Chapter 48
48
Dexter
My sister’s dying.
I’ve been trying to avoid the truth for such a long time, hoping this cancer isn’t as serious as it really is, focusing on the fact that my sister still laughs and tells jokes and teases me. Because that’s Janet. That’s who she is. So how can she be dying? How can someone so full of life, despite that life being sucked out of her, be dying?
The robotic beeping and flashing numbers remind me of this. As does the plastic breathing tube down Janet’s throat and the waxy appearance of her skin, now grayish and paper thin.
It didn’t matter that she was careful, or that she quit her job to focus on maintaining what little of her health she had left. She got sick. Again, and this time, she isn’t responding to the same treatments like she did the last time. It’s almost like she’s giving up.
“Any changes?”
I look up at the doorway where Charles stands. He’s been in and out of the hospital for the past two weeks, just like me, and I finally urged him to go home. To shower, to do anything besides be surrounded by the four walls we’ve been confined in. It was only a few hours he’d been gone, but it was enough time to cause a lingering stretch of anxiety to take over me.
I shake my head. “The nurses just came in, gave her some more meds. Said they’ll be back in a few hours, I guess.”
He takes the seat next to mine. “If you need to go home for a bit, maybe get some real food instead of the crap in the cafeteria…”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
“Dex,” he says. “Go home. Take a shower. Take a long nap somewhere besides these lousy plastic chairs. I’ll be here.”
I sigh. A shower sounds so good right about now.
He sees me hesitate. “Go,” he urges again.
“I’ll make it quick.” I stand, pulling a long stretch from the uncomfortable seats, and press a quick kiss to my sister’s temple before walking out of the room. My steps are sluggish, and I’m unsure of what to do with myself without watching my sister as the machines help her breathe and stay alive.
I should at least take the time to call Lucy. I felt horrible after telling her I wouldn’t be able to make it out to see her. I should’ve told her why I had to cancel my trip, but everything was happening so fast. And saying the words out loud, telling her that my sister almost went into septic shock and is fighting her biggest fight yet…I couldn’t do it.
I feel so damn helpless. I can’t do anything here. I’m just watching my sister, hoping she makes it out of this alive. Hoping that I’ll see her one day, happy and lively, walking around her gallery all busy and energetic. I wish I could just talk to her one last time, let her know that I’m so sorry things had to be this way. That I wish it would have been me instead of her. How am I supposed to go on without her? I’m going to be completely alone, and I’m so fucking scared .
God, I wish Lucy were here. Even just to silently hold my hand or even wait for me back at my apartment. Just to know she’s there, waiting for me to come home.
“Dexter.” It’s like I summoned her. Wanting to hold her, hear her voice, touch her. She’s here.
“Lucy.”
She runs to me from the other end of the hallway, not caring that there are other people around us turning their heads as they watch her crash into me. Her body meets mine with so much force I feel like the impact causes everything to dissolve. My sister laid up in the hospital bed, Lucy being too far away from me, me missing her every single hour of every single day.
“What are you doing here? How did you know?”
“Carmen called,” she explains. Her hands run over my face, and she holds on to me with so much tenderness, I want to forget everything. I only want to think about Lucy and that she’s here. “She told me she’s been seeing you coming and going from the hospital, so she assumed Janet must be here.”
“And you flew out here?”
“Of course,” she answers.
“Lucy…” I say with a shaky voice. And I start to break down. I grasp her and bury my face into her shoulder, crying and sobbing. My entire body shakes, but she doesn’t let me go. Instead, she holds me closer, running a hand up and down my back.
“I’m here,” she says softly, clutching my head closer to her. “I’m here.”
“I know,” I sob. She’s really here.
“It’s okay, honey,” she whispers as she shushes me. And while it’s supposed to calm me, it has the opposite effect.
“ God , I missed you so much,” I cry. “I wanted to come to you but…”
She shushes me again. “I know. It’s okay.” And she just holds me. It’s everything I ever needed in my entire life .
Fifteen minutes later, I still haven’t gone home. Instead, Lucy and I’ve settled into a corner of the hospital where an empty visitor lounge sits. She’s sitting in the seat next to mine, her knees drawn up to her chin, and I’m just staring at her. Marveling at her existence. Because she’s here. She came here. For me.
“So what did the doctor say?”
“They’re going to keep her on the ventilator until she can start breathing on her own,” I explain. “They have her sedated right now, just something to help her feel less anxious and more comfortable, and she’s starting to respond to the meds. Finally.”
“So she’s sort of out of it?”
I nod. “In and out.”
“Dexter, why didn’t you tell me?”
I sigh heavily. “I guess I was scared to say it out loud, and I didn’t know if I would be able to keep it together while I told you,” I explain. She inches closer, resting her hand on my thigh. “And I didn’t want you to worry.”
“When you stopped answering me…I thought maybe things were over between us.”
I look up in shock. She couldn’t have possibly thought that.
“I thought maybe you met someone else, or you didn’t want to bother wasting your time dealing with us since things were so complicated,” she continues. Her eyes start to water, and her voice trembles. “I didn’t know all of this was happening.”
“Lucy,” I urge, just as a single tear slips from the corner of her eye. “No, no. I could never.”
She nods. “I know that now. I just got really scared for a moment. But Dexter…I’m so sorry. I should’ve known it was Janet. I should’ve known you were going through all of this.”
“Lucy, I’m so sorry,” I say softly. I reach up to pull her face toward me and kiss her. Tears start streaming down her cheeks, and it makes our kiss wet and sad. “I didn’t think it would—I didn’t think. I should have called and let you know what was going on.”
“No, it’s okay. Really. It was just my stupid brain playing games on me, and I should’ve known better. I guess I was just…scared.”
We sit there, both realizing how much we need this. How badly we need to stay open with each other. Our relationship has its own hurdles with the distance between us, and neither one of us communicating along the way didn’t help. We don’t have the luxury of living in the same city, where we don’t have to wonder what’s going on when we don’t talk to each other for a day or two. We don’t have the option to pop over to the other’s apartment on a whim or make last minute plans to have dinner or watch a movie.
And then I realize how she’ll probably go back home in a few days, or maybe in a few hours. I don’t know how much time I have with her, and my heart starts to ache all over again. I don’t want to talk about what should be and what can be between us right now. I don’t even know if I’m ready to discuss her travel plans, like when she’s heading back to the airport or what time her flight is. I’m definitely not ready to say goodbye to her just yet.
“So you left your things at Carmen’s?” I ask, trying to figure out how to get her settled back into my apartment during the short time she’s here.
“Yeah,” she answers. “I brought what I could for now, and I’ll probably go back to Seattle sometime soon to get the rest of my things?—”
“What are you talking about?”
She takes a deep sigh, gnawing on her lip. “I’m going to stay with her for a while. At least until things get more stable with Janet. And then we can figure things out after that once?—”
“You’re staying?”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
“I’m moving here.”
“Like, moving, moving?”
She nods.
“Lucy, you can’t,” I plead. “You have that job offer coming to you. You can’t uproot your life like that for me.”
Her face twists into a frustrated scowl. “Why not? I was going to do it for a job. Why can’t I do it for you? You matter more to me than any job. I can talk to Elevate. Maybe I can do something remote or part-time while traveling out to LA or something.”
“Lucy, they won’t?—”
“Then I’ll find another job!” She jolts from her seat and starts pacing the small space in front of me. “I don’t know, Dexter! I’m trying to figure this out. I’m grasping at straws because I can’t keep doing this. I can’t live on the other side of the country and pretend like the distance isn’t killing me. I’ve tried to be rational and responsible, but I’m so tired of it. It hurts too damn much. My place is with you, nowhere else. No job is going to change that.”
I stand, pulling her to me, and I feel her sink against my chest. She’s really willing to give up her life and be here with me. Without asking for any conditions, no tit for tat kind of deal like she’ll only move in with me if I keep the thermostat at seventy-three degrees. She’s willing to risk everything and uproot her entire life to be here with me, despite the inconvenience of it.
“It’s killing me too,” I say softly as she pulls away to look at me. “It hasn’t been easy since I got back from Hawaii, and I think I’d rather punch myself in the nuts right now than tell you to change your mind.”
She huffs a sad laugh, and I see a small smile twitch at the corners of her mouth. “No, don’t do that,” she says with a shaky voice.
My hands move to her neck and the sides of her cheek and her hair. My fingers graze over her like I’m sifting through everything to make sure this is really happening. I’m double, triple checking because it feels like magic. Something that’ll disappear into a fancy top hat or be swiped away from under a white cloth. But it’s not. It’s not some evil trick played on my already fragile heart. It’s real. All of it.
“Are you sure about this?”
She nods. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, okay,” I finally say. “We’ll figure things out. If I need to follow you to LA, I’ll do that.”
“You will?”
“Yeah. Once things stabilize with Janet and…” I pause, unsure how to finish that sentence. “You can stay with me in the meantime.”
Her face twists a little. “You don’t have to,” she says. “Carmen already told me I could stay with her.”
I shake my head. No, she can’t be here and not stay with me. I can’t stand the idea of knowing we could be living under the same roof, using the same bathroom to brush our teeth in and get ready for the day, but choosing not to. We have a choice this time. We can choose to be together without worrying about circumstances or conveniences like work or burgled apartments. “Lucy, no?—”
“I didn’t come here assuming you’d want me to move in with you. I’m not expecting…” She pauses to take a deep breath. “It’s a lot to ask of you.”
“No, it’s not,” I urge, gripping her a little tighter. “I want you to move in with me. I want you to sleep in my bed. I want you to wake up next to me, and I want to come home to you.”
She considers my offer, gnawing on her lip. “I know we’ve been pretty throw-caution-to-the-wind about a lot of things, but this feels like a pretty big step.”
“I know,” I agree. “Trust me, I’m not taking it lightly. I mean it when I say I want you to move in with me.”
She hesitates, and I take the opportunity to kiss the back of her hand, hoping it’ll sway her.
“Okay,” she finally agrees .
“Yeah?” I ask, my face lighting up. It feels like my whole body lights up, like the entire weight of so many things shifts. And it feels a little foreign, a little alien and unfamiliar. I realize I haven’t felt this way since I last saw her. With everything that’s been going on with Janet and being in and out of the hospital, everything’s been piling on top of me, and it took Lucy coming back into my life for me to realize there’s a small stream of hope at the end of the tunnel.
“Yeah,” she answers, smiling at me with her beautiful smile.
“Okay, then,” I say, so giddy I could kick my feet into the air. “Let’s go get your things.”