Chapter 36 ’Tis but a scratch, just an ego bruise
’Tis but a scratch, just an ego bruise
I ended up in front of the house that I have so many memories attached to. All the drunken nights, staying for tea, watching trashy reality. Everything that stopped, but everyone always knew that one day I would be right in front of this door.
It was only a matter of time before we stepped into each other’s arms again.
‘What happened, chicken?’ Sashka’s hand is stroking over my head.
‘You will find humour in this, I hope. Toby broke up with me.’ I wipe my nose with my hand, remembering her doing the same at my door.
‘What?’ Her eyes widen, looking around to see whether there are hidden cameras.
She sits me down in her kitchen, preps a plate of Ukrainian sweets—shipuchka hard candies with their fizzing centres, poppy seed buns, korivka caramels, and Evening Kyiv chocolates—and a shot glass of chilli pepper vodka. It burns on the way down, but it loosens my tongue to spill out of my heart.
I tell her everything, about what we did, who I was with him. About the daunting charity swim that I’m meant to do soon that we said we would do together. She pours me more, and I let her know that I love him and that he really made me believe that he loved me too.
‘Men are fucking pigs. I hate him,’ I grumble into a sweet wrapper, as I finish the last one of the Kyiv chocolates.
‘They so are,’ Sashka says with a supportive best friend’s zhoosh that deflates when she says, ‘I just don’t see Toby doing that.’
‘Well, he fucking did. This is what I get for trying. I could have been so much better without him.’
‘So much better, girl!’ She does it again and then pours me tea. ‘But maybe there is a different explanation to this.’
‘Sashka! You are not doing our break-up ritual properly. It’s like your head is not in it.’
‘I’m sorry! I just...’ She looks out the window of her absolutely beautiful period kitchen. ‘It doesn’t make sense to me. You two were going to make it. He was the one that convinced me.’
‘Well, he is a bloody liar and a fucking prick.’ I don’t know why I am getting angry at her over not fully supporting my emotional breakdown.
‘No, you don’t get it, Fuko. The way you spoke about him earlier was the way he spoke about you. Something must have happened. Maybe his parents have a lot more pull than what he said to you.’
‘Who cares? He broke up with me. There is no future for us. This is it.’
‘I care! I care about you, Fuko. I think he was good for you.’
‘This is not what you’re supposed to say.
You need to tell me he was a dog, that I will be better off without him, that he was a bum and I’m too pretty for him, anyway.
’ My voice breaks. ‘You have to say those things, because I also think that we would have worked out, and he was good for me, and I need someone to tell me that this is not the end for me, even though right this moment I don’t know what I am meant to do without him. ’
There is a beat when Sashka’s gaze softens, like when you see an abandoned puppy on the road that you know needs some warmth to calm down.
‘You will be fine without him.’ Her voice is gentle.
‘I know.’
‘You deserve better than this.’
‘Yes, exactly.’
‘He is the biggest idiot for letting you go.’
I cry into the table, hiding my face with my elbows. When a phone rings, my phone lights up with a number I haven’t seen before.
‘Hel-lo,’ I whimper in between syllables.
‘Is this Fuko?’ a female voice at the end of the line asks. She sounds somewhat familiar.
‘Yes?’ I put her on speaker.
‘This is Chloe, Toby’s friend.’
‘Oh, uh, hi,’ I say, and Sashka makes a face at me.
What are you doing?
I don’t know. Why is she calling me?
‘So, uh, I don’t know how to say this. I got this number from Toby’s phone when he wasn’t looking.’
I hold my breath. Is she with Toby? Is she with with Toby? How long has she had feelings for him? How long did he have feelings for her?
‘Yes?’ is all I say.
‘Toby didn’t tell you the whole reason today, did he?’
‘For ripping my heart out of my chest and tossing it into a shredder?’ I deadpan and get a slap behind the head.
Stop being pathetic! Sashka waves her hands.
I’m just being honest. I shrug
‘Well, he told me. I’m breaking some friendship ground rules, as I have promised not to tell anyone. You there?’
‘Yes, I am listening.’ I am just completely still.
‘So, a couple of months ago, right before his trip to Japan...’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Toby was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Very early stage, very curable.’
Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Toby has Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He’s had it the entire time I’ve known him and hasn’t said a word. When your mum dies of cancer, you look up which cancers she could have had and survived. He has such unbelievable luck, that even when he gets cancer he gets the most curable one.
‘He has HL?’ My voice shakes, sounding foreign to me.
‘Yes.’
‘Is he getting treatment?’
‘That’s the golden question—no. He refuses to.’
‘What?’ I look at Sashka. She is sharing my reaction.
‘Exactly. I don’t understand his thinking.
He said something along the lines of maybe that’s how he is meant to go.
I called him a fucking idiot. We got into a massive spat and have been on really bad terms since.
I was really annoyed at him for starting a serious relationship and refusing to get treatment. I thought it was really selfish.’
‘What the fuck,’ Sashka mouths.
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘He got really drunk and said that he saw the picture of your mother in the hospital, and you looked so sad that he didn’t think he could do that to you again.’
Great. I knew the family pictures were a bad idea.
‘But...’ I try to find words. ‘If he just...’
‘If he just gets treatment, he might have a good long life? Yeah. I have told him that many times. And today it felt like this was the first time he listened.’
‘So, what do you want me to do?’
‘I...’ She goes quiet. ‘I think that the only person that can convince him to stay and get better—is you.’
She hangs up. Sashka runs from her seat and locks me into the tightest hug.
What the fuck am I meant to do with this information?