Chapter 21
twenty-one
. . .
Limerence
Thirteen years ago
desiree
seventeen years old
When I stepped out of Inferno the day Taven’s dad gave me the check, I made a vow to stay away from him and the Carlisles. I could do this, I could be strong and walk away from someone who had more fun keeping secrets from me and spinning lies than he did proudly and honestly professing his undying love, no matter what. It’s hard to explain why exactly Taven’s approach had grated my nerves so much, I logically understood that he was just a kid living under his parents’ roof and surviving the best ways he knew how.
But I wanted more than that. I wanted the fireworks of young love, the self-sacrifice of choosing me openly and honestly, no matter what the consequence was from his parents. And he didn’t deliver. It was as simple as that, crushing as it was.
When I saw my mother the next day, I handed her the check .
She looked like shit, I remember that very clearly. Bone thin and hair in the limpest bun on top of her head. I had hugged her before handing her the check, wanting to soften the blow of the humiliation I was about to bestow upon her, and I remember feeling worried I might break her if I squeezed too tightly.
The tension at home had been palpable, and I expected my mom to be angry that I had been at the Carlisle’s. But instead she offered me a sad smile. I nearly died with shock. She timidly accepted the check, hands shaking as she muttered a quiet “Thank you” that both confused me and pinched at my heart.
Something was troubling her, but she wouldn’t tell me what. Taven had confirmed that it wasn’t an affair our parents were having, but still—my teenaged mind couldn’t wrap my head around all the secrecy flooding my house. It all felt very dark and mysterious, and I approached it like this puzzle I needed to sort through.
I know now that at the time, my mom had been diagnosed with bladder cancer. I was seventeen when she and my dad finally told me and Dylan.
The Carlisles knew from the beginning, apparently. This was something my mother told me in private, my father never wanted the Carlisle name uttered in his house again. Was that why they pulled out from the business? Too risky with my mom’s health issues? I had no idea, though it didn’t seem to make sense to do so. While the Carlisles were ridiculously strict and borderline elitist, they didn’t strike me as cruel , per se. Sure, if my mom’s health had scared them off, it would make sense why my father was so vehemently against them. But then why this check? It didn’t make any sense.
The good news was that the cancer had been caught early. My mother would be fine, for now. She and my father quietly shuffled her to treatments and surgery without telling me or Dylan until several months later, when she was in the clear. My mom could be secretive like that.
I had no real feelings about them not telling us, other than hating that I missed out when I could have been a help. But there was nothing to be sad about, she was perfectly healthy now. I suppose I could have been angry they didn’t tell us when it was happening. Dylan certainly had that reaction. But not me. It didn’t seem like there was any real point in the anger after the fact.
Instead, I dove deep into studying all about bladder cancer, silently cursing my mother’s smoking habits that continued even now, though also knowing it was a habit many years in the making. Very difficult to stop, and for my mom, downright impossible. Holly Hatson was like that. She wanted nothing more than harmony and peace, always, no matter what elephant in the room existed. “Ignorance is bliss” had always been one of her favorite phrases, and my dad would laugh at her and pat her ass, saying, “It better not be, woman,” before smacking a kiss square on her giggling lips. Her philosophy would drive me nuts—I’ve always been one more inclined to answers and understanding.
But not my mom. Answers for her came through the cosmos, a unique way of accepting that the universe would throw at her what she needed. She held an uncanny trust in that process, choosing to pretend that the cigarettes that were permanently in her brown-stained fingers weren’t slowly killing her. She took her chances.
And I got sucked into a world of cancer. Dangerously so.
There was almost a sick satisfaction I got when I found out about her illness. Not because I wanted harm for my mother—that was the last thing I wanted.
No—this satisfaction was in the excitement of it.
It was something to hold onto, something to fixate on and absorb myself in. I started wondering if I had cancer blooming in my body somewhere. Was that a lump in my breast? I’d have my mother check, insisting she take me to the doctor’s, only to be reassured I was perfectly healthy. It disappointed me in a way I dared not admit out loud. I recognized how crazy that was, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted something that made me distinctive. The Cancer Girl. People pouring out their prayers and well wishes in my name.
With Taven no longer in my life and with my mother’s precarious health—recurrence a constant fear—a fixation on my own health became my thing. A craving of sorts to have something happen in my life that made me more interesting than the next person. Maybe I wasn’t good enough for Taven to defy his parents and continue seeing me, but boy, he would feel so guilty when he learned I was sick.
I’d fantasize about getting some diagnosis, how I would find a way to tell Taven, how he’d rush over and demand to be able to take care of me. I’d even gone so far as to writing a fake letter to him, telling him of this phantom diagnosis.
Dear, Taven. You might want to sit down for this. I have something to tell you, and it’s not easy to say.
I have cancer.
It’s okay, I don’t want you to worry about me. (A total lie.)
A broken person gets bad news and blames the world on their bad luck. A wise person gets bad news and finds the light to be found within the experience. And that is the path I’m choosing, to find the light and meaning in all of this. Please know that and take comfort in my ability to make the best of this terrible situation that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
-Yours always, Bingo forever, Dazzle
It was insane, I know. I was seventeen! Broken-hearted and losing my mind, what can I say.
Then there would be other times when I’d give up on my broken heart, and I’d flip flop on how my fantasy would play out, much like the fantasy I had concocted of Taven and the arranged marriage. I’d decide Taven wasn’t it, and I’d read The Fault in Our Stars , the book where the girl has cancer and meets the boy in a cancer group. I’d imagine that could be me, too. But in our story, my fellow cancer patient and I would both heal and recover and live happily ever after. We’d have the most beautiful love story of all time, forever in our hearts and in the fabric of our history and most unusual meeting. “We kicked cancer’s ass! But at least cancer gave us one thing—each other,” me and this mystery boy would say, staring longingly in one another’s eyes in front of a crowd of admiring listeners.
That story felt wonderfully satisfying.
While my health remained intact, I did eventually hear from Taven. It had been several months since I’d seen him that night I received the check. Once again, he texted me from his friend’s phone, and then called me a few minutes after I responded.
I answered. I figured talking to him about my mom’s cancer was as good an excuse as any. I was hurt that he hadn’t reached out to me sooner, assuming he knew my mom had been sick if the Carlisles apparently knew. But I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to, at the very least, feel his guilt first-hand when I confronted him.
When the phone rang, I scrambled to answer, ready to finally hear Taven’s voice again. He was drunk.
Sure, I had seen him drink before, at that party we had gone to or when he’d sneak some concoction at either the country club or from his parents’ liquor cabinet. We were teenagers, it was to be expected.
But this felt different. The Taven I was speaking to felt like an alternate version of the boy I knew and loved. In there somewhere, but shrouded in a guise of turmoil and circus clowns. I could practically hear the upbeat yet slightly disturbing carnival music through his words.
“My Dazzle, you speak to me, finally!” he crooned on the other end of the line. I could hear laughter in the background from his group of friends. It irked me.
I plopped down on my bed and stared up at the yellowed ceiling of our townhouse. “Not like you made any efforts to reach out to me,” I pointed out.
Still, even through my hurt and annoyance, my mind was plotting out ways I could go and see him. Maybe Melissa would give me a ride. She could borrow her grandmother’s car. We could make this work.
Taven chuckled when I presented the idea. “A secret meet-up. Great idea, Daz. This time we’ll run away together and never look back!”
“Where would we go?”
“Hawaii. Then I could stare at you in a bikini all day.” This elicited hollers and “I wanna come!” from the boys in the background. I smiled at the small fan base the idea of me in a bikini acquired, I couldn’t help myself. “Plus,” he continued, “I hear Hawaii is nice this time of year.”
I flopped over onto my stomach, bending my legs at the knee and slowly pedaling my feet back and forth in comforting consideration. “Hawaii is nice all times of year,” I said.
There was some bang in the background, then a loud group of cheers and boys’ laughter. I strained my ears to listen for girls’ voices, but could hear none. It relieved me.
When I asked him why he didn’t reach out to me about my mom, he claimed he didn’t know if I knew yet. That his parents had explained that Dylan and I were to be kept in the dark about it for the time being. He didn’t want to be the one to spoil it and give me that kind of bad news.
It made sense. Damn him, it made sense.
And just like that, over a sloppy and drunken phone call and the cacophony of rowdy teenaged boys, I slowly started to forgive Taven.