Everything Left Unsaid (6 page)

‘Hey, Tai.’ She fumbles in her bag and holds out my iPod. ‘You left this at my place yesterday. Thought you might want it.’

I stuff it in my pocket. ‘Thanks. You okay?’

‘Not really. You?’

‘Yeah. Not really.’

She wraps her arms around me, kisses me. ‘Sorry about freaking out on you yesterday.’

I smile at her. ‘It’s okay. I’ve seen worse from you.’

‘I can’t stay,’ she tells me. ‘Will you be at school tomorrow?’

‘Yeah. Unfortunately. We’ve got double maths tomorrow, don’t we?’

‘Please don’t remind me.’ She looks pained. ‘I’ve got to go.’

I pull her in, kiss her. ‘See you tomorrow.’

It’s been a week. A week since everything changed. I’ve just got to school, and plonk beside Gen, in our usual spot behind the sports shed. I mutter, ‘
Fuck
,’ and fill her in on what Tai’s told me. Gen’s arm encircles me, and for once she’s quiet, knowing that nothing she says can fix this.

We head to class together, and I’m feeling okay, anchored in my seat between Gen and Tai. Our teacher bustles in late, explaining that her car wouldn’t start and she’s having one of
those days
. Tai and I exchange looks, a silent
You think that’s bad
. She’s in a fierce mood, telling us she’s cracking down on us, exams coming up and all that. While she says it she’s eyeballing the hair-plaiting girls and the gum-chewing boys, with a look reserved for Tai, who’s staring out the window.

We’ve been wagging classes the past few days, sneaking away when we should be in class, passing notes to each other when we bother to turn up. Our teachers know, of course; Mia rang the school, and Tai overheard her asking them to keep things normal for him, to keep onto him about homework and assignments, not to let our classmates know. It means our teachers have been alternating between being ultra-nice, pretending not to see us passing notes or turning up late, and coming down hard on whatever needs to be in on time, whatever they’re going to have to grade. Tai laughs it off. ‘They’re just trying to remember what normal feels like, Juliet.’

When the end of the lesson comes, I realise I haven’t heard a word the teacher has said, but I manage to tune in as she’s handing out the latest assignment, due next week. Tai’s already been told off twice for distracting me, so she looks at him meaningfully as she says, ‘No excuses.’

Tai shifts restlessly, like she’s laid down a personal challenge, and I know what’s coming. I tap his arm to warn him but I can see him thinking about his perfectly good excuse. He says, ‘I won’t be here next week, Miss. I’m having a biopsy done on the tumour in my brain. Sorry.’

As we walk out of class I can’t help but elbow him.

‘Did you have to?’

By lunchtime the entire school knows, and as he walks through the playground Tai’s already become The Guy With the Tumour, even to his mates. They clap him awkwardly on the shoulder and it’s clear they don’t know what to say to him, or how to act.

Tai and I eat lunch in a far corner of the oval, not caring that it’s out of bounds. Tai’s miserable, and I can tell he wishes he could take it back, but it’s too late – everything is different now.

When the bell rings we go back to class, and for the rest of the afternoon I watch people talk about him instead of to him and I hate it.

• • •

That night I go to Tai’s and we curl up on the lounge to watch a DVD with a bowl of popcorn between us. Mia’s friends are gathered in the kitchen, with their dodgy seventies music turned up just loud enough to annoy us, but not quite loud enough to wake up River and Hendrix.

We’ve reached a particularly boring part of the movie when Tai nudges me. ‘Hey, I’m really thirsty. Can you get me some water from the fridge? I can’t go in there. The last time I went in they were talking about sucky-in underpants. I’m seriously afraid of the therapy I’m going to need.’

I laugh. ‘Oh, all right then. But you have to pay for my therapy when I need it later.’ As I’m making my way down the hallway I hear the pop of another bottle of wine being opened, and Mia is talking, quietly. I pause outside the door, not sure if I should interrupt.

‘I can’t believe it’s happening, not to us. Not to Tai. I’m supposed to be able to fix everything – I’m his mother. And I was doing okay until now. Scraped knees and broken skateboards I could handle. This . . . this is beyond me. I’m supposed to be worried about him doing drugs, having sex – not a brain tumour. Hendrix keeps asking what happens now and I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t know how much they understand. River asked me last night if Tai was going to die and what was I supposed to tell him?’

I don’t want to hear any more. I tiptoe back to the lounge.

‘I couldn’t do it,’ I lie. ‘I got close and heard the word “underpants”. That was enough for me. Sorry.’

Tai groans, and goes to drink out of the bathroom tap instead. When he gets back, the credits are rolling. ‘Want to watch something else?’ he asks.

I check my watch. ‘Can’t. Curfew.’

He pulls a face. ‘Want to hang out tomorrow night?’

‘I wish. I have to go to Dad’s.’ I pull the same face back at him.

‘Are you okay?’ He’s looking at me more closely now.

‘Yeah.’
Just I heard your mum use your name and the word ‘die’ in the same sentence
. I sigh. ‘I’d better go.’

• • •

Mum is waiting up in the kitchen when I get home. ‘Did you have a good time?’ She looks tired, the strands of grey in her hair highlighted under the kitchen lights.

I shrug. ‘It was okay.’

‘What did you get up to?’

‘We just watched a movie.’

‘How’s Tai?’

‘Okay, I guess. He’s got the biopsy next week but he doesn’t really want to talk about it.’

‘He probably doesn’t want to worry you,’ she says gently.

‘Too late.’

Mum yawns, then gets up and puts her cup in the sink. ‘I’m going to bed. What time do you want me to take you to your dad’s tomorrow?’

‘I don’t want to go.’

‘Juliet.’ She gives me that Don’t Make Me Do This look. ‘He’s your father. He wants to see you.’

‘Yeah, every couple of months when the guilt kicks in. There’s never anything to do there, Mum. It’s boring. And he likes Tina more than me.’ I pout.

‘And me.’ Mum smiles wryly.

‘Goodnight, Juliet.’

‘’Night, Mum.’

• • •

Just like the night before the scan, Tai and I spend the night before the biopsy texting each other instead of sleeping.

You ready for tomorrow?

No. Kind of. I don’t know.

Just too weird, isn’t it?
After a second, I add,
Wish I could think of something better to say
, and hit send.

Too weird. The whole needle-in-the-brain thing. I don’t want to think about it. But I can’t help it.

Yeah, me too.

What if the anaesthetic doesn’t work and I feel it?

You’ll be able to sue them for a million bucks?

Funny.

I check the time. It’s three am and I need to sleep.

I’ve got to crash
, I write.
Goodnight, Tai
.

Goodnight, you.

• • •

Tai gets admitted to hospital early that morning, and I take a detour on my way to school to see him before he goes into surgery. At the bus stop I watch the school bus drive past, then step onto the next one that pulls up – the one that goes in the other direction, to the hospital. The building is all concrete and metal from the outside. Inside, the air smells of both disinfectant and decay.

I’m trying to be sneaky and quiet, certain that he’s only supposed to have immediate family visiting, ready to lie my bum off if anyone asks. He’s told me he’s in the surgical ward, and I’m peeking into the rooms as I walk past, looking for him. When I finally find his name written above a bed, I’m sure they’ve got it wrong at first, until I look closer and see that the person in it really is Tai.

There’s a drip in his hand and something running from his chest to a machine. His hair looks normal, until he turns towards me and I see that one side has been shaved. Tai catches me staring.

‘I know. I look like shit, right?’

‘No . . .’ I’m not quite sure what to tell him. In the bed, with the hospital gown on, hooked up to machines, his hair half gone . . . he looks
sick
.

Mia comes in with a cup of takeaway coffee in her hand.

‘I just spoke to your dad,’ she says. ‘He’ll be here as soon as— Oh, hi Juliet. I wasn’t expecting you.’

Her face looks pale and drawn.

‘I was on my way to school,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you later, Tai.’ I want to kiss him, but not in front of Mia, so I just do a little wave.

I’m in English when my phone vibrates. When I’m sure the teacher isn’t looking I check the message. It’s from Mia, telling me Tai is sleeping and the surgery went well. Whatever that means. Tai’s got to stay in hospital for a few days for observation.

• • •

When I visit the next day after school Tai’s all doped up on painkillers. His dad is sitting in the chair beside the bed but he stands up when he sees me and gives me a hug. ‘Tai’s asleep,’ he tells me.

I hang around for a little while, but when it seems like Tai’s not going to wake up any time soon I go home to work on some assignments and chat to the girls online. It’s like being in a strange kind of limbo. There’s nothing to do but wait for the results.

When the hospital eventually clears him to come back to school, Mia lets him have the time off. So I catch the bus by myself in the mornings, and though I don’t sit alone in the classes we share I still notice that he’s missing. It’s downright weird, like I’m living life as usual – but without Tai. It’s kind of like a dream, where you know you’re dreaming because you know that your real life isn’t quite like this.

I start visiting Tai in the evenings when his parents are busy clearing up from dinner and trying to get River and Hendrix into baths and bed. He’s always waiting for me, wearing a smile and a funky-looking hat that covers the shaved bit of his head. Mostly, we just sit together, sharing more music than conversation, but it’s not awkward like it could be.

The biopsy wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – it’s the waiting afterwards that sucks. I feel too edgy to go back to school, so I just hang out at home, counting down the days until I get the results. I sleep in, go to the beach, and watch TV . . . and I don’t enjoy any of it, really; I just feel like I’m passing time. Everything revolves around the next doctor’s appointment.

The only thing I look forward to is Juliet coming over. We sit in my room and she’ll tell me about a fight with her mum, or something that Gen did – like piercing her own bellybutton. Sometimes she pulls a pen out of her bag and draws on body parts that, according to Mum, should be covered by clothes. Most nights we just listen to music on my iPod, curled up together on the bed, or on the lounge if my olds are paying attention.

Once she’s gone, and everyone’s asleep, I lie in bed, trying to sleep, trying to stop obsessing over the result of the biopsy.

Sometimes I dream that I’m back in the hospital and a bunch of doctors come in and stand around the bed, looking over their clipboards at me. ‘He’s dead,’ they say. ‘He’s definitely dead.’

But I’m not dead, not really – it’s just that the drugs coming through the drip have paralysed me and I can’t speak, can’t move, can’t even blink at them.

They wheel me off down the hallway, into an elevator, and we go down, down, down. Eventually the doors ping open and I know we’re in the hospital morgue. Then they slide me into a body bag, and zip it up. I can hear the sound of their footsteps retreating as I lie there suffocated by darkness.

I wake up gasping for breath, and it takes me a long time to get back to sleep.

On the nights when I have that nightmare I always sleep in late. One morning Mum tells me off for being lazy, and I mutter, ‘I’m not lazy. I couldn’t sleep, and I had a bad dream.’

That stops her and she sits on the bed, looking worried. ‘Bad dream? About what?’

I can’t tell her – it would freak her out – so I just say I don’t remember.