out here with Drew.

  “Ah,” he said, stopping under the green-and-white-striped awning of a store. The smell of coffee was hot and strong in my nostrils. “First stop, French Press.”

  “Okay.” I put my hand on the handle and pulled the door open, but Drew just stood there, motionless. Letting the handle
go, I turned to face him.

  Something about his somber expression made my pulse race. “What happened?”

  I kept staring at him, playing dumb, being a coward. “What happened to what?”

  But he only smiled slightly and raised his eyebrows. “We kissed. And today I can’t put my hand on yours without you pulling away?”

  I looked down at my boot-clad feet. I was a complete and utter shit. I should tell him, right now, what I was doing. Why “us” was a bad idea.

  “Hey.” His voice was soft and I found myself looking up into those blue eyes. “It’s okay. I know you want to take things slow, and I’m totally cool with that. But Grayson?”

  “Yeah?”

  He tapped a finger gently on my nose. “You can talk to me about these things, you know. You don’t have to retreat into that shell of yours.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d never known someone like him before—someone who was so forthright with how they felt, someone so unafraid.

  Drew took a deep breath and pulled the door open. “Ready?”

  I nodded, even though I wasn’t. Not even close.

  A bell on the door jingled when we went in and the young, cute male barista looked up at us and smiled. “Hey guys. Welcome to French Press.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  But he only had eyes for Drew. “What can I get you today?”

  “I’ll have a macchiato, please,” I replied.

  He glanced at me, nodded, and then looked back at Drew with a coy smile, waiting for a response.

  “I’m actually good on coffee,” Drew said, pulling out papers from his messenger bag. I couldn’t tell if he got that the barista had the hots for him. He was as calm and collected as usual. “But I do have something I’d like you to take a look at, if you have a minute.”

  “Okay,” the guy said, eying us warily now. He probably thought we were here to sell him something.

  Drew handed him the papers. “That’s a petition for Jack Phillips, a twenty-four-year-old man with end-stage lung cancer. The cancer has most recently caused a brain infection, amongst other issues, and Jack has virtually no quality of life left. His dying wish is to have a physician prescribe him a lethal cocktail, which will end his life mercifully, at home, on his own terms. But New Hampshire currently doesn’t recognize physician-assisted suicide as a legal medical option. This petition could change that.”

  The barista was reading the papers with interest now, his eyes eating up the words. “Physician-assisted suicide. That’s like what they have over in Switzerland, right?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Drew replied, his grip on his cane relaxed. I felt more nervous than he looked.

  “I watched a YouTube video about this American dude who went to Switzerland to die. He, like, had this awful disease and he could barely breathe, but they wouldn’t grant him permission either.”

  “Right to Die,” Drew said. “That’s a powerful movie.”

  “It totally is,” the barista said, smiling again. “This is such an awesome thing for you to do.”

  “It’s close to my heart,” Drew said simply. He didn’t explain that he had FA, that he was maybe fighting for his own right to die one day.

  The barista signed the paper with a flourish and handed it back, his fingers touching Drew’s. “I hope you get what you want,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  When we were back outside a few moments later, I realized I’d never gotten my macchiato.

  “Nice work,” I said as we began to walk to the next store. “That was fast.”

  Drew stopped and took a mock bow, holding his hands out grandly. “Thank you, thank you. I’m glad you noticed. I just have that magic touch.”

  We began to walk again, and I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well, you know, it helps when the person you’re trying to sell on an idea has a ginormous crush on you.”

  A jogger jostled Drew as he ran by, and I grabbed his arm. When he’d recovered his balance, he said, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Oh, come on.” I raised an eyebrow at his baffled expression. “You seriously didn’t notice that dude smiling at you like you were the Mother Teresa to his orphan child?”

  “Emphatically no,” Drew said. “But tell me one thing.” I looked at him, but he was staring straight ahead as we walked. “Do you smile a lot when you have a crush on someone?”

  My cheeks felt hot, but I didn’t think it was the fever coming back yet. Was Drew flirting? “Like, me specifically?”

  “Yeah, you specifically.”

  “I… honestly don’t know the answer to that question.” I tried to laugh, but it just sounded squeaky, like I was gasping for air. “I don’t think I flirt. At least, I don’t know how to flirt. I’m not generally the flirty type.” I knew I was babbling, but I couldn’t stop myself. This was the closest to girly I’d ever been. I didn’t care for it too much.

  “Interesting.” Drew smiled at me, but before I could ask him what he meant by that, we were turning into the next store, a place that sold rare used books.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We went to thirteen different stores up and down that block and twelve on the next one before Drew’s balance got so bad he began to walk into people instead of around them. So we stopped.

  “I’ll bring the car around,” I said, as he sat down on the stoop of a clothing store. “You stay right here.”

  “Oh no, I think I’m going to run away.” I glanced at him to see if he was mad, but he wore a grin about a half mile wide on his face. “Smile, Grayson,” he said. “What’s the point of life if you can’t be a little sarcastic?”

  I shook my head and took off for the parking garage.

  When I pulled up beside him, Drew started to stand, wobbled a little, and fell back down. He grabbed on to the stair railing to pull himself up, his jaw hard, face closed off. I could see the tremendous effort he was exerting, the way the muscles in his arms were straining as he tried to remain vertical. But his legs didn’t seem to want to cooperate. This, I realized, looking at him fail with a creeping sort of horror, was what he’d been training for. This was why he’d been building up his upper body. So he wouldn’t be humiliated this way.

  I put the gearshift into park and ran around the car. People gave him a wide berth as they walked right past where he lay sprawled on the sidewalk, as if they couldn’t see that something was wrong. When they were past him, they turned to gawk.

  I put a hand around his bicep and helped him stand, seething at the audacity of the passersby.

  But Drew didn’t seem too bothered by it. “Thanks. Someone took my legs and filled them up with Jell-O.”

  He leaned heavily on me as I led him to the car, and I was a little afraid we might both slip on the snow and ice and fall, but we made it. I turned on the heat as we pulled away from the curb and into traffic.

  My head felt a little foggy. I blinked hard, then glanced at Drew. “Are you all right?”

  He shrugged. I could see how hard he was trying to downplay what I’d seen—the naked, ugly truth in the glaring daylight, the unvarnished part of living with a progressive disease. “All right and upright,” he said, grinning suddenly.

  Before I could stop myself, the words spilled from my mouth. “You don’t have to do that with me.”

  He looked at me askance.

  I continued quietly before I lost my nerve. “I don’t need to see you with a mask on, you know. That painted-on overbright twinkle in your eye with a smile to match? I’ve worn that mask before, many times.” That was an understatement. The back of the mask was contoured to the lines and planes of my face. I took a breath. “Anyway, it’s dumb, but I just wanted you to know that… you don’t have to do that. Not with me. It’s okay to be mad or sad or whatever.”

  When he was quiet, I darted a look at him. He was staring at me, but I didn’t know what that expression was on his face. “Thank you,” he finally said, his voice just as quiet as mine had been.

  I reac
hed over and squeezed his hand awkwardly. “You’re welcome.”

  We drove in silence for a few minutes. My eyes started to burn.

  “You okay?” I could feel Drew watching me. “You’re shivering.”

  I knew what was going on. My fever was back now that the ibuprofen had worn off. I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, and it was past four o’clock. I tried not to smile in spite of the lightness in my chest, a helium balloon expanding.

  “I’m fine.”

  “But—”

  “Really.” I heard him sigh, a defeated sound. “So. Where to next? Or do you want me to take you home? I can go drop the car off at Zee’s, too.”

  Drew got the petition papers out of his bag and looked at them as we drove. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to visit Jack. I think you’ll like him.”

  There was a voice of reason in the back of my mind of which I was aware. It said this was crazy, that this couldn’t go anywhere good. Drew and my friendship—or whatever this was, maybe a developing something—was based on a very obvious lie.

  I didn’t have MS. I wouldn’t be getting sicker. There were people he could run into at any time who could tell him the truth. Linda Adams or Shelly at the hospital. My mother or father. Dr. Stone, my therapist.

  But if it was the voice of reason that attempted to prod me back in line, there was another, more insidious voice that was much more pleasant to listen to. That voice of madness sang of other, more compelling things. It insisted that the chance of Drew running into any of those people was slim. Its whispers caressed the soft shell of my ear. Don’t you like Drew? it asked. What harm are you doing, really? He’s funny, and smart, and talented, and he wants to spend time with you. Come on, Saylor. There’s always tomorrow for good-bye.

  Maybe I was a hateful person for listening so easily to that second voice. But the pull I felt toward Drew was indescribable. The only time I’d experienced anything like it was with my syringe or the laxatives or the myriad other ways I’d made myself sick. I didn’t know what exactly it was about him; maybe just the fact that he had a fuller life than I’d ever had in spite of having FA. Maybe I wanted to know what it was about me that he seemed to like so much. There’s something about you, Grayson, he’d said. I wanted to find out what he meant by that. It couldn’t just be my supposed MS, could it?