Everything Left Unsaid (13 page)

We’re standing alone on the balcony of the function centre with a view over the city. It’s all lit up, hundreds and hundreds of offices with no-one inside, shining against the inky blackness.

‘Are you having a good time?’ Tai asks.

I throw my arms around him. ‘I want to remember this forever,’ I whisper, and even as the words leave my mouth they feel inadequate, but Tai doesn’t seem to notice, doesn’t seem to mind.

Eventually we go inside. Tai disappears to find his mates while I head to the bathrooms with Gen. When I come out of the stall to wash my hands, Tanya’s there with a friend, pursing her lips at the mirror while she applies more lipstick. She turns around when she sees my reflection, and looks me up and down coldly.

‘
Interesting
dress, Juliet. I’d never be brave enough to wear it if I had your body type, but good for you.’ Her teeth flash in a smile as she whips around and leaves. When Gen comes out of her stall I’m still staring after Tanya in disbelief.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I think Tanya just called me fat.’

Gen snickers. ‘Like she can talk.’

‘But she’s
not
fat, Gen.’

‘Yeah, and neither are you.’

When we get back to our table, I sit next to Tai just a little too closely, press my face into his shoulder. He stops drumming his fingers on his thigh in time with the music, and touches my shoulder. ‘What?’

‘Guys are so much easier,’ I mumble.

‘Totally. We get to pee standing up, we don’t burn ourselves with hair straighteners or whatever . . . it’s a good deal. Wait. Why are you telling me that?’

‘Someone just called me fat.’

‘What? They’re crazy.’ He looks at my face, says, ‘Hang on – you
believed
them?’

I shrug.
Maybe
.

Tai tugs at my shoulders, insistent, forcing me to look at him. ‘That’s crazy. You know that’s crazy, right?’

‘Sometimes.’

He grabs me by the hand, and leads me away from the table. I think he’s taking me outside again, but instead we just settle in the hallway, leaning side by side against the wall.

‘You know how I’m dying?’

‘Do we have to do this tonight, Tai?
Really?
’

‘Yeah. We do.’ He pushes away from the wall and turns to stand in front of me. He puts his palms on the the wall on either side of me and leans in until I can feel his hips against mine. He stares into my eyes, his gaze intense. ‘You need to know,’ he whispers, ‘you need to
remember
when I’m not around to remind you, that I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’

The day before I go back to school, I have another appointment with the counsellor. She smiles at me like she means it, then glances over some notes before looking at me. ‘So, Tai. How are you going?’

‘Still dying, unfortunately.’ I grin, but she doesn’t return the smile.

‘You know, Tai, it’s interesting – you’re sitting there smiling, but in your eyes you look kind of scared.’

‘Do they teach you that kind of stuff at uni?’ I’m avoiding responding to her observation, and we both know it. ‘Okay. Yeah. I’m completely and totally freaked out. Wouldn’t you be?’

‘I probably would. No-one likes to be faced with their own mortality.’

‘In English, please?’

‘We all think we’ll live forever. Maybe, if we try hard enough, we can get comfortable with the idea of dying in our sleep when we’re old – but really we just don’t want to think about it.’

‘Yeah, well I might not want to think about it, but I can’t help it.’

‘Have you been talking to your parents about it?’

‘Nah, they’d just cry or be all like,
We love you, Tai. It’s your choice, honey
. Stuff like where I want to be for palliative care, or what I want at the funeral. What if I don’t want it to be my choice? What if I just want to fade into painkiller oblivion and not have to think about it anymore?’

‘Do you really want to do that?’

‘No,’ I admit. ‘But sometimes it’s tempting. It seems easy.’

‘What do you want to do, then?’

‘I don’t know, okay? I didn’t exactly plan on turning eighteen and organising my own funeral.’ It comes out louder than I meant it to, more panicked.

‘I keep telling you, Tai, there aren’t any right answers.’

‘Yeah, but there are wrong ones.’
You know it’s true, lady
. ‘How do I decide?’

‘Why don’t you write all of your options down, and cross out the ones that don’t appeal to you? And then research the ones that do until you work out what feels right.’

‘Yeah. Okay.’

She makes a note of something on the paper in front of her then asks, ‘So how are you going with your bucket list?’

‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Remember we spoke last time about creating a list of things you want to do before you die? A lot of people refer to that as a bucket list.’

‘Because . . .’

‘It’s a euphemism. You know – kicking the bucket is another term for dying. Hence the bucket list.’

‘Jesus,’ I mutter. ‘Why can’t people just say it? Why do they have to make up all these little sayings and stuff?’

‘Why do you think that is?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’d call it the death checklist.’

‘Okay,’ she says, agreeably. ‘And how are you going with that?’

‘Haven’t started it.’

It’s a lie. I’ve got to do something to keep myself from going crazy at night when the whole house is asleep and my thoughts are haunting me. But every time I think about it, every time I try to get a neat little list happening, all I can think about is what I’m not going to get to do. Get my licence. Go backpacking around the world. Move out of home. And if losing all that isn’t enough, then I get to thinking about everything being taken from me now, as this tumour takes hold. These latest chemo meds make me so sick I don’t care about food, and things I used to like don’t taste any good anymore. Summer’s coming, and sometimes I’m too weak to swim. All I can do is watch. Your friends get uncomfortable around you and things aren’t the same, even when you want them to be. They’re losing me – but I’m losing everything.

I’m standing at the bus stop one morning when someone jostles me, making me spill the Red Bull in my hand. When I turn around, irritated, I see Tai grinning at me.

‘What are you doing here? And in your uniform?’ Tai hasn’t been to school in weeks.

‘Mum’s creeping me out. She’s making Dad go and buy a woodfired pizza oven. You know, for the party. She spent
four hours
yesterday putting up fairy lights and washing glasses.’

‘Ooh, sounds fun.’ I’m laughing, and he’s giving me a look.

‘It’s not funny, Juliet. She’s really starting to scare me. She even
ironed the tablecloth
.’

When we get to school people clap him on the shoulder, tell him he looks well, and though I’m not sure they actually mean it, it’s better than awkward silences. We sit together in biology and take notes. When the bell rings I gather up my stuff and hurry to meet Gen for drama. When I open my books I realise I’ve grabbed some of Tai’s pages by mistake. There are some scribbled biology notes and a diagram, and something in smaller, neater writing. I don’t mean to pry, not really, but I can’t help but look.

Tai has written out the things he wants during the last days,
his
last days, and at the funeral.
Oh, Tai
. I almost choke on a sob. I quickly gather up my books, and flee the classroom. In the toilet block I lock myself in a cubicle, crying.
Oh, Tai
. I’m really weeping when there’s a tap on the door, and a voice says, ‘Juliet? It’s Gen.’ I shakily slide the lock back, let her in, and explain what I found, what I read.

Gen, silent and shaken, hugs me as I cry into her blazer, passing me tissues. When the sobs have subsided, she produces eyeliner from her dress pocket, and makes me stand still while she applies it. Then she grins. ‘Let’s blow this popsicle stand.’

I pull it together enough to smile as we collect our bags from our lockers, walk out of the school gates and catch a train into the city. We end up in one of the department stores, the kind where people lunge at you and spray perfume the second you walk in. Once we’ve manoeuvred past the perfume, and played with the makeup samples, we look at the clothes.

‘How boring do I feel right now,’ I sigh, pointing to an awesome dress that Mum would never let me wear, because she would deem it
too short, young lady
.

‘You and me both, baby.’ Gen runs her fingers over a pair of denim shorts that definitely fit into the same category, before flicking the tag around to look at the price and grumbling, ‘Why is it that the less material there is, the more they charge?’

‘I have no idea. Because they know people will pay it?’

‘True.’

‘Can I help you, girls?’ A sales assistant has appeared at Gen’s elbow. ‘Were you looking for anything in particular?’

‘We’re just deciding how to shock our mums next,’ Gen says. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’ She grins, highly pleased with herself, and we link arms.

Once we’ve walked away, I whisper, ‘You always know how to cheer me up.’

‘Damn right. Cheering up and awesome piercings are my specialty.’

When we’re on the train home, I stare out the window. Warehouses covered in graffiti flick past, followed by backyards littered with junky toys. I’m half wishing we could’ve enjoyed our escape a bit longer. Just for a little while, I’d forgotten Tai is dying.

I get home from school and rummage through my bag. Phone, iPod, gum . . . shit. I can’t find the list I wrote, the one the counsellor told me to. She said it would help
ease my mind
if I wrote down what I wanted at the funeral (
my
funeral) and in the
later stages
, as she put it, so that everyone would know
my wishes
.

‘What, like, I wish I wasn’t dying?’ I asked, only half joking, but the counsellor pulled a face. I knew what she meant, though. My wishes about visitors and painkillers and stuff. Where I want to be, in hospital or at home. There’s a part of me that really doesn’t want to think about this stuff, and I guess I don’t have to. But I don’t want anyone else to, either.

The last funeral I went to was for my grandfather, ages ago. I don’t remember him ever being any kind of religious but we had to sing all these hymns, there were ugly flowers everywhere, and the minister pronounced his name wrong half the time. Mum was outraged and complained the entire way home, and when I said, ‘Well, Grandad doesn’t care – he’s dead,’ I got sent to my room the second the car was in the driveway. There’s probably a lot I don’t know, but I do know that the funeral will be for other people more than it will be for me. I won’t know what music they play or what people say about me – I’ll be dead.

The counsellor gave me a list of things to think about – the funeral, what I want done with my organs (that’s if they haven’t been damaged by the chemo), and whether I’d rather be buried or cremated. The organ bit is easy. I won’t need them; someone else will. Done. After that I kind of . . . well, not
lose interest
exactly, but I just . . . I don’t know, and I don’t know how I’ll work it out. Buried or cremated, buried or cremated? Burnt to dust or put in a box in the ground? Neither is a particularly appealing option.

Which is why I ended up sitting in class, pretending to take notes, writing down anything that came to mind. No music I’ve never heard of, for starters. And before it gets to
that
, I want all of the painkillers known to mankind. And I don’t want Hendrix and River to be freaked out by it all. I
really
don’t want that. I don’t want people hanging on to each other and crying, but I probably can’t do much to stop that. I don’t really want people to decorate the coffin – that seems a bit weird to me. No stinky flowers, either.

It wasn’t much, but at least it was a start, except it’s not in my bag now.
Shit
. I shoved all my notes into the cover of a textbook, and it’s not there among the others – only some of Juliet’s notes, instead.
Oh shit, oh dear mcfucking shit
. I grab my phone, start tapping out a text.

Hey, girl. Think I picked up some of your notes today.

Yeah, I got some of yours too
. Her next text comes through before I have a chance to reply.
I read it. All of it. Sorry
.

I’m sorry too.

I go around to her place that afternoon, and she holds out a folded piece of paper, her eyes bright with tears.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I should have it together more than this.’

I take her hand. ‘It’s okay. Really. I don’t think there is a
should
anymore.’

‘Tai? Are you going to die soon? Like, more quickly than they said?’

‘No. They made me see a counsellor who said it would help if I thought about what I wanted – you know, wrote some stuff down? I dunno. I guess they think it might ease my mind if I’m not worried about Grandma Eve getting up and singing at the funeral when I die.’

She rolls her eyes at me. ‘That’s so not even close to being funny, Tai.’ But she smiles faintly, grabs a biro off her desk and comes at me with it. She kneels, draws a heart on one hipbone, then slides her hand under my shirt, lifting it up at the other side, drawing there.

‘You’re so going to get grounded again if your mum comes up the stairs right now,’ I tell her, brushing some hair out of her face. ‘Kind of suspicious position, Juliet.’

She smiles then, a real one. ‘It might be worth it.’ But she gets up, and we kiss, slowly, sweetly.

When it’s time to go I whisper, ‘I wish I could stay,’ and she smiles at me, waving an arm stacked with bracelets at her desk. ‘I guess you could, but I’ve got an assignment to do. English.’

‘Is that the portfolio one?’ I ask, not really caring, just stalling for time, wanting to stay longer.

‘Nah, it’s the one about finding common elements in stories with the same theme. I’m doing love stories.’