Chapter 24 Present Day
CHAPTER 24
PRESENT DAY
July
After debating back and forth, I call my sister. Even after everything, she’s the only person I know who’ll get what I’m going through with Ciji. I pace the length of my bedroom, waiting for her to answer, hoping she isn’t already asleep.
“Did you hear that Shehla needs chemo?” Mel says when she picks up. Her voice is strained, as if she’s been trying not to cry. My body sags with the news, and I rest my head against the wall because I can’t hold myself up alone anymore.
“What’s going on?”
It pours out of Mel. The tumour pathology being unfavourable, how the doctors want to be aggressive with therapy to maximize her chance of recovery. How Shehla will need to fight for her life.
“She’s strong,” I say to Mel. “And when she’s not, we can be strong for her.” My jaw clenches with the lie. Because even though I told Ciji I’m not mad, I am. Mad at myself. The anger is thick, spewing lava in my belly. I’m the one who screwed everything up, missing what Ciji was getting up to behind my back.
I’m blinking back tears when my phone dings with a Teams message. At this hour it could only be Eleanor.
“It’s my boss. Ugh, it’s too late for this,” I moan. All my responsibilities, the work I was supposed to get done today, rush through me.
“Do you want to call me back later?” Mel asks. My phone starts ringing.
“No. I need to talk to you,” I say, ignoring my spike of stress as I send the call to voicemail without looking.
“So, why did you call?” Mel asks.
I pry myself off the wall and crawl into bed. “You’ll be pleased to know that I did mess up with Ciji. That I am the opposite of perfect.” I update her on the sneaking out and the party and how I had to call Wes for help.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Mel says. “I didn’t want things with Ciji to be so hard.”
“I’m not trying to be perfect to show you up, you know that, right? I think you’re amazing,” I say. “So it hurt to hear that’s how you felt. Especially because I already feel like crap. I wrecked everything for our family.”
“What do you mean?” Mel asks.
I look up, at the speckled ceiling, finding the words. “It feels like it was my fault Dad got sick,” I tell her quietly. “And there’s nothing I can do to make up for it, for all my mistakes. We always seem to be fighting now, you, me and Mom. Dad is gone. I don’t want to lose you both too, and it feels like I am.”
Mel’s breath is heavy over the phone. “I shouldn’t have betrayed your confidence that summer. All I wanted was for you to trust me and I ruined it. I’m sorry.”
“You did,” I acknowledge.
“Listen, Lia. I was jealous and sometimes I’m still jealous about how easy it seems for you to do everything the way Mom wants. But just because Mom and I argue, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me. Just like how you and I can fight, and it doesn’t mean that we don’t love each other. And you didn’t do anything to Dad. You living your life didn’t cause Dad to get sick.”
The clouds thin and moonlight streams through the window. “I love you too,” I say. “I just wanted to make things easier, for all of us.”
“Your job isn’t to make things easier for me,” Mel says fiercely. “You’re not supposed to sacrifice yourself for the sake of harmony. I’ll support you with whatever you want, whatever you choose. Regardless of if it’s what Mom or Dad would want.”
“I’ll do the same for you,” I vow.
The silence stretches over the two hundred kilometres between Toronto and Pike Bay, but for a moment, it feels like my sister is sitting right next to me.
“So,” she asks, “how are things with that guy you were dating?”
I let out an exasperated laugh. “It’s over.”
“Are you sad?” she asks, really asks, like she cares.
It’s a good question. I’m sad about a lot of things and I’ve been excellent at avoiding them. “Not about Hassan,” I say.
“We can talk about it if you want,” she tells me. “Or not. Whatever you want.”
“There’s just a lot. Like work. The choices I’ve made with my life. I think there are some things I need to process myself first,” I say. “Listen, I have a question for you. I saw Andrea this week, and I wondered, do you ever think of her anymore?”
She’s silent on the line and I worry maybe I pushed too deep. “Occasionally,” she says unevenly. “Mostly because I feel bad for her, that she didn’t feel like she could be who she was. In hindsight, I realize she must have been very unhappy. I hope that she’s happier now. Because I am.”
“Do you ever wonder if you’d be together in another universe?”
“Absolutely not. She was a complicated moment in my childhood.” Mel laughs. “We were never like you and Wes. Whatever happened between you, I never understood it. You two had something special.”
“I thought we did too,” I tell her, picturing his stricken face when he walked off earlier. “It’s hard being here with him. We have moments where it feels like we could go back in time to where we started, and others where we’re on opposite sides of an unbreachable sinkhole.”
“Let me turn this question back to you. Before now, did you think of Wes? Wonder about him?”
I sit up and let my gaze lift up towards the stars. “I didn’t want to, but yes, every day.”
“You should talk to him.”
“What if it’s too late?” I ask, staring blankly.
“You won’t know until you try. And Lia? It’s not only on you. He made mistakes too.”
“I know,” I say. “I think I can forgive him, if he can forgive me.”
“Tell him,” Mel urges. “Don’t have regrets.”
After I get off the call with my sister, I mull over her advice. I owe Wes the truth, but the hour is inching towards midnight. When I check my phone, I’m greeted with a flurry of messages on Teams. Shit. I forgot to send in my document review. I open my laptop and quickly pore over my work. It’s close enough to done. It’s midnight already, so maybe it’s too late, but I send it to Eleanor anyway.
Even with the work off my plate, I can’t seem to settle. When I scroll through the remaining notifications, I find the call I sent to voicemail was from Wes. The need to speak to him overwhelms me. I peer through my window. The car is back but his light isn’t on, so I text him.
Lia: You still up?
When he doesn’t answer, I try to settle into my bedtime routine of brushing my teeth and changing into my pajamas, but a restless current courses through me.
Finally I pull on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie to guard against the brisk nighttime air. I tiptoe past Ciji’s room, where she’s gently snoring, and go outside. It’s so dark I can barely see my hand in front of my face, but I know how to get to Wes’s place even with my eyes closed.
Two steps to the left to avoid the willow tree, and then one to the right, and I’m steady across the uneven yard…when I stumble right into a wall that shouldn’t be there.
“Oof,” I say as the wall reaches out to steady me, warm and careful.
“Looks like you had the same idea I did,” Wes says. “I called but I assumed you were dealing with Ciji. Listen, I wanted to check in on you after everything. I meant what I said before, I do want to be there for you again, in whatever way we can be. Friends, if that’s what you want. I’m sorry for pushing you too far this morning.”
“I was on the phone with Mel,” I say slowly. “But I couldn’t sleep afterwards. I need to talk to you. You were right. There are things I need to share with you and I don’t want to wait any longer.”
We both look down, to where he hasn’t let go of me. Even though it’s dark, being close to him here is the calmest I’ve felt in a long time.
“Can we go inside? I want to tell you everything.”
I sense rather than see his nod, the tight way he’s holding me against him, the relief and wariness in his next exhale.
He pulls me back into his house, tiptoeing down to the basement, where we sit leaning against each other on the old couches, and I tell him the rest of our story.