Everything Left Unsaid (11 page)

SPRING

September

It hasn’t even been a week before I go to visit Tai in the hospital, but it feels like forever. I’m nervous as I walk towards the hospital entrance, because I don’t know what to expect.

He’s thinner, paler, and seems different somehow. But he’s smiling at me as I come in the door, opening up his arms to me. I ask him how he is and he tells me about the old guy who walks around at night completely starkers, and the nurse who talks to him about her kids while he tries to pee into a bottle. He smiles blearily and I realise that he’s doped up on painkillers.

‘Morphine. Good stuff.’ He’s seen me looking atthe IV.

‘Yeah?’

‘
Yeah. Fan-fucking-tastic.’
It’s a slow, lazy exhale, matching his grin.

I start visiting Tai every day, either at night or in between the last of our mid-semester exams, and he seems to like the distraction from the tedium of hospital. One day I go straight there from a biology exam that was so bad I’m ready to run away and join the circus, and I’ve almost burst into his hospital room when I hear someone inside talking to him. It sounds like a doctor, and I figure he won’t want me coming into the room, so I sit outside and listen without meaning to.

‘You seem very angry, Tai,’ this guy is saying in an irritatingly calm voice.

‘Of course I’m angry.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘What do you want me to tell you? That they’ve cut my skull in half and my little brothers don’t want to visit because they’re scared of how I look? That I’ve only just been allowed to get out of bed to take a piss? And this is the beginning, only the fucking
beginning
, of a treatment that’s never going to work. All my friends are fishing and partying and getting their licences and I’m getting patted on the back for swallowing my pills like a good boy. Of course I’m fucking angry.’

I’ve heard enough. I get up and wander down to the coffee machine and buy a cup of coffee so crappy they should pay me to drink it rather than the other way round. When I get back to Tai’s room the doctor has gone so I go in, smiling, trying to hide the cold shakiness overhearing that conversation has left me with. I wanted to tell him about the driving lessons I’ve started, but I can’t now so I talk about the crappy coffee, instead.

• • •

It’s another week before Tai’s told that he can go home. He looks better now – not completely well, but better than he did right after the surgery – and I’d find that comforting except the doctors have warned us it will be like this. He’ll be as good as new, or almost, when he’s had a chance to recover from the surgery – until the tumour starts to grow back.

There are some noticeable differences from the old Tai, though. He’s quieter now. Quieter and tireder. And the lack of coordination the doctor warned him about is beginning to show. Uneven footpaths have become dangerous territory, staircases the enemy. He finds excuses to avoid going outside so I’m surprised when one evening he nudges me and says, ‘Beach walk?’

His olds look absurdly pleased when he tells them where we’re going, and though I know it’s because this means Tai has improved, I almost wish they’d throw in a lecture on sex and drugs, just for normality. Tai’s almost bouncy as we walk down the street, and I stare, though I’m trying not to. When we get to the beach he takes off his shoes, rolls up his pants, and walks into the water. He turns and grins at me, ‘Come in.’

I walk down to the water and tentatively stick a toe in. The season might’ve changed but the water is still icy. ‘Don’t sharks feed at night?’ I ask.

‘Nah. And besides, what’s the worst that could happen? I die before the ten months is up?’

‘I thought you said it was twelve months?’

‘That was their guess a couple of months ago. So I guess we’re down to ten months now.’ He smiles like it doesn’t matter.

I open my mouth to say . . . what? I stare up at the inky sky instead.
Oh god. Oh, Tai. You have no idea how sorry I am
.

He shrugs, trying to be careless but missing somehow.

‘On the bright side, they say this is the healthiest I’ll ever feel again, so we’d better make the most of it, right?’

I wade into the water beside Tai, wrap my arms around him. ‘We will,’ I promise.

We linger at the beach. It’s Friday night, so my curfew has been temporarily lifted. I head back to Tai’s place with him to grab my stuff before going home, and when we walk in the door Mia’s standing in the kitchen, holding two bits of paper up in the air.

‘Which one do you like better, Tai?’

‘Uh, they both look the same. What are you doing?’

‘Trying to choose the paper for your birthday party invitations.’

‘Right. You do know that’s not for, like, another month.’

‘Exactly.’ Mia pulls a face at him. ‘What do you think, Juliet?’

‘Um, the left one. Definitely the left one.’

‘You think so too!’ Mia beams and I look over at Tai, who’s shaking his head in disbelief. We go to the front door and Tai kisses me goodnight.

• • •

The next day I go to Gen’s in the morning, and we get ready to go into the city, shopping for formal dresses. While we’re doing our hair she tells me about this guy Lina’s obsessed with, someone she kissed at a party and practically wants to marry now. Gen reckons that Lina watched too many Disney movies as a child. Gen’s had a handful of boyfriends whose mums have all disliked her piercings and claimed she’s a Bad Influence. Gen thinks the whole thing is hilarious and has declared that dating high school guys is a waste of time. Her dad is relieved she doesn’t have a boyfriend because he doesn’t want to talk to her about sex and she’s pretty keen to avoid that too. As she’s threading her fingers through clumps of knotty black hair, Gen looks up at me.

‘Have you and Tai . . . you know?’

I know, all right. ‘Not yet. I just . . . It doesn’t feel right yet.’

Gen ponders that for a second, then nods. ‘Good for you.’

Her dad drives us into the city, cursing at the roadworks and the bus drivers who don’t look before pulling out into the traffic, making everyone slam on their brakes. We wander from store to store, looking through racks and racks of formal dresses, trailing our fingers along them.

‘It would be so much easier to be a guy,’ I say, pointing at something traffic-cone orange and covered in ruffles.

‘Yeah, I know. Hire a suit and pick a tie colour. Done in – what? Ten minutes? Easy. Hey, how about this one?’ Gen grins and points at another dress, green and shiny.

‘Um, maybe if I was a mermaid? With some seaweed in my hair or something?’ I pull a face. ‘Hey, who are you going with?’

‘I don’t know,’ she shrugs. ‘I keep hoping someone will ask so I don’t have to think about it. Not someone horrible, though. You’re lucky, you know you’re going with Tai.’

‘I don’t,’ I admit. ‘I don’t know if he’ll be in hospital then, or what.’

Gen nods sympathetically, but we’re both kind of glad when a sales assistant comes over and interrupts us.

‘Anyway,’ I say, when the assistant has gone, ‘I’m more worried about what to get him for his birthday. It has to be special, you know? But everything I think of is lame.’

‘So why don’t you just ask him what he wants?’ Gen suggests. ‘Go on – text him now.’ I do, and when my phone beeps we both dive to open it.

A road trip. Okay. Maybe without the road part. But you and me, on holiday somewhere. Anywhere. No parents. No doctors. Just us.

After I’ve read the text I look at Gen, speechless. ‘How am I supposed to get that? Our parents will never let us. Jesus, Tai.’

Gen thinks for a minute. ‘Schoolies. It’s the perfect excuse for the two of you to go away together.

‘Yeah, except Tai barely shows up to school now.’

‘Yeah, but he did for, like, eleven years before that. He deserves schoolies. Didn’t you guys book, anyway?’

‘Nah, we were going to get one of those last-minute deals, remember? But then Tai got sick and we forgot.’

‘Yeah, well . . . serves you right for picking Tai over us.’ She’s teasing. ‘You guys can’t even crash with us now – we got a one-bedroom place and I’m totally not sharing the lounge with you two.’

A sense of defeat begins to overwhelm me. ‘This is impossible, Gen. How am I supposed to do this?’

Gen thinks for a second, then smiles. ‘Absent father guilt, baby.’

• • •

Two days later I’m sitting on the kitchen bench at Dad’s, explaining to him how when Tai got sick we forgot to look, and now we can’t afford anything that hasn’t already been booked out.

Tina comes in halfway through my little speech, dumps her shopping bags on the bench and listens. Just for her I add a bit about how Mum doesn’t understand – she doesn’t even remember what it’s like to be a teenager. Dad self-consciously runs his hand through the latest grey patch in his hair, before muttering, ‘It wasn’t
that
long ago.’

I sigh, and Tina says, ‘You should arrange their accommodation, Mark. Don’t you remember being that age? Juliet’s a good girl. And Tai’s . . .
you know
. Go on. Let them have their fun. Don’t you have a friend with a holiday unit down the coast?’

When Dad grudgingly agrees, I begin to think I’ve underestimated Tina. I even agree to let her take me shopping before we go, and she gets dorkily excited about it. I so want to ring Tai and tell him, but I make myself wait, desperate to keep the secret until his birthday.