Everything Left Unsaid (14 page)

‘Oh yeah? What’s the common thing?’

‘In kids’ fairy tales, they always live happily ever after. In everything written for someone over the age of ten, they never do. Look at
Romeo and Juliet
. They have the romance, get married, and then
bang
, they’re dead.’ She sighs. ‘Kind of depressing, isn’t it?’

On the way home from her place I fumble in my bag, grab a painkiller, swallow it dry. I don’t like taking them in front of Juliet, don’t like admitting to her that my head’s hurting, that the pain feels like a kind of torture some days. I want her to think that I’m feeling okay for as long as possible. There’s no point her knowing it hurts; she can’t do anything about it except worry, which she does enough of now.

Better this way, I think. Better to pretend until I can’t pretend anymore.

I get to Tai’s party early, and Hendrix and River meet me at the door, telling me loudly their job is to say hello when people arrive. Then they add, quietly, that their good clothes itch, that they had to tidy their rooms and that they’re not allowed to touch anything.

I’ve got to hand it to Mia: the place looks awesome, even if it is scarily clean. Though I want to go find Tai they drag me outside.

‘See the decorations, Juliet? Cool, huh? We’re not allowed to touch those.’ Hendrix looks at them longingly.

‘And look, there’s a bar. That’s Daddy’s friend, he’s the bartender.’ River waves at the guy behind the bar.

‘Mum said it’s Tai’s eighteenth, you know – a big party – that’s why there’s a bar,’ Hendrix volunteers. ‘And she said if any of Tai’s friends vomited on the grass she’d turn the hose on them.’

‘Hendrix!’ Mia has appeared behind us. She looks embarrassed.

‘Well, you
did
,’ he counters, before running off with River.

I start helping Mia while Tai’s getting ready, and there’s a sense of sadness about her until her friends arrive, crowding into the kitchen and pouring wine. They kiss and hug, tell each other they look beautiful, and I’m standing awkwardly in the corner until they realise I’m there, and press a glass into my hand, too. Once all of the food in the kitchen has been sampled, and they’ve all declared their diets are suspended tonight, they gather around Mia, pulling me with them. They toast to tonight being a celebration, not just the
last
birthday party, and now I understand. Mia practically inhales her glass of wine, and I tease that I’ll turn the hose on her if she keeps that up. Mia’s friends begin to comment on my jeans, though they’re actually Gen’s skinny black ones she’s let me borrow. When the conversation moves on to Botox, I decide now would be the perfect time to escape.

Outside, the backyard seems to be filled with people, and I’m looking around for Tai when I notice Mum and Dad have managed to put aside their loathing for each other to both show up. I’m just hoping they don’t get friendly enough to have a proper conversation; Mum thinks I’m going home with Dad, and he thinks I’m going home with Mum.

Sure, it’s sneaky and kind of childish, and it’s not often I take advantage of their lack of communication, but tonight
is
a special occasion. I’m desperate for as much time with Tai as I can get, and right now he’s being pulled in a million directions, saying yes, the party looks lovely; yes, Mia did a great job; yes, I love the present, thanks very much.

After what feels like forever, I decide it’s my turn, and appear beside Tai, pulling at his hand, pulling him away. We duck behind a hedge and sit on the damp grass. I kick off my heels, and hand Tai a glass of vodka.

‘Where did you get this?’

‘I borrowed it from the bar when no-one was looking. By the way, if you throw it up, your mum is going to hose you down.’

We take turns drinking, and the vodka’s just started to warm his face, and he’s just started to talk, when Hendrix sticks his head in between ours. ‘Hey! I didn’t know we were playing hide-and-seek. Found you.’ Tai gives me a resigned look, and we rejoin the party.

As the night progresses there are speeches and a cake-cutting and impromptu, drunken singing from Mia’s friends. Eventually, people start leaving. Those who’ve had a few too many drinks look at Tai tearfully, shake his hand and hug him before leaving in a hurry. Grandma Eve just stands there, all grey hair and sequinned black shawl, gazing at him from behind her glasses. Tai hugs her, briefly, then says something I can’t quite catch while she pinches his cheek.

When it’s just a bunch of Mia’s and Stanley’s friends left, sitting around talking about when they were young and cool (
yeah, right
), Tai and I slip away. We stop at the bar first, now unmanned, for a little more of the alcohol we’ve been drinking on the sly.

We sit in Tai’s room, and at first I stay quiet, trying to give him space to breathe after the noise of the party. Then he looks at me forlornly. ‘Why don’t you want to touch me, Juliet?’

I look at him, confused.

Tai takes another sip of his drink, then says teasingly, ‘Just a reminder – we’re two teenagers alone in a bedroom with the door closed. And all of the adults are distracted. I think this is the part where we at least get to kiss.’

I dive into Tai’s lap. ‘Now this is where I belong.’

He kisses me. ‘Couldn’t agree more.’

I’m facing him, and he’s pulling me in when I hold back, remembering something.

‘Hang on. I still haven’t given you your birthday present.’ I dig in the pocket of my jeans and hold out a shiny silver key. ‘Happy birthday, Tai.’

‘You bought me a car?’ The guy has no clue.

‘As if. It’s symbolic, yeah?’

‘Of?’

‘Schoolies, baby.’ I grin. ‘We’re going on schoolies.’

He’s in shock, and stares at me for a while before managing to say, ‘No way. How?’

‘Absent father guilt.’ I am
so
damn pleased with myself. ‘You and me, a whole week, takeaway pizza, the beach . . .’

Tai reaches out and brushes a strand of hair from my face.

‘Are you happy?’ I ask.

He puts his arms around my back. I throw the key onto his bed and mimic the movement. I’m his reflection, and he’s mine.

‘Of course I’m happy,’ he says. ‘It’s amazing.
You’re
amazing.’

He starts to kiss me again.

These are not the quickly stolen kisses that have become our forte, the kind where parents are looking over our shoulders or we’re saying hello. These are the movie-love-scene kind, where we’re
not
pausing to breathe. The unspoken lies between us, and I’m thinking,
Oh, fuck it. Tonight’s as good a night as any
. We’re beginning to wind around each other when the door opens, and two sleepy faces peek in. Hendrix and River have been woken up by the noise of Mia’s friends, singing drunken karaoke again. Tai chases them down the hallway, yelling at them to go back to bed, to learn to knock, while I silently thank the universe that kissing is all we were doing.

When Tai comes back, peeved, I say, ‘They’re just kids, Tai. Just little kids.’

‘They’re my brothers, and they’re annoying, and I’m supposed to yell at them.’

‘Tai, nothing is the way it’s supposed to be.’

Tai looks at me with blank eyes. ‘Who said I’m not supposed to die young? Who says this isn’t exactly the way things are supposed to be?’

‘I do,’ I whisper, biting down hard on my lip, staring at a spot on the wall and willing myself not to cry.

The mood is broken then, and we lie on the bed together, feeling kind of broken, too. I sleep in his arms that night, but it’s not how I imagined it. Nothing is.

After the party it gets harder to pretend to Juliet that I’m okay. Dr Dellar has decided that I need to start chemotherapy. They put a central line in and tell me it’ll stay there for the next couple of months, until I’ve finished the chemo.

I hate it. The tube running out of my chest. The vincristine, cisplatin and cyclophosphamide that runs into it, exhausting me. I’m so sick, and even though the anti-nausea meds take the edge off, I still spew. Three days into the chemo, ulcers erupt in my mouth. I don’t want to talk, it hurts that bad, and I really don’t want to eat. My meals get collected, untouched. I just want to sleep.

But a parade of hospital workers keep coming through the ward, sitting on the bed and wanting to talk to me. There’s a dietitian, a speech therapist who wants to watch me swallowing stuff, an occupational therapist, the nurses, the social worker, and even a woman brandishing a guitar and talking about music therapy. I stare at them dully, too consumed by the tumour to make an effort. I spend most of the week asleep or asking for painkillers; anything to mute the pain for long enough so I can go back to sleep.

One afternoon at the end of the week, I wake up to find the curtain drawn around the bed. Dr Dellar is standing at my side, talking to Mum and Dad. He’s saying something I can’t quite catch but stops when he sees me watching.

‘Oh Tai, you’re awake. I’d just come to tell you that you’ve finished your first cycle of chemotherapy. You can go home if you like.’

I’m still too sleepy to reply, and another ulcer formed this morning on the inside of my cheek, making it too painful to talk, so I just nod.

‘Still having problems with your mouth?’

There’s more nodding and I open my mouth while he checks me over again before declaring I’m still okay to go home. Once he’s given Mum and Dad instructions about the outpatients department and flushing the central line, he strides off to see another patient. I’m slow and unsteady getting dressed, and Dad has to prop me up as we go down the hallway and into the lift.

In the car I lean my head on the window and close my eyes. I can feel myself getting sicker, despite the fact that the cocktail of meds I’m on is meant to be better, stronger. I can see it, too – I’m scary-pale, there are dark purple rings under my eyes, I’m getting bony and my skin is turning tissue-paper thin. It scares me. But it’s worse for Juliet. I can’t stand that look in her eyes when she sees it, too. And as if she’s reflecting me, she’s thinner all of a sudden, and pale. She always looks tired, as if she’s cried more than one person should have to. What’s happening to me is torturing her, and I’d stop the meds, stop it all now, if it wasn’t for Mum and Dad, for River and Hendrix. They’re even less ready for me to quit than I am, so instead I try to avoid Juliet.

She accepts it quietly, and even though I think she’s starting to hate me for it on the inside, I can’t seem to stop doing it. It’s not that I don’t like her – it’s just this medication, this tumour . . .
It’s not me, it’s you
, I say to the painkillers. They dull the pain, and everything else too, that’s what it feels like.

Happy now, Tai?
my brain asks.
Or will you not be satisfied until you lose Juliet?

I’m not going to lose her
, I tell my reflection.
She understands. It’s just . . . how it is right now, that’s all
. And she’s got school, and her friends – she’s not alone with her thoughts as much as I am, not enough for them to drive her crazy like mine do.

I start to pull back from the guys, too, who seem to get the hint a little easier and stop texting. But a week after I’ve left the hospital, Sam texts me.

Hey. I finally got my car back. Want to go for a drive?

Yeah, okay.

Sam comes to pick me up a little bit later, not turning the music up until we’ve got to the end of my street. He still speeds. He’s trying to make conversation, but I’m too busy trying not to let the jealousy show through to pay much attention. He’s changing gears easily, smoothly, changing radio stations while changing lanes, weaving in and out of the cars around us. I had two driving lessons and couldn’t get through either without stalling the car at least once. Okay, maybe a lot more than once. His car has to be as old as I am, and a funny shade of powder blue, and the windows keep getting stuck open, but it’s more of a car than I’ll ever have. We end up at Maccas, and eat it sitting on the bonnet, watching the long line of cars driving past, headlights on.

‘You’ve been kind of quiet lately,’ he says. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Yeah.’ I shove some more food in and think before answering. ‘You know how, when I told everyone about the tumour, they didn’t know what to say? Well sometimes I don’t know what to say, either.’