The Friendship Fling

39 give yourself a try

39

give yourself a try

Ava

Max’s treatment is all that occupies my mind for the next few weeks, and I try to keep thoughts of aching hearts and time zones tucked away. He stays at mine from Monday to Friday so that he can go to his specialist hospital in London, and on days where I’m on the late shift at work I accompany him. When he goes back to our family home on the weekends, I can’t tell if he dreads being coddled by our parents or secretly looks forward to the comfort of it.

After the first week he’s tired and loses his appetite, and I do my best to provide alternative sustenance in the form of nostalgic TV shows and a playlist of emo music from 2006. It doesn’t give him energy and it doesn’t bring his appetite back, but it keeps his spirits up, which is all I can ask for.

I’m struck by how different this time around is. Beneath his perfectly warranted fear and fatigue is an undercurrent of annoyance. Annoyed this thing just won’t leave him alone, annoyed he’s had to put a stopper in his plans, annoyed he’s pretending he’s fine just to avoid having to tell other people what’s happening and experience their wide-eyed condolences.

Slowly but surely, we start making those dreadful jokes again. When other people overhear, their discomfort is so tangible it’s almost funnier than the joke itself.

‘Kind of unfair that you get to spend ages off work when you actually enjoy your job,’ I say one morning as we make our way up the wide steps in front of the hospital. ‘Where’s my month off?’

‘You know the stats nowadays,’ he says tonelessly. ‘One in two, Col. It’s only a matter of time.’

I choke on a laugh, and when he shoots me the kind of trouble-making grin from our childhood, I let the hope trickle in, hope that this will be the last time he has to do this, hope that we’ll never have to use these terrible jokes to cope again.

Those familiar fears from last time worm their way through the cracks too, attaching to the hope like a parasite, but I know to expect them, and it means I can meet those feelings halfway instead of letting them bowl me over. They still ache, and I’m still scared, but I don’t feel the pain quite so acutely as before.

I take the day off work for his last radiotherapy session, accompanying him to the hospital and then going into a coffee shop to buy us drinks and doughnuts while I wait for him to finish. In line with his wishes to keep everything quiet, when Dylan asks if I’m doing anything fun on my day off, all I tell her is that I’m spending time with my brother.

When Max appears through the doors under the soulless fluorescent lights of the waiting room, I unfold myself from the chair with a creak of plastic to greet him. My heart twinges, as if it’s a magnet trying to tug back the missing piece of it that he took over the edge all those years ago.

‘It’s done,’ he says with a satisfied sigh, stretching his neck and pulling himself up to his full height. He’s always tall, always takes up space, but today he feels larger than life.

‘Do you get to ring the bell?’ Despite the faintly acerbic hospital smell lingering on my brother, when I pull him into a hug, beneath it all is the familiar lemony smell of him.

‘Didn’t want to. It feels like tempting fate.’ He releases me and squints slightly as he looks down. ‘I know that’s ridiculous. Maybe I’ll come back to ring it if I’m still cancer-free in five years. Maybe I’ll just have a party.’

I’ll celebrate anything he wants, whenever and however he wants. I grab my tote bag from its spot on the linoleum and we step through the automatic doors out into the October air.

I’ve been so focused on getting through this month that it’s only when we enter Regent’s Park that I realise the leaves are starting to turn. We wind along the gravel paths, coffee in hand, and I inhale the beginnings of autumn – delicious golds and ambers and calls for cosy nights in.

‘Finn just texted, by the way,’ Max says offhandedly. ‘He said he’s sent me congratulatory flowers.’

‘That is,’ I plaster a smile on, ‘very Finn of him.’

My chest squeezes at the thought of him going through bouquets online to find the perfect one, of him setting an alarm to wake up and text Max at the right time, of that half-smile tugging at his face as he typed. I check my own phone to see messages from him too, and I’m reminded that where it used to be a comfort to see his name on my screen, now it’s just an ache.

finn: Give Max a giant hug from me today

finn: And give yourself one too, okay?

There’s a pang of guilt when I scroll up and realise I forgot to reply to the message he sent the other day – a photo of his new apartment, with messy hair and half a scruff-lined jaw just about visible in the mirror on the living-room wall. More often than not, I’m too preoccupied to respond straight away, and the more days that pass, the more I think I’m grateful our communication has waned. It makes the break a little easier.

We texted back and forth at first, just like before. He let me know when he landed in San Francisco, I shared a funny customer story, he sent a photo of his shitty hotel coffee. We FaceTimed a few times, too, and that might’ve been where it started to go downhill. All I could think about was how strange it was for him be at the other end of the phone. There , but not quite. It felt too much like a metaphor for how close we got to being . . . something. Forever just out of reach.

I knew this might happen, but the recently softened part of me still hoped it wouldn’t. He’s busy starting a whole new life, exactly as he said he would, right when we first met, and I’m busy trying to keep a lid on the feelings that have chipped away at me for years. He was always going to leave, and I was always going to stay. Sitting by my phone trying to maintain a relationship on uneven ground isn’t going to undo that.

Max sprawls across the first empty bench we come upon and says, ‘After I’ve slept for about two weeks straight, I can’t wait to be out exploring again. London’s great, but I still can’t believe you live here full time. It’s just . . . a lot.’

Tiredness leaches into the lines of his face, but adrenaline and relief bring the light back to his eyes in a way that makes me so giddy I could float.

‘I think that’s why I like it. There are always so many people around that you can trick yourself into thinking you’re not lonely or bored.’

I fight the urge to move Max’s cup from its precarious position when he rests it between us on the bench, and watch a child run away from his mother, who lifts him in the air to joyful squeals when she catches up.

‘I can’t imagine choosing somewhere permanent to live. It still feels pointless getting my own place when I’m constantly on the go.’ He links his now-free hands behind his neck and pulls down to stretch out the muscles. ‘You know, you’d expect the children of two people who’ve been together for almost forty years to be much better at commitment than we are.’

‘Our childhoods were far too smooth,’ I say flatly. ‘We had to pick a struggle.’

He flings forward with a laugh, and in a move I definitely foresaw, his cup starts to tilt, spilling some of his Americano on to the hem of his plaid shirt before he has the chance to grab it. Unbothered, he says, ‘One day I’ll move out of Mum and Dad’s. One day.’

‘You know they’ll just follow you.’ I open up my box of doughnuts and pick a cartoon-looking one with pink icing and sprinkles. ‘They hate you travelling already. Stresses them out having you so far away.’

‘Ugh. You have it so easy. You could fuck off to the Gobi Desert and all they’d do is ask you to send them a postcard.’ His features instantly pull in on themselves as he tries to backtrack in a fluster. ‘Wait, I didn’t mean they don’t care about you. I just mean they don’t try to wrap you in cotton wool.’

‘It’s fine. You’re right.’ I brush the crumbs from my lap. ‘I do have it easy.’

I’m not just talking about Mum and Dad being overbearing though.

An unreadable expression crosses his face. ‘Can I ask you a question?’ He sets his coffee down again but doesn’t wait for me to confirm. ‘Would you swap places with me, if you could?’

‘Yes.’ My answer is immediate. I’d take the pain from him in an instant.

‘I thought so.’ He nods to himself. ‘I wouldn’t, though. Swap places. Sometimes I imagine being in your shoes and it sends me spiralling.’

Spiralling is one way of putting it. Freefalling into the abyss is another. Those sleepless nights imagining life without him will probably hit me when I least expect it for the rest of my days, try as I might to push them aside. ‘It’s nothing in comparison to what you’ve had to go through.’

He releases a frustrated grunt. ‘I’m not gonna lie to you and say I don’t desperately wish it never happened. Or that it won’t affect me for the rest of my life. But being the one to experience it first-hand turns me into an active participant, at the very least. I bet having to sit and watch it just feels . . . helpless.’

I’ve always admired Max’s ability to see other people’s perspectives. He’s wrong about this, though. ‘All I’ve done is stand next to you and worry.’

‘Exactly. That’s painful too. Especially after what happened last time. One person’s experience doesn’t cancel out another’s. You need to stop thinking your feelings aren’t valid, Col.’ His eyebrows draw together, and he looks so disapproving that it throws me for a second. ‘I’m serious, it’s getting annoying.’

Finn said something similar at the museum, without the irritation. I look at Max – dark hair that never sits right, the remnants of sunburnt freckles across the bridge of his nose. Somehow, he manages to be strong and soft despite everything, whereas I’ve let it harden me. ‘I should be comforting you.’

He lets out another groan. ‘This is what I mean. I get enough pity; I don’t need it from you too. I shouldn’t have told you the other month that I rely on you to be a certain way. I didn’t mean I rely on you to be stoic. I just meant that I appreciate that even though you might want to baby me, you don’t.’

I pull my denim jacket tighter around me as a breeze rustles the trees, and take a few breaths.

‘I do feel sorry for you, though. And sad for you. That’s the truth. But . . .’ I exhale slowly, letting the truth coagulate into a sentence. ‘I also feel guilty.’

‘Shit, why?’ He scratches his arm and looks at me with a frown. ‘It’s not your fault I got this instead of you. It’s just the way it is.’

‘But it’s not fair . ’

‘ Obviously it’s not. But nothing is.’

In some ways, Max is still the same little boy I grew up with. But it’s moments like these when I see the man he grew into – still reckless, still incapable of sitting still, but someone who can’t help but take life exactly as it comes, problems and all. I envy it.

He narrows his eyes and continues, ‘I think your guilt is getting in your way. I’ve seen you hold back for years from really living and I’ve never said anything about it because I haven’t wanted to believe it, but that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Maybe you don’t feel like you deserve good things, or you’re scared they’re going to be taken from you, so you never even try?’

I fiddle with my buttons just for something to do, and he gives me a knowing look that punctures the flimsy protection I’d draped over everything I’ve been trying to hide.

‘That’s bullshit, Ava, I’m sorry. Because if you live like that, then it means this disease has stolen from both of us, and that’s such a massive waste.’ He takes a doughnut from the box and adds, ‘And just really fucking stupid.’

‘ You’re really fucking stupid,’ I mumble, like I’m five. But he’s not stupid at all, because he’s got me all figured out. As much as I’ve tried to hide it, he’s been seeing everything all along. ‘I’m sorry, Max.’

‘For what?’ It’s like looking in a mirror when he’s annoyed. I don’t know what that says about my natural expression.

The words swell in my chest, itching to escape. ‘I thought I was handling it. It’s not your fault, I need you to know that. I’ve never wanted you to feel like you’ve – I don’t know – burdened me or something. Not when you’ve had to go through even worse.’

‘Feelings, Ava. We’ve been over this. You have them. Let them exist.’ He sounds irritated, but he musses my hair briefly with his doughnut-free hand.

I wriggle out of his grasp. ‘You’re right about all of it. I think I’ve been using this mentality as a safety blanket, or a scapegoat. I could always blame this weird logic I’ve built that says every good thing is going to be taken from me. So when I started loosening my grip on that mentality, and the rug was pulled out from under me; with you, and everything else,’ my mind flashes to Finn, so willing to tell me how he felt, whether I reciprocated or not, ‘it felt like vindication. Proof I was right all along that I shouldn’t try to live any bigger.’

‘Don’t you think it’s become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy? Things don’t get taken from you, because you never let yourself fully have them in the first place. But that’s setting yourself up for failure every time. At least when you take a chance, you only fail sometimes . It’s a better success rate than never trying at all. Surely that risk is worth the reward.’ His gaze is discerning when he says, ‘Especially when the reward could be something really special.’

I sip my coffee, lukewarm by now, and we watch a mini leaf tornado spiral past us. ‘I don’t know how you see things so clearly. My mind’s a mess.’

He hasn’t completely finished chewing by the time he speaks again. If Dad were here, he’d be shooting daggers. ‘I’m not sure I do, but I’m trying. And I’m better than I used to be.’ My mind flits back to a few years ago, when it felt like all we could do was watch him self-destruct from the sidelines. ‘I’ve bulldozed my way through five and a half therapists.’

‘What’s the half?’ I can’t tell if he’s guilty or amused. ‘You know what? Never mind.’

‘The fact is, there’s a high likelihood this thing is a ticking time bomb,’ he says simply. ‘But if I let it consume me – and believe me, it’s crossed my mind – I’d be wasting so much fucking energy . So much time. Time I may or may not have. So I have to just . . . do things in spite of it. Because of it. I have to keep moving, have to keep living for right now.’ There’s a flash of sadness in his eyes, but it’s gone by the time I blink. He tears the rest of his doughnut in two and pops one of the pieces in his mouth. ‘If you want, I can give you all the tips on how to pretend you’re not dying. It’s liberating.’

‘Aren’t you scared?’

‘Of course I’m scared.’ It’s the first time his voice wavers. ‘But I’m alive, too. So that’ll have to do for now.’

‘That’ll do,’ I repeat in a whisper. Because it’s more than enough.

‘When you think about it, I might be the luckiest person on Earth.’ He stretches his legs out towards the path and starts listing items on his fingers. ‘The statistical probability of any human existing is so low to begin with. Factor in the fact I’m a twin, which is even less likely, add the fact I get this one-in-a-million cancer—’

‘Four million.’ Those sleepless nights on Google weren’t for nothing.

‘I get this one-in-four-million type of cancer, and then I fucking die, like, fully out, gone, took a trip to the pearly gates, was promptly denied entry, et cetera. And somehow I’m still here? I don’t think many people could say they have that kind of luck.’

When I was younger, I always believed I was lucky to be part of our family. To get on with both parents, to have a best friend for a brother, to have our weird nicknames and stupid traditions and ridiculous inside jokes. Then, when everything happened and we got Max back, I was sure of it. But it always felt like an abstract kind of luck. Hearing Max lay it out like this so quantitatively sends me spiralling in a good way, up and out towards the stars.

‘You’re lucky,’ I concede. ‘And I’m lucky by default to know you.’

‘You and everyone else in my life, Colin,’ he drawls. Whenever he says things like this, I’m reminded that if I didn’t know him beneath the bravado, I’d almost definitely find him insufferable.

He yawns and it’s enough to make me check the time and ask, ‘Lucky enough to make it to Waterloo in time for your train?’

I show him my screen and he shoves the rest of his doughnut in his mouth with a garbled, ‘Shit,’ and we scramble to grab all our stuff.

‘Why,’ I gasp, promptly approaching oxygen deprivation as we speed-walk to the Tube, ‘did our parents not instil in us the importance of punctuality?’

‘I have no idea,’ he replies easily, stupidly long legs taking him further than mine without even trying. ‘Keep up, you gnome.’

We make it to Waterloo just as the conductor blows the whistle to announce the train doors are closing, and we yell hurried goodbyes as Max darts through the barriers. Someone’s bag is caught in a door further up the train, so all the doors reopen for five seconds. In that tiny pocket of time, he manages to step on. Maybe he really is the luckiest person on the planet.

I settle on the sofa next to Josie, grabbing the other end of her blanket to drape across my knees, the pair of us refusing to admit defeat and turn the heating on even though we wake up to condensation on the windows every morning by now. We’ve left Twilight playing on the TV in the same way some people listen to classical music while they relax.

She peels back the lid of the tub of olives I picked up on my way home and pops one in her mouth, doing a little happy wiggle of her shoulders. ‘How was today’s session?’

‘Easier than last week, but I’m still getting used to,’ I wave a hand around my head, ‘diving deep. I need to practise.’

Every Wednesday evening, I make my way to a plant-filled office on Clapham High Street to talk to a woman called Anita, who sits and listens and has the uncanny ability to get me to talk without saying a word herself.

And every Wednesday night I come home feeling like my brain’s been scooped out of my skull with a spoon. But by the next day, I always feel a little lighter.

‘Not to be soppy,’ she clears her throat, ‘but I’m proud of you.’

It took me so much longer than it should’ve to bite the bullet. I spent so many years telling myself that I had it covered, that nothing in my mind was as bad as it is for some people, but after talking to Max, I knew what had to be done. I have a duty to myself to listen to my brain and unearth what it’s trying to tamp down.

‘Thanks.’ It takes everything not to squirm under it, but still I add, ‘And thank you for the recommendation. Even though she’s expensive.’

The answer was right in front of me, so obvious I felt stupid for not seeing it sooner. I’d been saving money all this time paying hardly any rent, building savings with no clear goal. I had all this stagnant money to use, and figured it was time to invest in myself with a private therapist. I’m a long way from where I want to be, but I’m on my way.

Maybe, when my mind’s more settled, I can start using my savings for fun things. I could join Max on one of his trips, or visit Josie on tour. Or I could go to San Francisco. As much as I want to move forward, I miss Finn. It’d be impossible not to.

‘Oh!’ Josie jolts me out of my daydream, setting her pot on the coffee table and swapping it for her tea. ‘Invites have been sent out for the exhibition opening, so check your email, you should have a ticket. Clear your calendar.’

‘I can’t wait.’ She’s been working on this for so long, and excitement hums through me thinking about what her team has put so many hours into. ‘Don’t think there’s much danger of me having clashing plans, though.’

My social life has dwindled after my hectic, vibrant summer, save for the occasional drink with Josie or Dylan at the pub. But it’s been good to spend some time working on myself. I’ve been alone before, but never spent the time really putting any effort into making myself better.

‘You need to make the most of having normal human working hours. Now you’ve got your shiny new job and don’t have to wake up before some people have even gone to sleep.’

It was strange; the minute I decided it was okay to give myself a try, change came flooding in, as if it had been piling up against the door, just waiting for me to open up.

Not long after Max’s treatment ended, I went into work and Nadia from head office was sitting with Carl. She pulled me aside and informed me she was looking for an assistant. She’d gauged from our earlier conversations that dealing with customers was not my favourite thing to do, and had remembered how I was always on top of stock and payments and doing things for the shop well outside of my jurisdiction. I’d never really thought about it before, but I guess I was more efficient and organised than I’d realised.

Well, despite the blatant KitKat theft, which I so far have kept to myself.

And so, I’ve spent the last month as her assistant, which has mostly consisted of setting up meetings, planning training sessions for new employees, and joining her on site visits at other branches. It’s not customer-facing, I get to wear my own clothes, and my new boss is possibly more deadpan than me, so it’s working for now. Sometimes, the fear creeps in, fear I’ll never be truly fulfilled. But I’m not shackled to the safety net of the shop’s routine anymore. Leaving was at least a step in the right direction.

Josie’s holding her mug with one hand, scrolling her phone with another, when she asks, ‘Do you want a plus-one?’

As soon as his scans came back clear, Max jumped back into his normal life with that aggressive intensity of his, and he’s away in Germany at the moment. I briefly consider asking Dylan, but ultimately, I say, ‘Nope. Just me.’

She drops her phone in her lap and tilts her head to consider me. ‘You should talk to him. Don’t you think it’s been long enough?’

I don’t pretend not to know who she’s talking about. Everything else in my life is slowly coming together, but Finn’s the one piece I haven’t quite figured out what to do with yet. I’ve been trying to be gentle with myself. I don’t regret telling him to leave. Because he needed to, and because I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t have been good for him. But I do regret that I didn’t sort myself out sooner.

‘One day I will. But he’s busy starting afresh. I don’t want to interrupt his life.’

Now, his absence ebbs like a yellowing bruise. Hardly painful anymore, but sometimes I poke the tenderness just to be sure it was real.

‘Like he interrupted yours?’ Her eyes twinkle.

In reality, I’ve drafted and deleted more texts than I can count. But I want to let him live his life. He inadvertently set off a chain reaction, and I have to continue reaping the benefits of that so that I can make my life better, too.

Tucked under the blanket next to Josie, I’m overcome by a wave of gratitude for her. She’s been here for me this whole time, quietly supporting me, even when she thought my decisions were stupid. And they were, objectively, stupid.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you,’ I say at last.

‘For what?’ She blows her tea and the steam wafts around her face.

‘For being so understanding over the past few years while I’ve been getting myself together. And for trying to help me get out there. Even though I was bad at listening.’

‘Finn was the one who really got you out of your shell.’

I smile at the mention of his name but shake my head. ‘Well, today I’m thanking you. For staying with me inside my shell when I needed it.’

‘It was extremely cramped in there.’

‘Thank god you’re only about two feet tall.’

‘Would’ve been a disaster if I’d been a giant like you.’ She shifts position, knocking a cushion to the floor. ‘But you don’t need to thank me. You’re my best friend. And you were there for me when I was going through it when we were at uni.’

‘You had a perfectly good reason to be in a dark place. I was just,’ I search for the word, ‘repressed, probably.’

‘Emotionally selective,’ she amends, setting her mug back on the coffee table and feeling for the dropped cushion. ‘I don’t take it for granted, you know. The fact that you care about me. I doubt Max ever has, either, or Finn, or anyone else in your little circle.’ She sets the cushion on her lap. ‘I don’t even think you realise that you take people under your wing. You did it with me, you’ve done it with Dylan, you’ll probably do it again to someone else. You make it seem like you don’t care, but you do. You just do it quietly.’

The blanket rustles as I shift position. ‘Thank you for saying that.’ I exhale with a shudder. ‘I hate that these conversations only make me a little nauseous now. My reputation will be in tatters if anyone finds out.’

‘Your secret’s safe with me, my delicate little flower.’ Then, tucking her hair behind her ear, she leans forward to ask, ‘Are you happy, Ava?’

I fiddle with the label on the blanket, trying to quieten the part of my brain telling me to stop talking about my feelings. Despite any loose ends, any missing pieces, for the first time in a long while, my brain is calm. It’s granted me a contentment I’d forgotten I could feel.

I’m not being dragged along with the current, life happening around me without my permission anymore. I’m not clinging to moments of joy like they’re a life raft. They exist in spite of the stormy seas. I’m finally swimming.

Eventually, the words spill out, and I’m surprised by the truth of them. ‘I am.’