Chapter Thirty
Lex
“You should try and sleep,” I tell Mari as they fidget in the ugly hospital chair.
“I’m fine,” they say curtly.
“She may not wake up for a long time. The doctor said that’s a side effect of the medication he gave her,” I say, not for the first time.
“Jesus, I know, Lex,” Mari hisses. “He told me the same thing in English.”
It hadn’t been my intention to talk to the doctor in Dutch, but when we’d first arrived, I just blurted out as much as I knew in the language he asked me questions in, and then, when he asked me who I was to Roos, who Mari was, it was just easier to tell him – still in Dutch – that we were both Roos’ partners, romantic partners, rather than say it in English and face Mari’s wrath.
I would have argued that it was the only way we would both be allowed to stay with Roos, but I know that wouldn’t have helped Mari’s mood.
Which is why I want them to sleep. It’s eight in the morning.
We’ve been awake all night. I gave Mari the chair so they could sleep, although again, I know Mari didn’t see that.
They just saw me assume a closer position to Roos, perched on the side of her bed, and no doubt that adds to their disdain.
But fuck Mari’s disdain and anger and hate. That’s not important. What’s important right now is Roos.
“Epilepsy,” I say out loud, trying the word out for size.
“Yeah,” Mari says, their tone softer. “I mean, they still want to run tests and wait and see, but that’s what it looked like. Right?”
I glance up at them, away from Roos’ sleeping hand curled in mine. “Yeah, that is what it looked like.”
“It was pretty fucking scary.” Mari shivers and wraps that absurd scarf around her neck one more time.
“I swear that fucking scarf gets longer every time I see it,” I tell them. “Are you, like, adding panels to it every week?”
Mari lifts the scarf up for inspection, and then their face breaks into a wistful smile. “I’m not. But maybe I will now, seeing as it annoys you so much.”
I sigh. “You know, you could find a new hobby. Surely ‘trying to piss Lex off’ is getting a little old now.”
“I don’t know,” Mari muses with a glint in her eye. “Why stop now when I’m getting so good at it?”
I bite back a laugh. I swear, Mari was never this stubborn when we were growing up. But that’s probably also why they put up with so much of my shit. It’s probably a good thing they’re less of a pushover now. No, not probably. Definitely.
Well, let’s put it to the test.
“I’m going to ask Roos if I can move in with her,” I tell them. “To take care of her.”
Mari stares at me blankly for a full minute. “Are you being for fucking real right now?”
“Yes, I’m being serious.”
“Lex, you are the last person I would want looking after Roos.”
I square my shoulders. “Do I have to remind you that you know nothing about mine and Roos’ relationship? About what it was like when it was good?”
“I know enough.” They fold their arms over their full chest and swathes of scarf. “You left her. Twice. Roos needs somebody reliable, dependable. That’s not you.”
“So it’s you?” I ask, trying not to raise my voice. We’re in a private room, but I don’t want Roos to wake up. “Even though you’ve only spent, oh, I don’t know, a handful of nights with Roos in the long three months you’ve known her?”
“I needed that space for a good reason. Roos understood.”
“But now it’s different? Now you’re ready to be in it, a hundred percent?”
Mari’s eyes narrow on me, and their head tilts to the side. “I don’t know, Lex, are you?”
It’s not a question. It’s an accusation.
“I’m ready to be there for Roos.”
“Why is now different?”
“Because she needs me.” I point to Roos lying limp and unconscious in the bed.
“She needed you before. She’s always needed you!
” There’s anger in Mari’s raised voice, and there’s also pain.
It makes me flinch. I don’t like the idea of causing Mari pain, even though I know I have caused them pain in the past, and if I’m really honest with myself, I fear I may still be doing so.
“And what about you?” I feel my defensiveness gain momentum. “Is that why you can’t stand the sight of me? Because I left you when you needed me?”
Mari’s features seem to shrink, tightening and closing up. Silence falls between us, and I’m confident I’m not going to get an answer to my questions.
But not for the first time, Mari proves me wrong.
“You didn’t leave me when I needed you,” they say.
When I look at them, their eyes are on a loose thread in their scarf that they’re playing with.
“I never needed you back then. But I wanted you. And I loved you.” Finally, they look up and their bright blue eyes challenge mine.
“You left me as I was falling in love with you. And that’s worse. ”
It’s my turn to shrink. To feel like I’m shrivelling up, and that I deserve to. I think about my next words very carefully, and it hurts to say them out loud.
“I left you when I was falling in love with you, too,” I say, holding their gaze. I swear their eyes mist over. Or maybe it’s mine doing so. “I left you because I was falling in love with you. Because I loved you. And I didn’t want to need you.”
Mari’s expression is one of pure confusion. “That makes no sense.”
I sigh and look back down at Roos’ hand in mine. Her red nail polish is chipped. I want to kiss all the places her natural nails shine through.
“You should know by now,” I say, “I rarely make sense.”
“No, but why would you be afraid of love?” they ask, and it almost sounds like a rhetorical question, so I keep quiet. “You who aren’t afraid of anything – anything! Why would love be the thing that makes you run?”
“You don’t get it,” I say simply, and it’s not a slight against Mari. It’s a fact. They wouldn’t understand because they don’t have the full story. “And I don’t want you to understand.”
A rough harrumph of a sound lifts my gaze to them. They’ve moved sideways in the chair and have folded their arms again, staring at the blank wall opposite Roos’ bed.
We don’t speak for a long time. Long enough for me to replay our conversation three times and see at least ten ways I fucked up.
But I don’t know how to make it better. I don’t know how to explain it all in any other way.
I’m clueless what Sarah, my therapist, would recommend.
I can only see her disappointed face should I tell her about this conversation, which I probably won’t.
When this pointless thought exercise frustrates me to the point of giving me a headache, I pull out my phone and start researching everything there is to know about epilepsy.
“What about your work?” Mari interrupts the silence to ask.
“Pardon?” I lift my head.
“Your work. How are you going to be there for Roos, live with her, look after her, and still work? What if your fucking muse or whatever calls? What will you do then?”
“Then I’ll ignore it,” I say, although my confidence comes from the fact that my muse has long ago withered away and died.
“You can afford not to work?”
“Yes, Mari. I can afford not to work.” I don’t mean for it to sound so facetious, but I see the moment it riles Mari up even more.
“Must be nice.”
“You could be there too,” I say. “With Roos. You can come and visit and stay over whenever you want. I’ll sleep on the couch. I hardly sleep anyway.”
“I remember,” Mari says, and I search for a soft hint of nostalgia but it’s nowhere. “I think we should wait and talk to Roos about what she wants.”
“Agreed. I’m just telling you what I’m going to offer her when she is ready to talk about next steps.”
“Well, I’m going to offer the same thing,” Mari says with a self-righteous lift of their voice so adorable I have to bite back a smile. “I’m going to offer to move in and stay with Roos to help her.”
“Okay,” I say quietly. “So we let Roos decide?”
“Yep.” Mari holds my stare, those blue eyes darkening. They’re like looking into the deepest part of the ocean. “We let Roos decide.”
“Fine,” I say.
“Fine,” they repeat, and I look away because I don’t know if I’m about to laugh or cry, but I don’t want to do either.