Chapter Twenty-Six Julian
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
JULIAN
Nomi?” I knock on the restroom door. “Can I come in?”
“No!” Nomi’s voice is thick and muddy from tears. “I’m fine! I just want to be alone.”
Down the hall by the exit, the security guard eyes me warily. City Hall rapidly emptied after the zoning commission announced its decision, and it’s late. “We have to go,” I say gently. “The guards are waiting for us to leave so they can lock up and go home.”
The soft sound of her sobbing creeps around the door’s edges, melting my insides like acid.
I burn with the shame of it all, knowing I started this, I’m the reason she’s in there crying, and it’s my fault that her dreams are falling apart.
I never understood why she dropped out of school our senior year and abandoned her ambitious plans for the future.
I still don’t, to be honest. But I do understand she replaced all that with this different dream of helping people, of having fun, of living a slower, quieter life, and I’ve ruined it.
“I can’t leave yet. You go.”
“I’m not leaving you, Nomi.” I knock on the door again, even though the rough texture hurts my knuckles. Maybe because it does.
“You don’t get it. I want you to leave,” Nomi says, her voice suddenly iron.
It knocks the air out of me. I stumble back, understanding now.
She won’t leave until I do, because…
She doesn’t want to see me.
I swallow, the knot in my throat horrible and sharp.
“I—okay. I’ll go. I’ll tell the guards you’ll be right out.” I slide my palm down the door one last time. “I’m so sorry, Nomi.”
I walk away, dread weighing down each footfall as I enter the August night. When I get inside my car, I rest my forehead against the steering wheel, more defeated than I can ever remember. How will Nomi forgive me? I’ve failed.
When morning comes, I let it pass me by.
I don’t get up to run, or make coffee, or shower.
I lie in my bed, the weight of my fuckups pressing the air out of my chest. When my phone buzzes on the nightstand, I lunge for it, but it’s not Nomi answering the many texts I sent her last night, asking if she was okay, if she made it home, if we could talk.
MOM
Aunt Edna passed in her sleep last night, honey.
I stare at the words, willing them to reorganize, to mean literally anything else. It feels like a punch, delivered to my throat. My eyes burn, and I squeeze them tightly closed against today. Against these feelings drowning me, making it hard to breathe.
JULIAN
Oh, Mom. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?
MOM
Hospice came and handled everything. I’m okay. Just terribly, terribly sad.
JULIAN
I’ll be right there.
The loss feels like regret. Sad and heavy, a circular train of thoughts and feelings looping through me ad nauseam.
Regret that Aunt Edna is gone. Regret that the world lost such a person.
Regret that death comes for everyone. Regret that I can’t stop it.
Regret that having someone wonderful means that, one day, we don’t get to have them anymore.
Even though Edna knew the end was coming and had prepared accordingly, the days that follow are full of helping Mom execute her plans.
In lieu of a homily, Edna wanted us to share her favorite stories—the time she punched my Uncle Joseph in high school, when she met Neil Diamond backstage on her fiftieth birthday, when Krimpet, her beloved poodle mutt, caught an actual rabbit during the family Easter egg hunt and traumatized all the children.
During the after-party, we are to project a never-ending slideshow of all her favorite pictures separated by themes of her choosing, the most disturbing of which is Edna, the Sexy Years.
It’s so, so her, it feels like a last gift, a last joke.
I half expect there to be an item on her close-out list for me to loosen my butthole.
Nomi texts when she hears, telling me how sorry she is, asking if there’s anything she can do. She says nothing about how I’ve ruined her life, or how she never wants to see me again. She’s probably waiting until I’ve had time to grieve before ending things officially.
When the service begins, I scan the room for her, feeling guilty for caring so much about the state of us on Edna’s Big Day, which is what Edna wanted printed on the programs. But seeking her is a compulsion; every time I think her name, my eyes reflexively scan the room for her.
I haven’t stopped looking since I got here, and when I do find her, it feels like coming home.
Then remembering I’ve been evicted.
After the service, Nomi slips out of the church, and I all but tackle grieving family to get to her before she disappears.
“Nomi, wait!”
She turns, her face guilty and regretful, and it hurts almost as much as the rest of it.
Knowing that she feels bad for not wanting to be with me anymore.
Even though I deserve her anger, deserve this break-up, deserve her never talking to me again—she still feels bad.
I can’t seem to stop hurting her, can I?
“Julian, I’m so sorry about Edna. You know how much I loved her.” Her big, brown eyes are rimmed with red, and her face looks thinner, sharper than usual.
“She loved you, too.” How many times did Aunt Edna tell me Nomi was the one and not to fuck it up, and then I did just that? “Are you coming to Edna’s Big Party?”
“I wish I could, but—I can’t.”
My voice momentarily fails me, so I just nod, eyes welling as she turns and walks away.
“Nomi, please don’t go yet,” I say to her back, running to catch up.
“I know I fucked everything up, but I want to fix things between us.” She looks so small and forlorn before me, so badly in need of someone to care for her the way she cares for everyone else.
I bite my lips in, then blurt, “Come to Philly with me.”
“What?” She blinks.
“Move in with me, and I’ll handle everything.
We’ll get you out of the building lease, and you won’t have to pay rent or any bills while you get your life back on track.
We can make new dreams together, Nomi, just like we did in high school.
” I grasp both of her small, cool hands in mine.
“You could even go back to pharmacy school if you wanted—I’d support you through everything. ”
“Pharmacy school?” Color rises high on her cheekbones, her eyes clouding with suspicion. “What are you talking about?”
“You have options, Nomi. The dispensary didn’t work out, but there are so many other things you can do with your life. You’re brilliant and capable and ambitious.” My voice is pleading, begging for her to understand just how much I want to be there for her. “Let me help you figure out what’s next.
A long second passes, the church lawn emptying around us as guests head to the reception in Aunt Edna’s honor.
“You don’t want to help me—you want to fix me.” She pulls her hands from mine. “You want to turn me into some respectable version of myself you can bring to donor dinners for Philly Gen, someone worthy enough to be on your arm, who’ll fit perfectly into your life in Philadelphia.”
“No! I don’t want that! It’s just—Jesus, would it be so bad if you took a beat and explored another path?” I run my hands through hair, frustrated. “Or does it have to be weed?”
Nomi huffs out a small, angry laugh. “You know, I thought you finally saw me for who I am. But after all this time, you still like her best, don’t you?
Nomi the valedictorian, the one who was Ivy-league-bound with a bright future.
You wish I was her.” Nomi blinks, her eyes filling with tears.
“But that Nomi doesn’t exist anymore, and that’s how I like it!
I don’t want my worth to hinge on how prestigious my job is.
I want to be loved as I am, because I exist, because I have inherent value as a human being! Not because I went to fucking Yale!”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all!” I splutter. “I just don’t want to watch you self-destruct and waste away in Sparrow Nook when there’s so much else you can be doing with your life!”
Nomi’s eyes widen, and she takes a step back. “You think I’m like your dad, don’t you? Wasting my life here, smoking weed all day in my proverbial garage? Well, you don’t need to rescue me, Julian. I’m doing fine on my own!”
“Oh, sure, you’re doing so great, refusing to even consider another future for yourself while ignoring your own health!” I’m yelling now, my frustration tipping over into real anger.
Her mouth parts, forming a shocked O. “What are you talking about?”
With great effort, I force myself to breathe. “I saw your bloodwork, Nomi.”
“You looked at my medical records?” The hurt on her face is quickly swallowed by rage. “After I expressly told you not to, you—you didn’t listen?”
“I didn’t look on purpose! Because I ordered the bloodwork, it came to me first. The lab flagged it urgent because of the findings, and I reviewed it before I realized who it was for.
” I swallow back the anxiety clenching my throat.
“I didn’t look at anything else, Nomi, I promise, so I still don’t know what you’re facing.
Just please, let me help you. You’re sick.
” My voice cracks on the last word. “Your inflammatory markers are very high, and several values are significantly abnormal—”
Nomi’s eyes squeeze shut. “I can’t believe you didn’t listen to me.”
“Well, I can’t believe you, Nomi!” I bite my lips in, a barely contained hurricane of feeling thrashing inside of me. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
A dent forms between her brows. “We’ve only been seeing each other for a month—”
“We’ve known each other for years. I knew something was wrong—I’ve asked you over and over again if you’re okay, but you lied to me!
How bad is it, Nomi? You’ve been losing weight, barely eating, and you were obviously in pain at the zoning hearing.
Does Dr. Appa know how bad it’s gotten? Does anybody? ”