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Chapter Thirty-Three


Nick

During my time in recovery at the hospital, I made a list. It wasn’t exactly a bucket list, not in the way that most people would think of bucket lists anyways. It was just everything that I wanted to make sure got taken care of before I died. Since I had eighteen months, at best, I figured it would be the most efficient to make it so I could check the box as I got each thing on it completed. It was all this really kinda arbitrary things. Things like, I wanted to make sure I cleaned out the basement, and I wanted to burn my journals and destroy some old computer hard drives. I wanted to make up with my family somehow and forgive them for everything. I wanted to write another book to say goodbye to my fans. I wanted to make up with Brian and maybe even be friends with Leighanne (I mean it was only eighteen months, anybody could be friends with anybody for eighteen months, right?). And, most importantly, I wanted to make sure I knew, beyond a doubt, that when I died, Jaymie would be okay.

And Jaymie being okay after I died spawned it’s own list. I wanted to make sure I left her a sizable amount of money so she was financially stable until she could get on her own feet again. I wanted to leave her enough, too, that she could go to school. I wanted to make sure she had a place to stay, that she had a car, and that someone would watch out for her. And most of all, I wanted to make her fall out of love with me. Because I loved Jaymie too much to make her go through losing someone she loved.

It would hurt, I knew that. But it would hurt less than knowing that I was gonna shatter her would hurt.

It’d been a week since the surgery and I was supposedly gonna be able to go home the next day, depending how I did during my first radiation therapy session. I wasn’t looking forward to it. But then there wasn’t a whole lot I was looking forward to. There wasn’t much forward to look at. But I was taking baby steps. For example, early the morning of Day Seven Post Surgery, Dr. Stanley had changed out my bandages and removed the staples from my head and, reluctantly, I’d agreed to look at myself in a mirror for the first time since they’d shaved my head.

I looked funny, pale and strangely unfamiliar. I’d pressed my fingers against my cheeks, trying to pull some color out of my skin.

I was standing in front of the mirror poking my face when Jaymie came in carrying a large take-out bag. She put it down on the rolling tray and dropped her purse into the chair next to the bed. “You look like you’re feeling a little better,” she commented.

“Mmm,” I half-heartedly agreed without looking over.

“I brought you an In-N-Out burger, but don’t tell Dr. Stanley.”

I stopped poking my face and looked at the bag. “Real food, holy shit.” I went over and climbed back into bed and she pushed the table to me. I ripped open the bag, the smell of burger filling my nose as Jaymie sat down on the chair, pushing her purse to the floor.

She sighed and closed her eyes, leaning back in the chair.

“You okay?” I asked around a mouthful of french fries.

“Mmm,” she said, mimicking me.

I ate quietly for a few minutes.

“Brian said he might come up later,” she said. She’d been saying that for seven days. Supposedly, Brian had been at the hospital off and on all week, but I hadn’t yet seen him. Jamie kept making excuses for him about why he wasn’t coming up to see me in my room, but I felt like maybe it was just a cover-up and he wasn’t really interested in seeing me at all. Howie and Kevin had stopped in a couple times each before Howie had to go back to his family in Florida. AJ had come in once with Kevin, but he doesn’t fare well with hospitals and that one time was the only time I’d seen him there. Brian, though, had never once shown his face.

“We’ll see,” I mumbled.

Jaymie watched as I ate as much as I could - about half the food she’d brought - and pushed my rolling tray away. I leaned back in the pillow and sighed. “You okay?” she asked, getting up and rolling the top of the bag closed. She straightened up the stuff on my tray and pushed it around until it lined up neatly with the side of the bed. I felt like there was more she was asking, but I wasn’t positive what exactly.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I answered.

She nodded and neatened the night stand, putting the remote control and the phone at precise angles.

“You don’t gotta do that,” I said.

“Do what?”

“The cleaning,” I said.

Jaymie stopped like she hadn’t realized she’d been cleaning at all. “Sorry,” she said, and she sat down in the chair again. She looked at me with a look somewhere between worried and nervous.

“Don’t be sorry,” I answered. “What’s that look for?”

Jaymie looked down at her knees, “Nothing.”

I raised my eyebrow.

I had a feeling she wanted to ask me about… you know, what I’d said. All the love and stuff. But at the same time it kinda felt like maybe she understood, like maybe she’d thought about it, too, and come to the same conclusion that I had… that eighteen months wasn’t enough time to put her heart on the line for.

I licked my teeth. Part of me wanted to bring it up myself. Like maybe putting a name on the elephant in the room would make him shrink down to size. I pictured us talking it out, coming to a grown-up agreement. I won’t break your heart, and I won’t make it harder than it has to be to get over me.

I opened my mouth to say something, but Dr. Stanley, another doctor, and the lastest nurse came in the room at that exact moment. “Sorry if we’re interrupting,” Dr. Stanley said, smiling benignly as he barged in with the two followers in tow, “But this is Dr. Paulson and she’s going to be your radiation specialist,” he waved her forward and she stepped around Jaymie’s chair to shake my hand.

I awkwardly shook her hand, barely noticing it, watching as Jaymie stood and edged her way back from the crowd at my bedside.

Dr. Stanley started to talk about the therapy and what the next couple hours would entail for me, but my brain retained basically none of it because Jaymie muttered that she’d check on me in a little while and slipped out the door.





Jaymie

He’s going to break up with me, I thought as I walked down the hallway. I felt a little lightheaded from the realization that Brenda was right about what the tumor was capable of doing. I moved into an elevator and leaned against the backwall. I wasn’t sure where I was going, so I just pressed any arbitrary button and held onto the rail. He can’t break up with you, you were never together, the snarky side of my mind reminded me. You’re overreacting. You didn’t even want this remember? This is so stupid. You were never in this relationship for love, it was all about the sex. Remember? Remember when it was safe and meaningless and wonderful?

The problem was, it had been more wonderful since it had been less meaningless, if I was being honest.

And yeah we’d never really been together, so yeah he couldn’t really break up with me so to speak.

I’m being laid off, I thought dramatically. Fired. Given the pink slip. Let go.

I imagined Nick in a big old office like he was Donald fucking Trump.

I was outside without realizing I’d walked out of the elevator and I found myself standing on the sidewalk by the parking lot, under a little sign that said that the space I stood in front of was reserved for expectant mothers. The sun was bright and there was a considerable amount of pollens floating around like a lazy snow. It was hot and I was frustrated and tears were burning my eyes. From the pollen, I told myself.

I made my way around the perimeter of the hospital until I got to this little clearing off to the side and found a path that wound through a sort of pseudo-woods. Mostly they were palm trees in a cluster interspersed with planted trees that created a light shade. There was a bench halfway around it and I came to a stop and dropped onto the bench and closed my eyes. I could see the sun, glowing green through the leaves overhead, even through my eyelids.

Then the tears started.

Oh for fuck’s sake, my brain was saying. You knew this day would come, when he’d be done with you. Why are you so surprised?

Because I thought he meant it, my heart whimpered.

Well you’re dumb as shit, my brain accused.

I know, my heart replied. But I meant it when I said it, I think. I meant it with all of me.

You should’ve used me for once.

That was really the bottom line. I’d allowed myself to forget everything I knew and go along with just what I felt and now I was paying the price.

It was awful of me, I realized, that I felt more upset about what I’d lost in Nick’s healing than I was happy about the fact that he’d actually been healed to some extent.

I was a terrible person for kind of wishing that the operation would’ve been a failure and Nick would’ve woke up the same man he’d been in Germany when he’d sat on the end of the bed, our skin touching, scorchingly close together, and he’d uttered the L-word.

I’d never felt closer to him.

Even when he’d been inside of me, I had never felt that close to him before.

It was like I was the tumor.

“Ahem.”

I opened my eyes.

Brian was standing in front of me.

“Any room on that bench?”

“If you don’t mind sitting next to a sad, pathetic loser,” I replied.

“Only if you don’t,” he answered.

I scooted.

He sat.

“How is he?” Brian’s voice was quiet, like he was afraid he didn’t have the right to ask. I wasn’t sure if I thought he did or not.

“He’s okay,” I answered. “He’s his old self. He keeps asking about you,” I said.

I felt Brian actively not looking at me.

“I think he thinks you’re just a bedtime story I’m telling him to get him to go to sleep,” I said. I knew the statement bothered him; the muscles in his jaw tightened and loosened a couple times. “Are you going to go see him?” I pressed.

Brian took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

“You should,” I said. “He needs his friends right now.” The word came out a little sharper than I’d meant for it to, and stung a little harder than I’d thought it would. It tasted like dirty pennies in my mouth. That’s all I am, I thought. His friend. My heart quaked. My brain shook it’s head in disapproval.

Brian either didn’t hear tone in my voice or ignored it. “Yeah,” he said, “But I’m not sure I fall under that category these days.”

“Of course you do.”

Brian shrugged.

“Just go see him,” I directed him. “It’s not like there’s an abundance of time for you to hem and haw over the choice. Time is very limited, and you don’t want to waste it all worrying about it when you could’ve had that time actually with him. Right?”

Brian nodded. “You’re right,” he said. He stood up. “Thanks, Jaymie.” He hovered over me for a minute, staring down. He paused. “So, um, are you and Nick… okay?” he asked.

I nodded even though I didn’t feel okay.

“Really okay?” he asked.

I knew what he was asking. Like really asking. But I didn’t want to admit that I’d allowed myself to believe that Nick and I had any chance of ever being anything more than what we’d always been. Or that I’d even wanted it to be so. That I’d craved more, just as Brian had always warned Nick.

“Yeah,” I answered. “We’re really okay.”

Brian took a deep breath. “Since we’re in this kind of awkward, candid middle space… Listen, Jaymie, I’m sorry I’ve been such a - a - monkeywagon to you all these years.” In my head, I substituted monkeywagon for dickhead because whatever cutesy kind speak Brian inserted in the sentence, dickhead was what he meant by it. “I’ve been kind of a judgemental ass and -- well, you didn’t deserve it.”

“It’s okay,” I said. I paused a moment. Then, “I might’ve deserved some of it a little.”

Brian shrugged. “Didn’t mean I had to act like that, regardless.” He turned and started walking back up the path toward the hospital without saying anything else.

I stayed out on the bench for quite awhile, rambling over various scenarios in my mind for how, exactly, to make Nick believe that nothing had changed between us to relieve him of the stress of having to tell me so himself. I didn’t want to make him have to be the bad guy in this stage of his life. And plus, I didn’t want to hear his voice speak the words that he didn’t mean what he’d said.

It’d be easier on us both if I broke my own heart.