by Melody Grace
“Hey.” I frowned. “Don’t let him get inside your head like that. You made this, all on your own. You worked your way up, you support yourself, you have people in your life who care about you. That’s something. It matters.”
Theo sighed. “I know. I hate that he still gets to me. Every time I think I’m done, something drags me back in.”
I paused. “Do you ever think you’ll reach your limit?”
I didn’t want to judge him. I knew the invisible strings that tangled around the heart, keeping us pinned to the past, choking for air. I couldn’t judge him for trying, for doing his best to be a good son even to a man who didn’t deserve the privilege of Theo’s love.
“I hope so.” He kept toying with his food, a nervous edge. “It’s tough, being so close to him, just across the river. It made sense to stay, with the financial aid package Harvard was offering, but part of me still wishes I could have left. Packed my bags and gone, New York, or California, Chicago . . .” Theo shook his head, the possibilities already gone. “But I’m stuck here, and still feel like I could do something, help somehow.”
“Not forever,” I reminded him, and he nodded.
“You’re right. One day.”
I wished it for him with everything I had. He should be free and know the love he deserved, not the guilty half-measures doled out by a parent too selfish to see the damage done.
“You’re lucky,” he added. “I know your parents are overprotective, but it’s only because they care. Believe me, it’s worse when they don’t.”
Guilt stung, hard. My own problems seemed a world away, but he was right. My family was probably on a flight right now, heading west, because I’d given them no choice. I was pushing them away, and it was the only way I knew how.
“I’m sorry.” My expression must have shown my grief, because Theo immediately took my hand. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know.” I managed a smile. “And you’re right.”
His lips curved in a wry smile. “There’s a poem, by Phillip Larkin,” he said. “He was an English writer. About how your parents fuck you up, even if they don’t mean it.”
I laughed. “Really?”
He nodded, smiling. “It goes on. About how they inherited their parents’ issues, and we, in turn, will pass on our own. The only alternative is not having kids at all.” He paused, taking a sip of water. “You ever think about it?”
“Children?”
“Kids, family.” Theo looked almost shy, but it was like a sucker-punch, straight through my ribcage.
I fought to keep my voice even and carefree. “Not really. It seems a long way off.” I swallowed. “You?”
He glanced away. “I know I want them, one day. I just wonder . . . if I can be a good father, or if I’ll screw them up like he did.”
“You’ll be an amazing father.” I had to swallow back the tears that were already rising. “You’re nothing like him.”
We were interrupted by the server then, and I used the moment to slip away to the bathroom. I tried not to cry, weaving back past the coat closet and clatter of the kitchens. I didn’t want him to see it, my eyes all puffy and red, but I couldn’t stop: I shut the door behind me and stood there, silently shaking in the small dark cubicle, listening to the whir of the fan, my cheeks wet with the future I wouldn’t get to see.
These were the things I forbid myself to think about, those long, bitter, aching nights in the faded neon of the hospital ward. Fat-cheeked toddlers and a home of my own, singing in the kitchen with a husband, a family playing safe in the yard. I wasn’t lying to Theo, it would have still felt so far away even without my end in sight. I was nineteen, I wasn’t anywhere near ready to begin that chapter, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t grieve, knowing those pages would be ripped out for good.
And Theo . . . it shook me, how easy it was to imagine that future with him. I may have lived a sheltered life, cushioned by the whisper of a hundred hospital gowns, but I still knew enough to recognize that this, between us—how my heart unfurled and took flight from just a glance of those blue eyes—was something precious and rare. Enough to build a future on? I would never get to know. But still, in that moment, sobbing silently as my fingernails bit half-moon imprints into my palms and the sounds of foreign chatter swung through the opening door, I yearned for it with every beat of my aching heart.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The clouds were fading to a crisp blue sky when we emerged, so we walked back over the bridge, huddling close against the Atlantic winds. “I think my place might be empty,” Theo said, his hands slipping under my coat for warmth.
I shivered, not from the cool of his touch, but the heat that it sparked in me. “I can’t, my shift, remember?”
He groaned. “I still can’t believe you’re open today.”
“Mika says it’s a public service. All those people needing to escape their family fun.”
He chuckled. “Sounds about right. Why don’t I meet you after?”
“Perfect. I can give you my gift,” I added, feeling shy.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Theo protested, but I shrugged it off.
“It’s just something small. You’ll see.”
“OK, then.” He kissed me again. “I’ll see you at your place at eight.”
We parted on the corner, and I walked on, the streets busier now, and all the earlier pristine snow fading to grey, gritted slush under our heels. The white swathes of yesterday were memories now, and I wondered if I’d see more snow this winter.
If I’d ever see snow like that again.
My heart caught. It was creeping in now, the reality of the end. The prescription drugs rattling in my bag, the now-familiar burst of pressure blooming above my left temple. I thought I could live in denial for just a few more days, but the dark thoughts were already slipping past all my festive plans until everything was a reminder about how little time I really had left. I fought them with everything I had. I would cling on to this, just a few more days before the confetti greeted next year and I would come clean to him, about everything. A few more days to savor this life, memorize the sweetness as it faded out towards the end. So I stuck my hands deep in my pockets and strode on down the street to the café, enjoying the rush of warmth that enveloped me as I stepped through the entrance.
“Close the door!” Mika yelled cheerfully from behind the counter. “Do you want us all to catch a damn chill?”
The café was packed, just like he’d predicted, and there was an extra breath of festive cheer in the air alongside cinnamon and old Bing Crosby songs. “Everyone’s just relieved it’s nearly over,” JJ confided after I’d traded my jacket for an apron and joined him up front. He was swirling an expert holly leaf into the latte foam, wearing one of those novelty Christmas sweaters, with reindeers galloping across the front.
“No holiday haters allowed,” Mika interrupted, swopping between us to man the register. “One day a year, we get to spread a little cheer.”
“One day?” JJ repeated, teasing. “Say that again on Valentines, or Easter, or—”
“OK, I get the message.” Mika gave him an affectionate nudge. “I’ll just return your gift then.”
“Take my sweater?” JJ grinned, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. “You’ll have to peel it from my cold, dead body.”
I wanted to hold onto it—that afternoon. Every smiling, relieved face in the crowd, every joke and teasing skit that spun around me with Mika and JJ. Now, some other girl will have taken my place, and slipped effortlessly into their ballet to whirl and spin amongst the dirty tables and bakery case, but that day, it was all my own: the customers blurring into a line of motion, the hours slipping past fine as confectioner’s sugar in the air. It was dark before I realized my shift was over; the lights of the city softened around the edges through our breath-fogged windows, jewels winking from the dark street beyond.
I peeled off my apron and grabbed my bag. “Happy holidays,”
I said to Mika and JJ, slipping out from behind the counter.
“You too, darling.”
I stepped outside, ducking through the sidewalk traffic as life threaded through the winter streets again. I walked fast through the bustle and hum, people wrapped in their brand-new holiday scarves, arms as full of shopping bags as the night before Christmas. Hope always smirked about the holidays, how it was all just a ruse to sell perfume gift sets and socks that nobody wanted, but even with the ad campaigns blaring from every magazine and TV, I still thought there was something sweet about it: trying to show someone what they meant to you with just a small, gift-wrapped token, your heart wrapped up in ribbons and bows. My present for Theo was waiting at home, a small painting I’d secretly worked on during stolen moments away from him all week. It wasn’t much, but I knew Theo wasn’t the kind of guy to care about anything fancy, and I couldn’t wait to see his face when he peeled back the paper.
I found him waiting on my front steps, pacing back and forth with his collar high against the evening wind. “Sorry, I got caught up at work.” I smiled, reaching him. “You must be freezing. Come on, let’s get inside.”
I leaned up to kiss him, but Theo flinched away.
My heart stuttered in my chest, a half-beat hesitation that turned to dread when he stepped back into the pool of streetlight glow, and I saw the expression on his face. Guarded and wary, like the way he’d looked on that city-scape rooftop back in the fall, before he’d walked out of my life for what I’d thought was forever.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered, remembering the call last time. “Is it your dad? Did something happen?”
Theo looked confused. “My dad? No. He’s fine.”
“Then what . . .?”
I knew before he said it. I could see it in his eyes, somehow. The betrayal there, it wasn’t from some other thing whirling out there in the world, it was because of me.
He knew.
The silence shivered there between us on the grey sidewalk.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”
It was an accusation and a heartbroken plea, all bound up in the crack of his voice, the man I loved looking at me like I had torn something sacred apart. And I had. God, if I could take any of it back, it would be this moment, this wretched unraveling on a dark, cold street corner with my blood pounding hot, shame and guilt rising up to drown me from the inside out.
It all fell away, our castles in the snowdrift sky. The world we’d built together, two heartbeats in the night, melting in an instant to leave nothing but flint-harsh anger on his gorgeous face, barely contained, barely held back from the edge.
“Theo . . .” I took a half-step towards him, and he took a half-step back, automatic, like there was a force field around me he couldn’t bring himself to ever breach again. My mind spun over the possibilities, but it couldn’t find a grip. “How . . .” My voice was barely a whisper, all the breath had been sucked from my lungs, but still I forced the words out. “How did you know?”
“Your mom told me everything.” His words were clipped, but they struck me like ice. “She came by, today, while you were at work. She said I deserved to know the truth.”
“I thought they’d gone.” My head spun with the betrayal. “I can’t believe she would do that. She had no right.”
“And you did?”
His reply came, whip-sharp, a slap across my heart. Of course he was right. I shouldn’t have been keeping this from him, and no matter how my ugly secrets had been dragged into the light, I couldn’t be angry. I had no right at all, no matter how my heart ached with guilt and grief.
“I was going to tell you,” I swore, wishing it could make a difference now. “I just . . . I just needed more time. Please, Theo . . .” I begged. “I didn’t want to lie to you, you have to believe me.”
Theo glanced away, as if he couldn’t stand to look at me. “Are you OK?”
I wasn’t prepared for the gentleness of his voice. This was even worse. Even in the midst of his betrayal, Theo’s first instinct was to care for me. His heart was true, and I’d wasted it on lies.
I nodded, trying to keep it together despite the cracks splintering out through my body, marble veins of pain threading out from my core. “I have meds, to keep the pain under control,” I explained softly. “But I’m getting tremors now, in my hand. Headaches.”
“When you collapsed . . .” He stopped. “You knew?”
I closed my eyes a moment, forcing myself to nod. “I knew it was getting worse. I thought . . . I thought I had more time.”
“Until what?” His voice made me look again, and I saw the anger cracking through the hollow shell of his shock. “Until you fell down and didn’t get up again? God, Claire, do you know how worried I’ve been? I nearly went out of my mind that night, I thought you might be hiding something, and all along, you knew!” Theo caught his breath, ragged, and I saw his hands clench at his sides, two angry fists balled, gripping his anger tightly. “And even now—fuck,” he swore. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t be mad at you. I’m not allowed!”
“You can hate me,” I said, silently weeping now. “I know I deserve it.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t . . .” I saw him pull himself back together, saw the effort it took to corral his angry words behind that stony expression again. “I can’t talk to you right now. I need to think.”
“Please, let me explain—” I started desperately, but Theo had already jammed his fists deep in his coat pockets, shoulders tight as he backed away.
“No, Claire. Don’t. I need some space,” he said, not looking at me. “I need to figure this out.”
And just like that, he was walking away, a tense back turned on me, that navy coat lifting in the breeze behind him as he was swallowed up by the dark. The world spun sideways, and I grabbed the railing before I fell, gasping for air as the drums pounded in my brain. I tasted panic, bitter copper fear. Not for the pain blossoming in my head, but my heart wrenching open, tearing apart in my chest to follow him into the night. He was leaving, he was already half a memory, and although I deserved it, I’d lost too much in my nineteen years to let him slip into the shadows and be gone.
Maybe it was the most selfish thing of all, going after him the way I did. I could have let him disappear that night and become nothing more than a memory, something to hold onto as my cancer took its slow victory lap in the months ahead, and the morphine pulled me from this world into the next, but I couldn’t help it; even now, I can’t explain. Something propelled my feet down that street and after him, a desperate, wild staccato on the icy streets as I raced for my life—for all I wanted from what was left of my life, at least. Because when the end is so close you can taste the bitterness of the drugs that keep you hanging on, some things become simple.
Love, only love, matters in the end.
I sprinted down that street, and the next, his dark silhouette moving fast ahead of me into the park. I had no words, I barely had enough breath in my lungs to keep moving, but I didn’t stop until he was in arm’s reach from me, silhouetted against the faded white and winter’s grey, the bare trees above us stretching into the black night, strung with stars.
“Theo!”
My voice echoed, plaintive and raw, and maybe that was what made him turn. He stood there, his expression still closed off, a stranger. How many nights had I lain awake, tracing the contours of that miraculous face? How many days had I skimmed pencil to page, trying time and again to capture the light that radiated from his kind, true heart?
“Theo, please,” I begged him, tears already wet on my cheeks. There was an ache inside me gasping, a darkness ready to obliterate the pale light of the moon overhead. “Let me just explain. I didn’t want to lie to you. I’m so, so sorry. I never planned for this, I swear.”
“What am I supposed to say to you?” Theo demanded. His voice struck me hard, but I could see him breaking apart underneath it all. “She said you were dying, Claire. That you only have months to
live! I thought . . . all this time I thought the two of us could be . . .” He stopped, swallowing back the words, the late-night whispers, all those what ifs and one days I’d fooled myself into ignoring as I held onto right now so tight.
“I know,” I said, broken. “I’m sorry.”
“You came after me.” Theo was accusing, wheels spinning in his mind. “I walked away because I thought you were better off without me. I was trying to protect you! And when you showed up at my office I thought . . . that we could be together. That you were in, all in.”
“I am! Theo, you don’t understand—”
“You lied to me,” he yelled, echoing in the dark, snowy park. “The one person I thought I knew better than anyone. Why?” His voice turned pleading. “Tell me, why did you hide this from me? Why didn’t you let me in?”
“Because I love you!”
My words seemed to ricochet around us, bouncing off every cold, frozen tree trunk and empty black iron bench. “I love you, Theo,” I sobbed. “And I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t admit that this was all going to end.”
There was silence. Hushed by the snowfall, swallowed up into the distant city roar. A terrible, endless silence that my bruised body felt with every desperate breath.
Theo looked away. “I . . . I don’t know what to tell you, Claire. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Say you love me. Say I’m yours. Say you’ll be mine until the end.
But I couldn’t. I’d laid my heart, still beating, at his feet, and it still wasn’t enough to close the distance between us, or strip the betrayal from those blue eyes.
“I’ll tell you anything, Theo. But please, don’t push me away.”
“I’m sorry.” When his answer came, it sounded heavy and final. “I want to talk, but this is a lot to deal with. Please, just give me some time.”
Time.
He didn’t realize just how cruel that word was, dangling a future as if I had any chance of grasping it, but I’d already hurt him too much. I nodded, even though my body was screaming not to. Every instinct I had was to hold him tightly, and kiss him until this space between us was full again. Full, and right, and the way it used to be.