Chapter 8
Iidly watched as Becka applied her makeup, her phone set up against the vanity in her bedroom as she got ready for work. I was sat at my little window seat, occasionally looking down to where my Dad was washing the car in the driveway. Two very different worlds, bridged by WiFi and microchips.
“How’s Valerie?” Becka asked, snapping my attention back to the phone propped up on my knee.
“She’s doing better. Her bruises are fading, and she says she’s not as stiff.”
Even though she still winced every time she reached for a mug from the cupboard.
“That’s great!” Becka shot me a grin, and I rustled up a smile to match hers.
“When does she start chemo?” she asked.
I shifted slightly before answering. “Next week. She’s been given a really strict schedule to follow.”
Becka paused momentarily in her contouring to scowl down at the screen. “Fuck. That feels fast.”
“I know,” I agreed, nodding, “but they said it’s normal to start treatment within a month of the surgery. It’ll be about three weeks by then.”
“But they got it all, right?”
I shrugged, but it felt like two twigs were bending under my shirt. Brittle.
“As far as we know. She’s got to have chemo for a few months to make sure, and then I guess we’ll know more.”
We sat in the silence for a few moments. It was a testament to our hard-won friendship that neither of us felt the need to fill the gaps with useless platitudes.
Some people found Becka… abrasive, too opinionated, but that was okay because Becka had never felt the need to fight for everyone’s approval.
I always joked about how I wanted to be Becka when I grew up.
I fell into the trap of trying to be everything, all at once, and not who I truly was. It was exhausting.
“How’s your dad doing?” Becka’s voice shook me out of my brief reverie.
I sighed. “He worries. He’s not even trying to put on a brave face, which is actually a good thing because we all know he’s rubbish at it.”
Becka grinned. “Remember that one time I spent Easter at your house? When your dad hurt his foot?”
I barked out a laugh, remembering the day.
Dad had stubbed his toe on a chair leg, rather spectacularly.
He’d tried to ‘walk it off’, but his face had turned more and more red, until Mum insisted that he sit down and ice it.
His voice had gone a full octave higher every time someone had asked if he was okay.
“So, he’s just wearing his normal face around the house,” I carried on, “and Mum keeps telling him that if he keeps looking at her like that, she’s going to make him go stand in the shed.”
We laughed again, and I waved at Dad, who had glanced up when the noise leaked through my open window.
“And how are you, babes?”
I looked to my phone, but Becka was carefully not looking at me. She had moved onto eye shadow.
“I’m not really sure,” I admitted. “I’ve been home a couple weeks now, and I just feel…” I tried to search for a good word, eventually coming up with, “paused. Like, I came home for mum, and I don’t regret that choice, but it feels like I put my life on hold to be here, y’know?”
Becka seemed to freeze, and I watched as the emotions flickered across her face. I rolled my eyes.
“Say what you’re gonna say, Becka.”
She put down her brush and focused on the screen, uncaring of her half-done look.
“I hear you,” she said, clearly choosing her words, “and I think you’re right.
Stop looking so surprised. What you and the idol- Jihoon,” she corrected, “have is real. And I think he’s good for you.
Seriously, close your mouth, it isn’t that shocking.
But I also can’t help questioning if what you were doing in Korea was for you – or him. No, hold up, let me finish.”
I’d opened my mouth, the words readying to fall off my tongue, but I choked the automatic defence back, and let her continue.
“I know he’s enough for you, and I love him for you, but I love you for you more. I know you don’t wanna hear this, but ENT was just a bigger Pisces. You weren’t figuring your shit out there, anymore than you were here in LA. Am I wrong?”
All the arguments I’d had to bite back just moments ago fled, because no. She wasn’t wrong, and I didn’t have the energy to pretend otherwise. Besides, hadn’t I said the exact, same thing?
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to figure my shit out in Cumbria, either.” I sighed.
“The where isn’t the problem, babes,” Becka said, picking up her mascara and looking away. “It’s you.”
I snorted. “Did you just call me a problem?”
Becka waved the mascara wand dismissively. “I’ve called you worse. What I meant is that now you’re there, unemployed-”
“Thanks for the reminder,” I muttered.
“And on your own,” she went on, ignoring me.
“Thanks, again.”
“You have the liberty to reflect inwards, y’know? Use this time to figure out what you want. Where you see yourself in five years, doing what. Y’know – all the shit they told us to reflect on in school.”
Becka finished her lashes and turned to the screen, looking thoughtful.
“This is probably good timing, actually.”
“A looming health crisis and cancer treatment is ‘good timing’?”
“Shut up, smart-ass.” She flicked her fingers at the screen. “You know what I mean. You’re home, in the bosom of your family-”
“Only one bosom, really,”
Becka choked on a gasp, holding her hand over her mouth while I laughed.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Becka wheezed.
I didn’t bother to tell her the many, many dark-humoured jabs my Mum had been coming out with recently. Becka was wry, but I didn’t think she was dark-British-humour wry. Dad hated it, but we both knew it was just Mum’s way of coping.
I waved Becka’s outrage away.
“I jest, I jest. You were saying?” I schooled my expression back to neutral, still enjoying the play of emotions across my best friend’s face.
“Anyway,” she said loudly, “what I was saying… fuck, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. What I was going to say was that now you’re home, no work to distract you, no, well…”
“Boyfriend,” I finished for her. “And we’re still together, just to be clear,” I said, a touch defensively.
Becka sighed. “Fine. I’m just saying that you have the space to focus only on you. You’ve not had that for… maybe ever.”
I frowned, Becka had a point. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d just thought about what I wanted for myself. For the past few years I’d segued from school, to university, to a job in the industry I’d spent years telling myself I wanted to work in, to Korea and… Jihoon.
“See?” Becka said, with not a small amount of triumph. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
I blew out a breath. “You’re not wrong.”
Becka just blew me a kiss.
“I bloody said it,” Dad fumed. “Didn’t I bloody say it?”
Mum just hushed him as he settled onto the sofa beside her, handing her a cup of camomile tea.
We were all sat in the living room, watching the telly.
Earlier in the day, there had been an announcement on the radio that the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was going to address the nation. Even though we all sort of knew what he was about to say, the words still sent a chill down my spine.
“From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction – you must stay at home.”
Dad was quietly ranting, but as I sat there, watching the end-times be televised, all I could think was that this was the kind of thing I used to read about in young-adult dystopian novels.
Hopefully this didn’t mean a horde of zombies were about to come trundling down the street, because we were running decidedly short on coffee, and I didn’t think we owned a machete.
“You alright, love?” Mum’s voice broke me out of my colourful imaginings, and I looked over to her.
“Mm? Yeah, just daydreaming.”
“Hopefully something more cheerful than this,” she joked.
I refocused my attention on the screen, and we all watched in silence, listening to the Prime Minister try to reassure the nation.
My attention drifted away from the UK, all the way to Korea.
What would this mean for travel? When would I be able to fly again?
And then I felt selfish for even considering that, instead of my mum.
She out of everyone I knew would be most heavily impacted by this, even though we’d had some preparation from her medical team. We’d known this was a possibility.
“We knew this would happen, love,” Mum said, talking to my dad. She reached across and took my hand.
The papers had been speculating about a national lockdown for weeks, and Mum’s oncology team had been adamant it would happen.
But despite all the warnings, hearing it was different. It felt like the plot to a book I hadn’t realised I was reading.
“We’ll be alright,” Mum said calmly.
I wanted her to be right, but wanting anything right now felt like asking for too much.