by Jay McLean
Next to her, Chazarae warns, “Don’t, Joshua.” So I turn to her instead. “Do you know how hard it is to not know… to not understand why you did what you did but every day I feel like I’m under so much pressure to be perfect—to not fuck up—so I’m worthy of you and your fucking generosity and I’m so scared of fucking up. So scared. But here I am! I’m fucking up!”
“Josh!” Becca yells.
I face her, watching as her hand covers her mouth and her shoulders heave with each sob. “I hate you, Becca.”
Chazarae throws her arms around Becca’s shoulders and tries to guide her away, but she holds her spot, wipes her cheeks, and lifts her chin.
She wants to hear it.
I’ll fucking say it.
“I hate you the most. I hate that I love you. I hate that Tommy loves you. I hate that you’re the fucking greatest thing to ever happen to me. I hate that I thought you saw me—that you understood me. I hate that you came into my life and turned my entire world upside down. I hate that I think about you every second of every fucking day. I hate that you’re the last fucking thing I think about. I hate that I still wake up thinking about you. And I hate that in between all that I fucking dream about you. You and your fucking eyes. I hate your eyes.” Her tears have stopped and she just stands there, unblinking, unmoving, taking every single blow I deliver. “And I hate that you did all this because you’re leaving me. You’re leaving us! You’re just like everyone else!”
“What happened to you, Josh?” she whispers.
“You did!” I shout. “You and Hunter, and Natalie, and my dad! You all leave us. Because he’s fucking dying, Becca, and I can’t do anything about it!”
She releases a sob, her hand reaching out for me but I cower away from her touch.
“All I can do is watch him die because he won’t even talk to me. He hates me so much he can’t even fucking look at me!”
“Josh…” She reaches for me again but I take a step back. “No! Just don’t, okay? It doesn’t change shit. It’s done. Just like us!”
Her gaze drops and the sound of my thumping heart fills my ears. I wait for the anger to pass, but it doesn’t, it just builds more and more as I stand there, watching them all watching me.
Then I see Chloe from the corner of my eye as she comes up beside me. “Get in the car,” she says quietly.
“What?” I turn to her just as she pinches my ear and drags me behind her and toward their car. Her breath is warm against my ear, or maybe it’s because she’s about to rip the fucker right off my head. “I said get in the fucking car!”
★★★
I keep quiet, my head lowered as Chloe drives—more like speeds—through the residential streets to who the fuck knows where. Probably somewhere to kill me and dump my body.
“How’s your ear?” she shouts. I think she’s pissed and I highly doubt she gives a shit about my ear.
“It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, but she’s still yelling, and now I’m sure she’s pissed. “It’s just that you got me so angry. And I don’t know. Something else.”
“Something else?”
“Shut up!”
I cringe. “Okay…”
We don’t speak another word until she drives onto the half-court and parks right in the middle. “Get out!”
I do as she as says because right now I think she might be a little crazy.
She waits for me at the front of the car, the headlights still on. I stand in front of her, my hands in my pockets. I watch her. She watches me. Then she shoves my chest just like I’d done to her husband. “You’re a dick!”
I roll me eyes. “I know.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” she snaps. “But he’s not dead, asshole. He’s dying. There’s a big difference. You still have time with him,” she says, her voice softer. “If you want to make it right. Make it right. You’re old enough to make that choice, Josh.” Her voice cracks and so does my heart because, fuck, it’s Chloe. The girl who’s married to my best friend, the girl who was diagnosed with the same cancer that killed her mom and her aunt, and she stands in front me, her shoulders squared and jaw set in determination. She stands tall, brave, in the middle of a world she could’ve given up on.
Just like I have.
But she hasn’t.
With a sigh, I pull on her arm and bring her into me, one hand on her back, the other in her hair that wasn’t there a year ago. “I’m sorry, Chloe. You’re right. About everything.”
Her body relaxes against mine and when she pulls back, she wipes her eyes. “I really am sorry about your dad. Please don’t tell me it’s cancer because I’ll kick the shit out of something if it is.”
I smile—which is strange given the situation. “It’s not. He’s got um…” I swallow nervously, knowing it’s the first time the words will leave my mouth. “Chronic kidney disease. It came out of nowhere.”
“How’d you find out?”
“My mom. She came to see me when he decided to quit dialysis. He’d rather live a full life than a long one.”
Chloe nods once, giving me a sad smile before saying, “You know what we need?”
“What?”
She smirks before going back to the car. I follow. She reaches into the glove box and finds what I think is a carton of tampons. “What the fire truck?”
“Relax,” she says through a laugh and pulls out a bag of joints.
I step back. “I don’t know, Chloe. You remember the last time we did that?”
She rolls her eyes. “I have a script.” She points to herself. “Cancer.”
I nod. “Right.”
“Just don’t tell Blake. He doesn’t know I have it anymore. Hence the tampons.”
“Got it.”
She uses the dash lighter to spark one, smiles as she inhales and then hands it to me. I look at the joint between my fingers. “Fuck it.” I take a puff and sit on the hood of the car with her. She lies down and I lie next to her.
“So your mom just came to see you because she wanted you to know?”
I pass her the joint and hold my breath, feeling the weed burn in my throat before releasing it. “No. She wanted me to get tested as a living donor.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “And did you?”
“Yeah, I got tested.”
“And?”
“No go. Something about tissue incompatibility.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “Mom says it’s for the best anyway. If he ever found out it came from me he’d probably kill me.”
“You mean you would’ve done it without him knowing?”
“Of course.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because he’s my dad,” I say simply.
She looks up at the stars and I do the same. And we stay that way, passing the joint between us.
“Did it feel good?” she asks.
“What?”
“Yelling and beating the shit out of things and just letting it all out.”
“Yeah. At the time. Not so much now, though.”
She rolls to her side and looks at me with a smirk on her face. “I want to try it,” she whispers.
“Go ahead.”
She starts to stand up on the hood of the car. “It stays between us, okay? Don’t tell Blake.”
“You’re keeping a lot of secrets from your husband.”
“It’s for the best. Trust me.” She hands me the joint and I take a puff as I get off the hood, waving my hand through the air.
“The stage is yours, C-Lo.”
She clears her throat and suddenly looks unsure. Then she nods once and rolls her shoulders. “Fuck you, cancer!” she shouts, her voice echoing through the night sky.
“Yeah!” I encourage. “Fuck you, cancer!”
Her head throws back with laughter, and then she stops. Her smile fades and her breaths become heavy. She shakes out her hands and I notice her eyes begin to glaze with tears. She sniffs once, her sob fo
llowing after it.
I swallow anxiously, waiting for her to continue.
“I was eighteen!” she shouts to no one. “No one should have to deal with that at eighteen! Wasn’t it enough? My mom? My aunt? Weren’t they enough for you that you had to take me too?”
I stay still, my heart in my throat and my mind on her and Hunter.
“I’m sick. And I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired of acting like it didn’t bother me! Do you know what it’s like to sit in a fucking chair for eight hours straight while the person you love sits and holds your hand and you wonder the entire time why? Why the fuck am I here? Why is he here? And I have to pretend like I’m okay with you. I’m not okay with you, cancer. Not at all! I fucking hate you. I hate everything about you.” She’s pacing up at down on the hood now, her footsteps heavy against the metal. Her fists are balled at her sides—the anger and frustration and hurt all coming out. “And now everyone around me treats me like I’m going to die at any minute. Blake—he watches me like a fucking hawk. He helps me with every little thing and I love him so much but I hate that. If I want to jump up and down, I’ll fucking jump up and down!” I cringe as she jumps on the hood, denting the fuck out of it. “And I’ll do it and I’ll laugh about it and he doesn’t need to stop me! He doesn’t need to tell me that I’ll overexert myself and that I need to calm down. I don’t want to calm down!” she shouts, crying as she does. She wipes her face across her sleeve and looks up. Then she collapses.
“Holy shit!” I rush to her. “Are you okay?”
She’s fucking laughing. “You’re just like Blake. I’m not going to die, Josh.” She takes the joint from me and inhales a drag, then blows it out slowly.
“You overexerted yourself, didn’t you?”
She pouts. “Yes. Don’t—”
“Tell Blake. I got it.”
I lie back down on the hood with her. “Did it help?”
“At the time,” she says, “Not so much now.”
“Yeah.”
“You know what I hate the most?”
“What?”
“The word remission.”
I face her. “Yeah?”
“It should be called intermission. Like they have in plays. Or, like, TV shows when they have the mid-season breaks. It’s like the diagnosis and the chemo are the first half of the season. Then the intermission comes and you’re just sitting there waiting for the next appointment. And it’s like… oh yay, the show ended well, you’re cancer free. Or, it can be like, oh a cliffhanger… the cancer’s still there. Sorry. And then you have to wait for the next season and the first half is just a fucking recap of everything from the previous season until another fucking intermission. And then you wait for the outcome and it still might not end—it can still be a cliffhanger. I fucking hate cliffhangers.” She rolls her head to the side and looks at me. “And I fucking hate cancer.”
“Fire truck cancer,” I tell her.
She smiles. “Fire truck it right in the ass.” She pounds her fist on the hood. “With this car.”
“With a fire truck.”
She laughs. “Fire truck it with a fire truck, right in the ass.”
“We’re so high.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. Then moves closer and settles her head on my chest. “Hey Josh?”
“Yeah Chloe?”
And I’ll never forget what she says next; “There’s a big difference between being happy and being selfish. Choose to be happy. Fire truck the rest.”
26
-Joshua-
I wake up in bed, my head throbbing, and I try to remember, or maybe forget, last night. Something warm rubs against my leg and I flinch and pull away, looking to my side. Hunter’s in my bed, his head resting on his outstretched arm. “Morning, Princess.”
I jump up and as far away from him as possible. “What the fire truck!”
“You were so good last night,” he says, puckering his lips and blowing me a kiss. “Best I’ve ever had.”
“You’re weird.”
He smiles. “What’s the plan for today?”
“Apologizing to everyone until I’m blue in the face.”
“Who first?”
I start to respond but sirens blaring interrupt me. I wait for them to pass but they just get louder.
“Josh!” Chloe yells from the living room.
I run out of the bedroom and go to her. She’s looking out the window and I do the same and the first thing I see are two paramedics jumping out of the ambulance. My heart stops. I slip on my shoes and point at Tommy. “Keep him away,” I tell Chloe and she nods and carries him to his room.
My stomach in knots, I race down the stairs. “What happened?” I ask the paramedics. “Stay there, sir,” one says, and the only thing I can think is that something’s happened to Chazarae. I try to move, but my feet are glued to the ground and every single breath is a struggle.
More sirens.
Cops this time.
An officer approaches and stands in front of me while another runs inside. The officer’s mouth’s moving but I can’t hear what he’s saying.
“Chazarae! Becca!”
Finally, my feet come back to life and I try to run inside but arms around my waist stop me from going any further. The officer speaks again but I can’t hear anything over the blood rushing in my ears.
I see Blake.
I see an officer.
And then I see a paramedic, his hands gripping the end of a stretcher. I see feet on the end of it and breathe out Chaz’s name. And then I see her. But she’s standing, walking next to the stretcher. Her shoulders shake. Her tears fall fast.
Then I look down.
And I see her.
“BECCA!”
27
-Joshua-
Chazarae doesn’t let me ride with them so Blake drives me to the hospital.
“Rebecca Owens,” I tell the nurse at the desk.
She types on the computer, her eyes darting from side to side. All while I feel like I’m dying from fear of the unknown. “She’s just been admitted, sweetheart,” she says, her eyes full of pity as she looks up at me. “Are you family?”
I almost say that I’m her boyfriend, but then I realize I’m not. I’m nothing. I check her nametag, hoping if I’m more personal it might help my cause. “No, Nurse Ruby. I’m not.”
She smiles but it matches the pity in her eyes. “You’re welcome to wait.”
As if I’d be doing anything else.
“Come on, man.” Hunter grabs my arm and leads me to the waiting room chairs. I watch the seconds tick by, my heart never slowing. Every fifteen minutes I get up and ask the same nurse the same question. I want to know what the fuck happened and if she’s okay. The nurse’s answer is always the same. She can’t give me much information but as soon as she can she will. I thank her. Because she could be an asshole and tell me to fuck off, but she doesn’t. Then I sit back down, wait fifteen minutes and do it all over again. Hunter stays by my side, never leaving. “You can go,” I tell him.
His smile matches the nurses. “Always we, Josh,” is all he says.
And that’s all it takes for me to break.
Three hours I’ve been sitting in the waiting room, living through the questions racing in my mind. I’ve stayed quiet, stayed as calm as I can. And now—now I lose it.
He stays silent, his hand on my shoulder as I cry into my hands.
“I’m sorry, Hunter.”
“Me too, Warden. For everything.” After a sigh, he asks, “Do you want to talk about? The shit with your dad?”
“Not now.”
“You should, though, with someone. Anyone. You can’t keep that shit bottled inside. I don’t think your skateboards can handle it anymore.”
I’d forgotten about the boards. “Fuck.”
Hunter shakes my shoulder and points to the door. Rob and Kim walk in, their eyes frantic as they search the room.
“Rob,” I call out. “What are you doing here?”
His shoulders drop with his heavy exhale. They rush toward me. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. How did you—”
“We dropped by the house and Chloe told us you were here and… Jesus fucking Christ, Josh. I’m sorry. Do you know anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you asked?”
I ignore his question because it’s stupid and it doesn’t deserve an answer. “I’m sorry about the truck.”
“Fuck the truck, Josh, who gives a shit? I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
He sits down on the other side of me. “Clearly.”
“I don’t want to deal with it right now,” I say, my voice rising. “I just need to focus on Becca. Please. Just let me do that.”
Kim disappears for a few minutes and returns with coffees for everyone. “I heard one of the nurses talking. It’s one of their busiest days. A lot of idiots partying too hard to celebrate the New Year. A lot of overdoses and alcohol poisoning.” She sits down next to Robby.
And we wait.
Seconds turn to minutes. Minutes turn to hours. And my heart never slows.
“Josh?” Nurse Ruby calls.
I jump up from my seat, so do the others. “Is she okay?” I ask once I’m at the desk.
“I’m about to finish my shift but I couldn’t leave without finding out something to tell you. Rebecca—”
“Becca,” I cut in. “She doesn’t like Rebecca.”
She smiles the same sad smile. “Becca’s moved from critical to stable. The doctors have been working with her all day. And that’s basically all I can tell you.”
With my heart in my throat, I sigh, relieved. “So she’s okay?”