Chapter Twenty-Five
As awful as it sounded while contemplating it in her head, she wondered if she made a mistake as she watched Marin drive away the next morning. If that lump was really something–if this was all the time she had left–why shouldn’t she spend it with the woman who knew her best?
She was too good for that, right? She was too mature to use someone just to not be alone in the end–just to not have to spend what could be a numbered amount of nights in an empty bed–or through a sickness that might take her body. Right?
As they slept in each other’s arms, they finally got the closure they both deserved. They said everything they were holding back–decades of wants and needs unmet–an entire outline of what they should have done.
This time Marin left for the right reasons, and that was okay. For the first time, Julia knew she would be okay. She knew there was no extension of herself within another being. She didn’t need her breath to continue breathing herself. Maybe she’d been okay for a long time. Maybe the cuts started healing long before she noticed the tug of scarred skin.
She stood in the entryway, staring out at the empty driveway. Tire tracks traced Marin’s departure. She wrapped her robe tighter around her body, noticing all at once how tired she actually was. Then her phone rang.
A moment of fleeting panic gripped her circulatory system as she picked it up–too afraid that her doctor’s name would appear across the screen–too afraid that it might not be her.
A sigh of relief escaped as she read Keegan’s name across her phone.
“Hello?”
“Jesus!” Keegan exclaimed. “You’re alive!”
“Oh, stop.”
“I’m serious. Do you know how worried I’ve been?”
“Why? Everyone gets sick. I just need a few days to recoup.”
“Recoup? Julia, you’ve come to the school with the flu, barely able to stand, and hid in your office fully available on Zoom if anyone needed you. That one time, you had your appendix removed in the morning and made it to the board meeting by afternoon. You don’t take sick days.”
“This is an especially draining bug,” she lied. “I’m still not feeling well, but I’ll be in shortly.”
“For the record,” she coughed playfully, “I know you’re lying. But get your butt in anyways. I need to see for myself.”
“Be there soon.” Julia smiled. She missed that voice, that fun banter, the feeling of family.
“Later, boss.”
Julia got dressed–putting on the long navy dress she didn’t wear the day before. Even though so much was twisted in knots within her, she could at least look presentable. Fake it till you make it.
She scanned her ID badge and entered the building. She nodded and smiled at various welcome backs and I hope you feel betters. Surely her absence wasn’t that noticeable. KHS was a well-oiled machine and could work independently of the administrators if it had to. She made sure of that.
She opened the door of the office and Keegan jumped up. She lunged for her, arms wide in an anticipated embrace. Just before making contact, she froze.
“Wait? You’re not contagious, are you?”
“No,” Julia laughed, and then she was tackled and squeezed. Keegan rocked her back and forth, her face buried in Julia’s sandy hair.
“I’m so happy you’re okay,” she said with a smile, and then grunted as she pulled back. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks.” Julia grinned. “What a compliment! I told you this thing is kicking my butt.” That wasn’t a lie, not really.
“I honestly thought you were just hiding away.”
They both began walking towards Julia’s office, Keegan not taking her eyes off of her.
“Why would I need to hide away?”
Julia took off her jacket and began straightening her dress in the mirror behind the door. She took a seat at the desk. Newspapers piled inches high accumulated while she was gone.
Keegan closed the door but didn’t sit down. She stood in front of the mirror, her eyebrows furrowed.
“You really scared me,” she admitted. “I thought you were disappearing again.”
“Disappearing?” Julia scoffed quietly.
“You know, what you do when things get to be too much,” she said and smiled softly, her eyes narrowing as if to accentuate that Julia knew what she was referring to.
“I don’t do that.”
“You withdraw.” She couldn’t really argue with that point. “You practice avoidance like it is your job.”
“I think that’s a little stretch of the truth,” Julia chuckled. Keegan just cocked her head in defiance, that scorn written across her face. “Alright, alright.”
“So, you worried me.”
“I’m sorry I worried you. I am truly just not feeling well.” With the tiredness in her eyes, her froggy voice, and sluggish movements, there was no way Keegan couldn’t believe her.
“I can tell, but would you let me know if you’re not okay for some reason?” Her voice was a beg. “Would you please rely on me? Like you used to?”
“I will tell you everything at the end of the day,” Julia replied with a smile.
Guilt crept into her stomach–a payment for pushing someone who cared so much about her away. Keegan didn’t deserve that. No one did.
“I promise,” she added.
Keegan smiled and left quietly–the room oddly full even after she left. Julia propped her phone up in front of her laptop screen. She didn’t want to miss a call from Dr. Rosel if it came through.
She looked at the piles of notes on her desk. Someone would assume she was gone for a month, not just a few days. Just figuring out where to start was an overwhelming task. Should it be the student referrals? Suspension plans? The latest substitute applications? Scheduling for next year?
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It doesn’t all have to be done today. It will take time, and that’s okay. It will be okay.
“Do you want to get dinner later?” Keegan popped back around the corner and the door opened with a flourish.
“That sounds really nice.”
“Chinese it is! It’s a date.”
Julia counted the minutes until the day was over, desperate to fall into some normalcy. She wanted the silly conversation, the inconsequential laughter over a joke that was never that funny. She wanted to hear about everything she missed and allow all of her worries to disappear behind a glass of cheap wine and bad Chinese food, just like they used to do after a hard Monday so many years ago.
They left work together and picked up dinner on the way home. They bought grocery store wine, just like they had when they were still professionally green and broke. They blared Adele over the stereo in the car, windows rolled down even though the breeze was frigid and tangling their hair. They shouted the lyrics and laughed until their stomach hurt, amused tears being wiped by damp jacket sleeves.
Once home, they each put on a pair of Julia’s sweatpants and sat on the floor around the coffee table. A Christmas Hallmark movie, way out of season, in the background as they ate with plastic forks.
“So, what was really going on?” Keegan asked, gurgling through a mouthful of beef lo mein. She twisted more noodles onto her fork and dropped them into her mouth from above. So graceful.
“I haven’t been feeling well,” Julia said once again, “honestly.”
“What triggered it?”
“I can’t just wake up one morning and not feel like?”
“Your appendix, Julia,” she argued sternly, “almost burst inside you and after being cut open, you still showed up. No, you don’t just wake up and say you’re not feeling well and call into work.” She picked up her wine and took a sip. “Ah!” she choked, coughing on the liquid. “I don’t know how we used to drink this.”
“Doesn’t it bring you back?” Julia laughed, wincing at the awful sweetness as she took a sip of her own. She paused for a moment, and let Keegan compose herself. “I found a lump under my breast.”
Keegan dropped her fork full of soggy beef to the carpet.
“Shit!” She reached for a napkin and began damage control.
“It’s okay,” Julia said, casually walking to the sink to wet a cloth. “I’ll scrub it later.”
“No, it’s not okay!” Keegan scrubbed furiously at the fluffy rug, her napkin disintegrating the harder she rubbed. Julia sat back down next to her and placed a hand over hers.
“I’ll get it later.”
“Well,” she said abruptly, whipping her head around, “did they say what it was? What’s the plan? When is the next appointment so I can get time off approved? Well, that should be easy since you’re the one who has to approve it. We need to–”
“Keegs, you’re rambling,” Julia smirked.
Anytime Keegan was nervous, which wasn’t often, she would talk and talk until there was no silence left to fill.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I’m still waiting to hear back about whether it is anything at all.”
“When did this all happen?” she asked, pushing her food far across the table and gulping the rest of her wine.
“This weekend,” Julia shrugged. “I had the imaging done Monday, and now it is just the waiting game.”
“That’s not right!” Keegan reached for the bottle and slopped more into her glass, almost staining another part of the rug. “They can’t just leave you in the dark about something like this! And you didn’t tell me? It’s been that long, and you didn’t tell me? How could you keep this from me?”
“There are a lot of people with a lot of different medical needs,” Julia said very diplomatically. “So, it may take a little time. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Julia wished she believed that last part, but something inside her was setting her up for bad news. Something inside her was telling her it wasn’t nothing.
“I don’t know why you kept this from me.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Julia apologetically pulled her hand to her forehead. “I just didn’t want to worry you over a little scare. It could come back as nothing, and then there would’ve been no need for alarm.”
“But even if it is nothing, you should have someone with you. Did you call anyone?”
“Who would I call?” Julia laughed. “You’re my person.”
“As much as I love to hear that,” she grinned, “there are other people who love you.”
“Like?”
“Your mom–”
“And have Veronica randomly show up here, in a concerned state, nonetheless? I don’t think so!” Julia snorted. “There’s not enough prosecco or Xanax in the world.”
“You could have called Erin,” Keegan suggested next.
Julia thought about it. The second she felt that little swell, she went into panic mode, and the only thing she could hold on to was her last feeling of peace, which was Erin. Every bit of her being brought peace to Julia’s soul.
“That’s a little bit much to put on a new-ish friend.”
“She’s just a friend?” Keegan gave her the side eye. “Really?” Julia nodded and then Keegan’s expression changed as if she was about to jump across the space between them to throttle her. “When are you going to be honest with yourself? Anyone with two eyes can tell you’re more than just friends.”
“Maybe she’s more,” she reluctantly admitted. Keegan just gave her that look. “Okay! Fine! She means a lot more to me.” She flashed Julia a soft smile. “It doesn’t matter. After the Lauren debacle, she doesn’t want to see me. She’s leaving in a few weeks anyways.”
“Okay, let’s unpack this one by one.” Keegan leaned on her knees, regretfully taking another sip of that awful wine. She grimaced and Julia fought back a chuckle. “What happened that night at Rosana’s?”
“Well, we have to go back even further to explain that.”
“How much have you kept from me, woman!”
“Okay, okay!” She held up her hands in defense. “I can’t explain a lot of it. Erin and I–” she trailed off. “We just have this–” she trailed off again. “We just kept–” and then again. “I don’t know what I’m saying!”
“There were sparks,” Keegan clarified.
“Yes.”
“Over and over?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you two do about it?”
“Nothing!” Julia shouted, as if she was caught doing something wrong. “I mean, besides that moment I told you about, I kept my distance.”
“Julia, you’re an adult. You’re allowed to like someone. Did we have this conversation about Erin already? It sounds familiar.”
“Ha ha ha,” she laughed sarcastically. “I know, but we couldn’t because of work. It would have been too complicated.”
“Only because you were making it complicated,” she argued. “So, what happened that night?”
“Erin walked out because I was there with Lauren when I refused all of her advances before that. I was there with someone else after finally letting go of all my inhibitions and kissed her. We didn’t talk about it after, or discuss what it meant. After feeling that damn lump, I kind of dropped off the face of the Earth.”
“Oof,” Keegan sighed. “You did fuck up.”
“I know!” Julia groaned, falling backwards onto the rug. “As my best friend, aren’t you supposed to support me and tell me this is all in my head? That I didn’t mess anything up? That I still have time to fix this?”
“Missed that memo.”
“Ugh!”
“By the way,” Keegan said reluctantly, “she doesn’t have weeks left.”
“What?” Julia asked, abruptly sitting up and pulling unused muscles in her back.
“She doesn’t have weeks left,” she repeated.
“She was contracted at KHS until the end of April.”
“Yes, she was,” she said as she nodded, “but she finished her reports while you were out. She’s been working day and night. They’re allowing her to complete the evaluation and leave early. This is her last week.”
Julia felt her chest grow heavy, weighed down with the consequences of her actions, or inactions for that matter. She thought she had time, time for what she didn’t know.
She pushed her food away, and Keegan studied her expression.
“She didn’t tell you?”
“I haven’t reached out to her. I did what I always do.”
“What did you do?” It wasn’t an accusatory question, but more of a heartfelt, outreached hand.
“I ignored life! I couldn’t follow through with whatever was promised at that moment when I kissed her. I was too stupid to tell her how I felt when she was standing before me in front of that restaurant. She begged me to. She was so hurt, and I let her go. I let her go thinking that I felt nothing for her.” Julia’s face was warm with embarrassment, but she blamed it on the grape juice they were drinking–a weak impersonation of wine. “She deserves better.”
“Julia!” Keegan gasped. Julia jumped at the sudden raise in anger and sound. “Julia Jenner, you led her on, had an altercation, and then just left her like that?”
She stood up in defense. “I would have heard her voice, even if it was over the phone, and not known what to say. If I saw her face again, I would have gotten lost in her stupidly beautiful eyes and not known what to say. I can’t get a thought out around her! I can’t tell her the truth because she’s leaving.” She sighed, loud and long. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not dragging her into the mess that is me.”
“Do you hear yourself?” she asked quietly. “You can’t talk to her without falling into, and I quote, those ‘stupidly beautiful eyes’?”
“Yes,” Julia answered hesitantly, eyes narrowed, wondering what trap she was about to plunge into.
“I’m going to say it again in other words.” She paraphrased, “you can’t tell her how you really feel because you don’t want to drag her into the mess that you think is yourself–which is crap by the way–but you can’t stop thinking about her?”
Julia didn’t respond that time. That’s not what she meant. That wasn’t the situation at all. Right? Erin just had this air about her–anyone would get sucked in. Right? She just wanted to take the easy way out. It had nothing to do with having feelings for her or anything else. Right?
Shit.
“You should tell her,” sighed Keegan. “It isn’t fair how you’ve handled things.”
“I know.” Julia slumped to the floor, burying her face in her hands. “I know. I feel like I can’t do anything right these days!”
Keegan scooched over and laid her head on Julia’s shoulders.
“You’ve been dealing with a lot for a long time,” she said sympathetically, “and I think you’re afraid to go after what might actually make you happy.”
“I’m not falling for her,” Julia said softly.
“I never said you were–”
“I’ve fallen for her,” Julia corrected.
Keegan lifted her head just slighting, staring at her–blank expression and wide eyes–as if the words would materialize before her.
“I’ve fallen for her harder than I ever thought possible.”
Keegan didn’t know what to say. Julia looked like she was about to panic, about to take it all back and blame it on the shitty wine.
“Say something!” she begged.
Keegan wrapped her arms around her, squeezing her face into her chest.
“I’m so, so proud of you,” she said smiling into her hair. When she let go, she added, “when are you going to tell her?”
“I can’t tell her.” Julia shook her head. “Weren’t you listening to that grape juice fueled, emotional outburst? She’s leaving. She has a life to get back to.”
“What if she doesn’t want what she already has?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if she isn’t as content as you think? What if she wants something different too? Is it any more fair that you’re not giving her the choice than it was for Marin to make her choice without you?” Keegan tiptoed across the last question, well aware it was a risky move. Julia didn’t even notice. She was too lost in that unimaginable imagination.
“I–”
“Everyone can see it,” she said sweetly. “Everyone can see how you two fit together. Even from the beginning, you weren’t strangers. You fell into something that I can’t even describe, something that I can’t even compare to.” Keegan gave a little chuckle with the last sentence, as if she couldn’t believe a young brunette could steal her best friend away.
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.” Keegan’s voice was a breathy sigh. “I think you knew. No sane person couldn’t.”
“Maybe I’m not sane,” Julia joked.
“Maybe you’re just stubborn,” she retorted. “It’s okay to want happiness.”
“But what if it doesn’t last? What if we jump off the cliff together and then it’s all gone when she leaves?”
“Then, at least you jumped off a cliff at least once in your life,” she replied with a smile. “Then, at least for one more week, you weren’t alone.” She whispered, her voice slightly trembling, “sometimes it’s worth the risk.”
And just then Julia’s phone buzzed from the deep pocket in her sweats. The sound of the piano ringtone filled the air. She looked up at Keegan, both too afraid to move or pick it up, too afraid of what news might be on the other side.
Julia pulled it out of her pocket slowly and stared at her doctor’s name across the screen. It buzzed in her hands, sending tingles to her fingertips and up her arm. The noise plucked at her ears like a squawking bird too early in the morning. The screen was cold as she slid her thumb across to answer.
“Hello?” her voice shook.
“Julia, how are you doing?” Dr. Rosel’s voice squeaked through the speaker.
“Fantastic. Did you get the results?” She couldn’t waste another second if she didn’t have it to give.
“We did, Julia,” her voice spoke so slowly, excruciatingly slowly. “It looks benign.”
Julia couldn’t help as tears filled her eyes and streamed down her face. She silently grabbed her stomach as she leaned forward into her lap. Keegan hugged her back, squeezing her harder than ever before.
“Based on our findings so far,” Dr. Rosel continued, “it’s a harmless cyst. We’ll need more tests to really know and determine the best route of action. We’ll recommend removal at another point.”
“Woohoo!” Keegan shouted in the background.
Julia sat up and with her sleeve, wiped her never-ending stream of tears from her face.
“Thank you, Dr. Rosel,” she cried. “Thank you.”
“Listen,” Julia could tell she was smiling on the other side, “we’re out of the woods for now. You can sleep a little better tonight.”
“Thank you.” Julia broke into even deeper sobs as she hung up the phone.
She cried into her lap as Keegan clung onto her from behind. They both allowed tears to stream down their face, pooling in salty puddles around them as they rocked to the melody of their cries.
She was overwhelmed with so many emotions. There was the momentary disappointment–one she’d never admit aloud. For just a second, she found her wondering if maybe she was gone–maybe if she didn’t have the time to touch or ruin anyone else’s lives–the pain she held inside would cease. She thought that maybe it would be the best that way, to be remembered and loved as the person she was and not the shell of a woman she became.
But then there was relief–a moment of needle pricking awareness that spread throughout her body like lightning striking a tree. It started in her face and traveled to her chest, down her arms, and across her stomach until it tickled her toes. She never wanted to die, never wanted the blackness to swallow her entirely. She’s only just started finding the best parts of herself again.
When Marin walked out, she only survived by convincing herself that all her problems walked out that door. She told herself it was for the best, that she was better off alone. But her problems stayed behind with her in the quicksand.
Those few days of stagnant thoughts around the thought that she might not get the chance for anything else, she realized she wasn’t anywhere near her finish line. She thought she knew what she wanted–the life she worked so hard for–but she didn’t. There was so, so much more.
There was Erin.
After Keegan left, Julia sat on her bed, phone in hand. She clicked the dial button and listened to the buzzing in her ears. She wasn’t going to tell her the entire ordeal she’s gone through the last few months. She just needed to hear her voice.
“Hello, darling,” Veronica’s voice chimed.
“Hi, mom,” Julia said, tears still in her eyes and threatening to duplicate. “I just wanted to check in and see how your week has been.”