“There’s one person out there for everyone,” he says, attempting to be wise. “And they’re not always close to home.”
“Paul?”
“Yeah?”
I lean forward, smile to diffuse what I’m about to say. “Shut up.”
Chapter 28
Davey, September
it’s been awhole year since I started looking for jobs in London. At first it was half-assed. And then I got serious about it. I started making plans, updated my résumé, set up email alerts, registered with agencies in England, really started paying attention to the job market.
I don’t even know what persuaded me to start looking there in the first place. I don’t think it was restlessness. I think it was…change. Not change for change’s sake. But…a need to experience something new. People do it all the time—relocate. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted it. And the more it made sense to go to London. My parents are English, and technically so am I. Although I’ve never really felt it, and so I wanted to see what I’d been missing.
It took a while to find the kind of thing I wanted, and the job with Jonathan White checked every box I had, and some boxes I hadn’t even known I wanted checked. And when I was offered it in December, it was a mix of fear and dread with shock and a sense of “This is it. This is actually happening.”
I think if I hadn’t had Grant and…Hannah to tell, to encourage me that actually it was kinda cool, I wouldn’t have gone through with it. And as excitement built, brick by brick and the day of departure (D-Day, Grant and I had nicknamed it) loomed,I was so into this idea that I felt unstoppable. Isn’t that so completely ironic? I felt unstoppable.
And then I got stopped. And man, oh man, didn’t every part of that order to cease and desist suck. I’m now in an aftercare state, and part of that is being reminded tirelessly by people who love me:You’re one of the lucky ones.
I nod mutely, and when I see Dr. Khader and he asks how I am as he glances down at my notes, I resist the urge to ask in all seriousness, “You tellme.”
“I’m great, man,” I say instead, because it’s hard for anyone to argue with a response like that.
—
There are things I haven’t been able to do recently, things I’ve been meaning to do but have put off and, I’ll be honest, not for an admirable reason. I kept Charlotte hanging on. Grant and I tried to examine the reason why I felt Ihadto call things off with Hannah, but couldn’t bring myself to end it with Charlotte. Again. Grant decided it was because I had easy access to good sex with Charlotte, and she made most of the effort because I had no energy, and that did help; but it was other things with Charlotte that meant it was nice to keep seeing her. She listened to me, though I started to realize she only ever answered me with whatever I wanted to hear. I couldn’t understand the agenda behind that, and maybe she didn’t have one. But when I was at my worst—the absolute lowest I’ve ever been—she was there, making me feel normal, wanted. And I had to thank her for that because it was the biggest gift she could have given me.
I overlooked how much like hard work the relationship was becoming, how we drifted into our old ways of total incompatibility, how she’d started partying hard again on the nights when we didn’t see each other, acting as if she was at least ten years younger.
I could see everything she did on social media and it looked…exhausting, the way she lived now. And then at the back, or probably even at the front, of my mind was her going after Grant. I think Grant’s right. It was some kind of petty revenge. I think that episode has scarred him for life. I never talked to Charlotte about it. I didn’t see the point because I knew, deep down, that this wasn’t forever and, like a coward, I let it ride its course because that was the easiest thing to do. And on the final day of my chemo, when I felt so ill and would have done anything to get some sleep to avoid the nausea, when I didn’t want to keep buzzing the nurse for anti-sickness pills, Charlotte sat with me, playing on her cellphone. I broke it off with her, then and there in the hospital. I couldn’t keep her hanging on, and I suspect the thrill of telling people the guy she was dating had cancer was starting to wear off for her. I know that sounds malicious of me, but she’d become less and less interested. This wasn’t doing either of us any good. Surprisingly for Charlotte, whom my dad always politely called “highly strung,” she didn’t even shout at me. Just threw me one line as she stood: “Good luck finding another girl who’ll put up with all this shit,” she said as she gestured at the drips and cannulas.
I didn’t like to jinx everything by pointing out that this shit wasn’t lasting much longer—that this was the last cycle of chemo—because…what if it wasn’t? What if it didn’t work? What if my scan, my blood results come back with a red flag and I’d have to start new treatment all over again? The moment Charlotte left the room I threw up, just thinking about it.
And now I’ve been offered therapy. Again. The doctors can probably see I need it, and I kind of agree that it’s better late than never, so I will see someone about the things I’ve lost because, as Grant points out, I’m like Harry Potter; I’m the boy who lived. But parts of me, mentally, have been taken in exchange. And I think it’s time I recognize that. Time I pick myself up off the floor, dust myself off, get back to the old me, something resembling my old life.
Grant drives me to my first therapy session and, as we park, he tells me, “Even if you don’t get anything useful discussed in there, agreeing to go is the big first step.”
I want to tell him, “Don’t be a dick, man,” but I love him too much for that and this man is rarely serious. So I just say thank you and force him into an awkward bear hug across the front seats of his car.
I open the door and the cool of the air-conditioning disappears entirely in the ninety-degree heat and then I turn back, remembering something.
“Hey,” I ask. “You told me you’d do two things for me? Do you remember?”
Grant looks blankly at me.
“When I wouldn’t go in for my last cycle,” I remind him.
Recognition and then a small smile. “Yeah, I remember.”
“You told me the hard truth about Charlotte.”
“Sorry about that,” he says, embarrassment flitting across his face.
“What was the second thing?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter, does it? Not now. It worked. You went in to get your last chemo.”
