Everything Left Unsaid (20 page)

An ice-cream van drives past then, stops just ahead of us, music jingling, and they look at me hopefully. I dig a fistful of coins out of my pocket and inspect them. ‘Yeah, okay. Go on.’

They eat their ice-creams sitting on my towel, swapping occasionally to have a lick of each other’s.

‘Tai? Are you really dying soon?’ Hendrix looks at me curiously.

River looks up, mid-lick, and melted ice-cream runs down his wrist.

‘Yeah.’ There’s no point lying to them.

‘I heard Mum and Dad talking one night when they thought I was asleep. They said the doctor told them there would be a funeral by the time autumn was over. Did the doctor mean your funeral, Tai?’

‘I guess so, Hendrix.’

River, face smeared with ice-cream, leaps into my lap. ‘I don’t want you to die, Tai,’ he says, eyes shining with tears.

‘I don’t want to either, buddy.’ I hug him and watch Hendrix, who is thinking.

‘Will it hurt?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think so, though. I’ve got medicine for when my head hurts.’ Okay, so maybe I’m lying now, but they’re my little brothers, and it’s Christmas, and they don’t need to know that I’m pretty sure it’ll hurt, and hurt plenty, despite any medication they give me.

‘I’m going to miss you, Tai,’ River says, and he’s
this
close to bursting into tears.

‘I know, River. But you and Hendrix have to do a job for me, okay? You guys have to look after Texy.’ It pops out of my mouth before I’ve really thought about it, but afterwards it makes sense so I go with it. ‘Yeah. You know, pat him and feed him and stuff, like Grandma Eve’s doing while we’re here. He can sleep in your bedroom, if he wants. Okay?’

After they’ve cheered up and we’ve all had another swim we walk back to the holiday house, where I leave them in the lounge room, fighting over what to watch on television. Mum and Dad have got stuck in to the drinks and are listening to Christmas carols on the radio while Mum cooks stuff for tomorrow and tells Dad off for eating it and for burning the butter he’s meant to be melting in the frypan.

That night, after sandwiches made from Christmas ham, with mangos and ice-cream for dessert, Hendrix and River make me help them put out carrots for the reindeers, cookies and beer for Santa. They’re practically quivering with excitement, and by the time Mum tells them to go to bed they’ve got their underpants on their heads and are jumping around the lounge room, yell-singing ‘Jingle Bells, Santa Smells’. Eventually they go to bed, when Mum warns them that Santa won’t come if they don’t. I leave Mum and Dad sitting on the floor surrounded by screws, bits of metal, and the instruction manual for putting together two new scooters.

I can see the water from my window here, and I sit on my bed for a while, knees curled up into my chest, watching. The present Juliet bought me is sitting on the end of the bed, waiting to be unwrapped, but I can’t do it yet. I wonder if she’s unwrapped the ring I bought her, the note that I tried spectacularly hard not to depress her with. I meant it: the only thing that’s keeping me from losing my mind at the moment, as everything slowly gets harder, as this tumour wins a little more every day, is closing my eyes, shutting everything out, and
remembering
. Juliet and her crazy blue hair on schoolies, her arms around me. The way I tried to wake up before her so I could watch her sleeping, just for a bit.

There’s a knock on my door and Dad comes in, holding a glass of water and a plate with a pile of tablets – there’s a sleeping pill, a couple of painkillers, one that’s supposed to stop the painkillers from making me sick, and a couple that I can’t even remember what they’re supposed to do.

‘Your mum wanted me to bring this in,’ he says.

‘Scooter assembly going that well, huh?’

‘I’ve been forced to hand over my Allen key and demoted to wrapping duty.’ He grins wryly. ‘You okay, Tai?’

‘Yeah. Just thinking.’

‘About what?’

‘Dunno. Different stuff.’

‘So this is it, huh?’ He looks at me kindly, squarely.
It is what it is, Tai
.

‘Yeah. I guess so.’

‘You know, Tai, when you were born, you were so tiny.
Tiny
.’ He holds out an arm, palm up, and traces along it with the other hand, showing me. ‘Your mum, she was so tired at first, I’d do some of the night shift with you. The midnight hours, I called them. I’d walk up and down the hallway, singing and rocking you. I was always worried I’d break you. That I’d drop you and you’d just . . . shatter, and then I wouldn’t have you anymore.’ Dad breaks off, looks at me, smiles sadly. ‘It’s going to be emptier without you around, Tai.’

I don’t really know what to say to him, so I’m glad when he leaves it at that, hands me the plate, and walks out of the room. I swallow the pills one by one, washing them down with the water, listening to Mum and Dad talking in muted tones; I can hear them talking, but not the actual words.

I pick up the present from Juliet. It’s light, and rattles when I shake it, and when I unwrap it something falls out onto the floor but I’m looking at another layer of paper. Pass the parcel, for grown-ups – or as close as I’m going to get to being grown up. I feel around on the floor until my fingers connect with something: a packet of Pop Rocks. Another layer, and I’m looking at a photo of us that I didn’t even know existed, taken at that party the first night we kissed. The next layer reveals a bunch of photos from schoolies and a pack of blue hair dye. I’m certain the next one has to be the final layer, but it’s not – there’s just a music voucher. The next one is my actual present, I’m sure: army-style dog tags, engraved with my name and hers. But there’s still one more tiny layer, and I know before I open it that it’s a note. It looks like it’s been folded and unfolded a billion times. There are blotchy streaks of pen coming through the outside of the paper, where she’s crossed out words.

Hey, Tai.

Remember that day you first told me about the tumour, we came back to my place and I poured us both vodka to drink? I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t, not really. I wish I did. Remember those choose-your-own-ending books we used to read back in primary school? If you didn’t like the ending you could just go back, start again. I’d always read the endings first so I could work out which pages to choose to get the ending I wanted.

This is nothing like how I pictured, nothing like how things are supposed to be. We’re supposed to be moving out together, going to uni together . . . maybe even being together for a long time. Maybe even having the fairy tale – you know, the ‘happy ever after’ bit.

I know you think you’re really good at hiding just how sick you are, Tai. But I knew you’d killed Mr Bunny No Head before you confessed, you were so guilty. I knew you loved me back before you told me you did. And I know, Tai. I know exactly how sick you are. And it kills me, too.

I can see it in the tiny little things you don’t think anyone notices. How you take just a little longer to stand up, holding on to the back of the chair or whatever’s nearby. You only started doing that a couple of weeks ago. How you always rub that place at the back of your head, where it hurts, without even knowing you’re doing it. How you trail off when you’re talking, in the middle of sentences and stuff. How you pretend you just want to watch a movie or listen to music or anything that means you don’t have to move, don’t have to try to balance. How you want to walk with your arm around me now, not just holding my hand, because it’s easier for you that way. How all the medication has changed who you are and you hate yourself for it, so you shut everyone out. I’ve known you practically forever, Tai, as long as I can remember. There’s no way I wouldn’t notice all of this stuff.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve cried and wished that things were different. That this wasn’t happening. That I got to keep you. But I don’t. And I know, even though I don’t want to, that I’m not going to have you for much longer. I know, too, I’m going to cry when it happens. For a long time. But one day I’ll be able to think about you and smile instead. Think about the stupid conversations we used to have on the bus, drinking Red Bull and listening to our iPods. About schoolies. About the beach walks.

So I guess I just want to say – thanks. For being my best friend. For all those times I cried on your shoulder. For not paying me out too much the first time I got drunk and threw up on your shoes. For being the first boy that ever loved me.

There is no-one else on earth like you, Tai. I’m so happy you loved me back.

• • •

The next morning, Hendrix and River come screaming into my room, way too early – Santa’s been and they want me to get up. Then they bounce on me until I do. I’m still half asleep while they’re going crazy for their new scooters, riding them around the house and crashing into walls. There’s wrapping paper flying everywhere, punctuated by shrieks from River and Hendrix, along with the occasional sound effect from one of their toys, while Mum hovers with the camera taking a crazy amount of photos, and I don’t want to think about why, even though I know. Mum and Dad give me money, a music voucher, new clothes . . . There’s a present from Grandma Eve, too: a hamper full of food, along with a note that tells me I’m too thin. As if I didn’t know.

By the time the present opening has finished it’s time for Christmas lunch. The table is so full of food there’s barely room for our plates. Dad’s set the table with wine glasses for everyone, even Hendrix and River, though they’ve got Coke in theirs.

Mum watches them anxiously. ‘Boys, please don’t break them. Please be careful.’

Hendrix pretends to drop his and we laugh our heads off while Mum glares at him. ‘Not funny.’

That night, after River and Hendrix have crashed out on the lounge, I head down to the beach by myself, promising Mum that yes, I’ll be careful, and yes, I’ve got my phone on me. It’s dark, and it’s quiet. I’m the only one here apart from a couple of families, lugging eskies and kids and umbrellas back to their cars. They give me a curious look, and keep going. I want to go in the water, except I don’t think I could swim well enough tonight, don’t feel strong enough to push against the waves, so I sit on the sand, pretending it’s because I’m wearing jeans anyway.

‘So I guess this is it then,’ I say out loud.

Everyone has carefully avoided mentioning that it’s the last Christmas, but we all know it, and I hope Hendrix and River loved it. Hope they remember this afterwards, when everything changes.

Mum and I do the Christmas lunch thing surrounded by relatives we only see once a year. My cousins run around screaming and cramming lollies into their mouths, while the adults drink too much champagne and talk about the blistering heat, like they do every year, even though the air-conditioning is on.

Great-Auntie Mabel sits next to me, patting my hand and telling me that my hair is very
racy
for a girl my age, that only sailors got piercings in her day. She asks where my
little friend
is, and I guess she means Tai, so I give her the short version of the story. Brain tumour, death inevitable, with his family.

She tells me about her best friend Gertie’s husband, Bert, who discovered a freckle on his leg that turned out to be a melanoma, and he was given six months to live.

I think I know where this is going already, but I smile politely.

‘That was eight years ago, dear, and he’s still going strong.’

Suddenly, I’m tired. I excuse myself, and go and find Mum. ‘Can we go home, please?’

• • •

I don’t see Tai again until New Year’s Eve.

When I get to his place, Hendrix and River scoot towards me like puppies, showing off new scooters, new toys. I haven’t seen Tai for almost a week, and when he finally emerges, I want to cry,
No!
Surely this rail-thin, shadowy-eyed person is not Tai.

Hendrix and River run around the house with party poppers and noisy things, claiming they’re going to stay awake until sunrise, but they’re crashed out on the lounge by nine.

Tai and I head to his room after that, to have some time alone. He’s tired, and I pretend not to notice that he falls asleep while we’re watching a movie. He wakes before midnight and we go outside just in time to see the sky light up with fireworks. We kiss, and it’s then I get the feeling that this is the beginning of goodbye.

Juliet and I watch the fireworks from our backyard on New Year’s Eve. When we get back into the house, Mum and Dad are getting ready for bed.

Mum looks at us. ‘Juliet, your mum asked me to make sure you slept in separate rooms. I’ve put some blankets on the lounge, and as long as they aren’t still folded in the morning I’m going to assume you slept there, okay? Goodnight, you two.’

After she leaves, Juliet looks at me, stunned. ‘Did your mum just give us
permission
to have sex? That’s just . . .
ewww.’
She shakes out the blankets on the lounge, rumples them up, and then grabs my hand, walks with me to my room, shutting the door behind us, locking it.

She’s pulling me in, kissing me, and I break the kiss, pull my lips away, and whisper, ‘I don’t . . . I don’t have any condoms.’

She blushes, then peeks up at me from under her hair. ‘I’ve got one in my bag.’ When I look at her, surprised, she shrugs. ‘Just seemed practical, you know? Being pregnant with my dead boyfriend’s baby would be a little too dramatic, even for me.’ Then she adds, ‘But if you’re too tired, we don’t have to.’
Too sick
is what she means.

‘Well yeah, I’m tired, but not too tired for
that.’
I smile at her.

We’ve done it twice since schoolies – once when Mum and Dad took my little brothers to the movies, and once when we just locked the door and tried to be as quiet as possible. Tonight – maybe because it’s so late or maybe because I’m so tired, or maybe both – there’s not that sense of urgent rush, that need to hurry before the knock on the door comes, before the parents get home. It’s slow, and it’s sweet, and we’re still kissing afterwards when I fall asleep.