Carissa laughs. Harley does, too, and then he reaches for the bucket and throws up. Good thing I’m not a sympathetic puker.
“With extra cheese,” I say, and I don’t know whether the tremor that runs through his body is him losing the rest of his guts, or if he’s chuckling into his plastic-lined puke bucket. Carissa’s howl of laughter practically brings down the roof on our heads, and when she’s done, she nods at me and sets about her paperwork.
***
After we return to his apartment, I put him to bed and climb in beside him, but while Harley falls into a fitful sleep, I can’t even close my eyes without seeing him clammy and throwing up, without seeing that kid Styx’s face as he held those drumsticks in his hands.
I can’t be here right now. So, as quietly as I can, I get up and get dressed and I leave. I head to my parents’ place, just a few blocks away, and ordinarily I wouldn’t walk through SF at night by myself, but tonight my head’s not really in the game.
I bang on the parentals’ door. They’re asleep, it is close to midnight after all, but I scratch, and I howl and plead for them to let me in.
The front door opens, and I fall into my dad’s arms and sob. My mom is there too, stroking my hair, asking me what’s wrong, but I have no words for them other than, “What’s right?”
So I don’t say anything but garbled nonsense. My parents hold me as if I were five years old again. As if this cancer were inside me and not the man I love. Since Harley has finally come clean with me about his illness, Rochelle and Dean have since told my parents. I haven’t really talked to either one of them about how I feel. I haven’t talked to anyone, because it isn’t about me. Now, as I lie on their couch and my dad strokes the hair back from my face as Mom makes me hot cocoa in the kitchen, I allow myself to let out a little of what I’ve been feeling these past few days. And it’s a good long while before I have the strength to tuck it all away inside and ask my parents to take me home.
Dad is the one to drive me back to Harley’s. “I know this isn’t the life you two wanted. It’s not what you should have had, and it’s not right that it happened to either one of you. It’s not fair,” my dad says, startling me as I grab the handle to open the car door. He’s a man of few words; he uttered maybe four in the entire time I lay on their couch crying. I twist in my seat to see him better. “If I could take it from you both, I would.”
I give him a sad smile.
“You’re going to need to be strong for him, pumpkin.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do. You need to give that boy a reason not to give up when he’s tired and wants to just stay down.”
“What?” I ask, uncertain why he’s telling me this. It had never even entered my head not to be there for him—I just wish I’d known earlier. I wish I hadn’t wasted time being angry at him when all I wanted was to love him, to make him let me in.
“I didn’t give her a reason to stay,” he whispers, and it takes me a beat to realize he’s talking about his sister, who died of MS at the age of twenty-three.
“Dad, you couldn’t have saved her.”
“I didn’t try. I just accepted it, you know? Doctors tell you one thing, and it’s almost as if whatever they say is finite. She’ll live to twenty and no more, they told us. She lived another three years, but she had more in her. I know she did, just like he does. You make sure he fights for every goddamn second.”
“I will,” I whisper and squeeze his hand. He pulls me into a hug, and then I step out into the drizzling rain and climb the stairs to Harley’s building.
My father waits as I fumble with the keys in the lock and push inside. Bone weary, I climb the stairs slowly and then unlock Harley’s apartment and move as quietly inside as I can. The acrid stench of vomit hits my nose, and I swallow back bile. Tomorrow, I’ll make sure to bring plenty of flowers from the shop, but for now I take off my clothes and climb into bed beside him. Careful not to wake him, I roll onto my side, giving him my back.
His hand reaches out and pulls me closer. “Where did you go?”
I sigh. “To my parents’.”
“Did it help?”
“Yeah, it did.”
“Good,” he mutters sleepily, and his body goes lax against mine as his soft snore fills the room.
Sleep still doesn’t come for me, and I thank God that Izzy and Ginger are covering the store because I can’t fathom having to go in to work and greet customers like this. I laugh silently at myself, as if work matters. As if anything matters when my reason for living is dying of cancer.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rose
Thanksgiving comes and goes, and we spend the holidays in Carmel, just like every year, although this time it’s weighed down with fear and indecision. Everyone tries to act normally, to put away our worries of what the future holds, but it’s there in the stolen glances at Harley’s face, in our dads conceding their annual argument over whose turn it is to carve the turkey by allowing Harley to do it, and in the way Rochelle breaks down when she thinks we’re not looking.
Because the shop is covered and few people in SF are getting married around Thanksgiving anyway, we stay an extra week in the cottage after the parentals have gone home. Harley feels good. We spend time on the beach. We talk about moving to Carmel permanently, about getting a dog and being those people who’ve left the city and the rat race behind. It’s bliss. No hospital, no blood tests, no PET scans, and no chemo. No cancer. At least, that’s what we pretend.
But all vacations come to an end, and as we walk through the oncology ward for Harley’s next treatment, I have this sick sense of foreboding. These past three weeks my father’s words have bounced around in my head, and I’ve bolstered false courage and pinned it to my chest as if it were armor. I’ve even thought up several new lines to feed Styx, but when we enter the room the tone is completely off, and even Carissa—who seemed as immovable as a mountain three weeks ago in her demeanor—looks a mess. No one says anything, and I have a terrible feeling I know what is coming.
“Where’s Styx?” Harley glances around the room. The quaver in his voice tells me he already knows, just as I do.
“Have a seat, Harley,” Carissa says. “I’ll get your pre-meds.”
“Where is Styx?”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone as in left the hospital on a day trip or gone as in dead?” His voice is at fever-pitch now.
Carissa just looks at him. She doesn’t need to say any more.
“No!” Harley sinks into the chair, burying his head in his hands. “No!”
“Hey,” I say, reaching out to him. He knocks my hand away. It stings. He grabs it and presses it to his lips, peppering my fingers with kisses.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” His voice cracks, and then his whole chest shakes. “Fuck! He was just a kid.”
“I know,” I whisper. I wish I knew what to say. God, it’s just so fucking unfair.
“Fuck cancer!” he says. This is echoed by Jan, who’s sitting in the same spot she was last time we were here.
“Fuck cancer,” Carissa agrees solemnly, handing Harley the pair of sticks that he’d given the boy three weeks ago. “His mom thought you should have them back.”
“No, they’re his. What the hell am I going to do with them?”
“Learn to play the drums and annoy the shit out of him in the afterlife,” Carissa says with a shrug, but even her voice is choked with emotion.
“It’s a little late to be learning anything,” he mutters and lets go of my hand.
Chemo is quiet for the next six hours. It seems everyone feels the loss of this kid, including me, and I met him only once. When we’re leaving, Carissa pulls us aside and tells us that Styx’s funeral is on Monday, and she expects us to be there. I promise her we will.
In silence, we walk through the hospital. The acrid stench of bleach and sickness makes it hard to breathe, and when I leave Harley at the entrance in order to bring the car around,
in a far corner of the parking lot where he can’t see or hear, I lose it. I bend double against his truck and gasp in great big lungsful of air, and they’re not enough. I choke, devoid of oxygen, suffocating on my grief for what’s past and what’s to come.
He promised. It’ll be okay because Harley promised me he won’t give in. He’ll fight. He’ll win.
The truly terrible thing is that Styx likely promised someone, too. Sometimes, no matter how we try, we can’t help but break our promises.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Rose
One week out from Christmas, Harley sits by the window in his apartment, staring out on the cold winter night. It’s strange to see him so beaten down by illness. He’s sallow, his cheeks sunken, so different from the strong, healthy athlete I’ve known my whole life.
He’s been moody and withdrawn since Styx’s funeral, and I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that he is just done, with talking, with sickness, and maybe even with me, and that eats away at me as surely as the cancer is eating him.
“Can I get you something?” I dry the dishes and put them away, waiting for a response, but I get none. He just continues looking out the window. “Harley?”
“What?” He turns his attention toward me, his eyes vacant.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says impatiently.
I sigh and give him my back, leaning my hands against the counter. I fight back tears because neither one of us has the strength for this tonight.
“Okay,” I say on a shaking breath. I’m afraid if I say any more than that, I’ll break down.
“I’m just tired, Rose,” he says softly, but the words are hollow. “Nuking every cell in your body will do that to you.”
“I know.” Anger swells within me until it can’t be contained, and I go back to putting away the dishes because it actually feels therapeutic to slam things. To make noise and say, I’m here, and I won’t be ignored because it’s easier for you. I’m not sick, so maybe I have no right to judge, but he isn’t trying. He isn’t opening up to me; he’s just switching off. “I’ve been here, remember? I haven’t left your side for a single day, not for a second, and I don’t intend to, but I just wish you’d talk to me.”
“And say what?” he snaps, causing me to drop the bowl in my hand. It shatters on the floor, and the broken pieces sting my feet as they bounce off the tiles and land around me. “That every day I feel more and more like shit? Do you want to know what’s in my head right now? I’m worried I won’t make it to Christmas. Fuck, I’m worried I will make it to Christmas.”
I cover my mouth with my hand to stop the sob escaping but it comes out anyway. “How can you say that?”
“Because, Rose, I’m tired.” He closes his eyes, and a tear escapes them. “I’m so fucking tired.”
“So you’re just giving up? What about fighting? What about beating this thing like you promised?”
“You can’t fight a monster that’s determined to kill you.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask in disbelief. “You have been fighting. You’ve cut it out. You’ve done the chemo—”
“And it’s spread anyway.”
“What?”
“Dr. Hanson called today. I went to see him while you were at work, yesterday. I had another PET scan, lit up like the fucking Rockefeller Centre in December.” He runs a shaking hand over his bald head. “It’s spread, Rose. It’s everywhere.”
I can’t keep it in any longer. With a cry that rips from my chest and doesn’t sound even remotely human, I sit heavily on the ground amongst the broken shards of our crockery and my broken heart. I don’t even feel it digging into my flesh until Harley pulls me from the wreckage and grabs the tea towel to stem the blood. “Shh, love. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you like that. I … fuck!”
“You can’t leave me, Harley. You promised.”
“I know.” He presses his lips to my hair and I lean into him, crying so hard that no sound comes out.
“Promise me. Promise me you’ll fight.” I know it isn’t fair of me to demand this. I know he doesn’t want to die any more than I want him to, but I can’t be the only one fighting for us. I grab his shirt and draw him to me, sobbing into his chest the way a toddler might with a banged up knee. “Promise.”
He holds me, but he doesn’t promise a thing, because we both know it’s one he can’t keep.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Rose
“Nine one one, where’s your emergency?”
“3920, 24th street. My boyfriend’s not breathing,” I scream into the phone in a blind panic.
“3920? Okay, what’s your name, ma’am?”
“Rose.”
“Rose,” she repeats, so calm. Why is she so fucking calm? “And you say your boyfriend’s not breathing—where is he now?”
“He’s on the bed.”
“He’s on the bed. Can you move him to the floor?”
“I don’t … yeah, just, oh my god, Harley. Please wake up. Please.” I suck in deep breaths and set the phone down as I drag him from the bed. He hits the floor with a thump. I wince.
“Ma’am, ma’am, are you there?” the woman’s voice says from the receiver, and I snatch up the phone and put it on speaker.
“I’m here.”
“We’re already on our way, okay? I’m going to do as much as I can to help you over the phone. Do you know how to do CPR?”
“Yes, my dad’s a doctor. Please hurry.”
“We’re right around the corner. You’re doing great, Rose. I want you to start compressions, two fingers at the tip of the breastbone, and I want you to place the heel of your other hand right above your fingers okay?”
“I know. Just please hurry,” I beg. I lace my fingers the way my dad showed me and begin compressions, counting to thirty in my head. I breathe into his slackened mouth. “Come on, come on.” I repeat this cycle over and over again. Thirty, two, thirty, two.
“That’s it, Rose, you’re doing great. You can probably hear the sirens by now.”
“Yeah, I can hear them.”
“Just keep performing CPR until they get there, okay?”
“Don’t hang up,” I say, panicked that those sirens aren’t really for us and that I’ll be left alone here.
“I won’t hang up; I’ll stay on the phone with you.” The knock on the door startles me, and I cry out. I don’t want to leave him. “Can you get to the door and unlock it for the ambulance officers, Rose?”
“I don’t wanna leave him.”
“I know, but he’s in great hands, okay? You just need to let them in.”
With salt on my cheeks, I stagger to my feet and run to the door, opening it wide. The paramedics ask me questions as they begin CPR. My brain seems to be on glue, and I can’t answer their questions. Now that I’m not the one trying to save his life, I can’t do anything but stare at his motionless body and beg him not to leave me.
I hover beside the paramedics and my best friend with my hands gripping my hair, waiting on tenterhooks until the team from the hospital communicates something, anything, to me that makes sense.
“We need to intubate,” the female officer says to her partner. I feel sick to my stomach. My head swims. I’m forgotten. I don’t know what’s happening until they’re shoving a tube down his throat and pumping air into his lungs with an Ambu bag.
“Is he breathing?”
“We need to get him to the hospital, ma’am.”
“Is he breathing?” I grab her shoulder and force her to look at me.
“Please remove your hand,” she says. She’s like a robot, no feeling at all. And there isn’t anything I can do but watch as they lift him onto a gurney and take him from me.
I feel as if I’m watching this happen to someone else and that it’s not happening to me, not to him, not to us. I follow them downstairs, not even bothering to close the door to Harley’s apartment, and I stand there completely oblivious to everyone and everyth
ing but the ambulance that takes Harley away with lights and sirens flashing.
Mom is opening the shop for me today, so it’s no surprise that she’s standing across the street wondering what the hell is going on and watching the ambulance drive away. She almost gets hit playing chicken with a car as she crosses the road toward me. “What happened?”
“He stopped breathing.” At those words I stop breathing too, or at least it feels like it.
She cradles my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her. “Rose, look at me. He’s going to be fine.” Mom removes her coat and throws it around my shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you dressed.”
“No.” I pull out of her grasp. “I need to be with him, I need …”
“Sweetheart, it’s December. You’re standing in the middle of the street shivering in your nightgown. Come and get dressed, get some shoes on your feet, and I’ll drive you to the hospital myself.”
“I’m scared, Mom. What if he leaves me?”
“Shh, we can’t afford to think like that. Now come on, darling girl, pull yourself together. Come and get dressed.”
I nod and let her lead me back up the stairs, but I feel panicked the second I set foot across the threshold. They’ll be close to the hospital now. I should be there beside him.
I put on the clothes she gathers up for me, and I sit down heavily on the bed. I’m not sure I trust my legs to hold me up. My whole body shakes. I need to move. I need to go—we need to go. But I can’t move. I can’t think. I stare at the rumpled sheets and make a note to change them because even they smell like sickness and defeat.
“I can’t lose him,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says, squeezing me tightly. Mom’s phone rings, and from the end of the line I can make out Rochelle’s panicked voice as Mom answers her questions as best she can.
With trembling hands, I attempt to tie my hair back from my face, but I keep dropping the elastic until Mom comes up behind me and takes over. She’s no longer on the phone, and she ties my hair and leans down and kisses me on the forehead. “It’s time to go, honey.”
Harley & Rose Page 24