9. “Under love’s heavy burden do I sink”

9

"Under love's heavy burden do I sink"

Then

It was our junior year of high school. It had started to feel like maybe school would never end. Like life in Alabaster would never end. Like nothing major would ever happen or change and our lives would be the way they'd always been forever. That year, Romeo and I took to climbing out our windows and meeting in the park at night. Looking back, I have no idea why we found it necessary to sneak out. Our parents were cool. They'd probably would have let us go if we'd asked, especially since we usually didn't do it on school nights. Sally probably would have packed us a little picnic, and my mom would have chased after me with a sweater and not been satisfied until she saw me put it on, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have minded or tried to stop us.

Anyway, for some reason, we did sneak out. I guess the clandestine nature made it more fun. We'd meet at Inferno, climb onto the rock, and lie back and look at the stars. Romeo wore eighties band T-shirts in those days, with faded flannel shirts he left hanging open. Sometimes, when he wasn't looking, I'd take hold of the hem of his shirt and rub it between my forefinger and thumb. On still nights, we'd lie there, and I'd feel the delicate mass of Romeo beside me even though we weren't touching. And if we kept still and stayed quiet for long enough, magic would rain down on us, and I'd start feeling like I really was flying.

The stories he told me had changed by then. Sometimes, they were still set in make-believe worlds, but mostly, they were set in the future.

"We're going to get out of here, Jude," Romeo would say. "You and me, we're going to see things. This won't be our life forever. Things are going to happen to us. Crazy, big, beautiful things. You'll see."

I smiled when he said it, closing my eyes as he started talking and images of the two of us with backpacks and messy hair, derelict French chateaus, and long, dusty Tuscan driveways danced across the night sky.

"And when we've done and seen things, we'll move to New York. We'll have an apartment with exposed brick walls and one of those cool, industrial-style kitchens."

"Mm-hmm." I let my head roll to the side so I was facing him. He was still looking up, so I let my gaze trace his profile, running slowly down his forehead and nose, pausing and losing my train of thought when I got to the curve of his lips. "And how are we going to afford all this? D'you know how expensive shit like traveling in Europe and rent in New York is?"

"Fine, we'll have a small apartment in New York. A tiny apartment, with one brick wall, an industrial-style kitchenette, and nothing but a box of granola bars with raisins in the cabinets." Neither Romeo nor I ate raisins. Him, because he thought they looked like dead flies when he was a kid and had never managed to get over it. Me, because I thought the sun shone out of Romeo's ass and sometimes copied him to give myself a little taste of what my life would be like if I were him.

By then, I was aware that I loved Romeo, and in an abstract way, I might even have been aware that I was in love with him, but there was no anguish associated with the emotion. I had no fear of losing him or of him ever loving anyone more than he loved me. I didn't think either of those things were possible, so they never entered my mind. Romeo and I spent every waking moment together. When we weren't at school together, we were at his house or mine or somewhere in town, looking for something to do that we hadn't done a million times before.

To me, loving Romeo was natural and easy, like breathing. It made as much sense as it did for the sun to come up in the morning. It seemed unavoidable. Inevitable. Eternal.

Yes, to me, loving Romeo seemed eternal.

I'd kissed enough girls by then that I'd started thinking maybe kissing girls wasn't my thing, and by spring that year, Romeo finally kissed a girl too. Riley Laker, from two towns away. We were at Ollie's house watching a movie. His parents were away that weekend. The lights were out and popcorn was strewn all over the carpet, but no one was watching the movie. Dan was there, too, and we all started hooting and hollering when Romeo leaned in. I'd given him a pep talk beforehand and told him I knew he could do it, and hand on heart, I felt nothing but pride as I watched him kiss her. I walked him home that night with my arm draped around his shoulder, like always. He was talking about Riley and the kiss, and I was laughing and slapping his back, safe and secure in the knowledge that no girl and no kiss could ever come close to what Romeo and I had.

A few weeks later, life turned on its side. It was the last week of school before the summer vacation began. It was a strange, bad time. Confusing, like being woken halfway through a long hibernation. The words no one ever wants to hear had landed on Romeo's doorstep.

"Sally has cancer. "

Before my mom told me, she sat me down on one of the navy-blue sofas and gave me a glass of water. I saw her lips moving and heard the words, but it was as though they were unable to penetrate. Like they got lost in translation somewhere between my mom and me. They rang in my ears as I ran through the park to Romeo's house. I ran in that too-fast, scared way that makes your lungs burn. I was winded when I got to him, panting and trying frantically to steady my breathing as panic rose in my body. Romeo was on the front step, sitting with his knees bent, drawing in the dirt with a stick. He looked up before I got to the gate, like he'd been waiting for me.

When he saw me he held out his forefinger and pointed to me. His face was hard and serious. Harder and more serious than I'd ever seen it. It stopped me dead in my tracks.

"No," he said calmly, reading my thoughts and answering as if I'd spoken aloud. "This isn't that. She's going to be fine."

He said it with such certainty that my spine caved and I doubled over. I took two deep breaths, and when I straightened, everything was better. Everything was fine. It was all going to be fine. Romeo and his dad, Mike, had taken the same stance on cancer. It could fuck off. It chose the wrong person. Mike even ordered a cap that said something to that effect for him and Romeo, and when I complimented him on it, he ordered one for me too.

It was all going to be fine. Sally had a lump in her breast that needed surgery, and she was going to have a course of chemo after she recovered to make sure the cancer didn't come back, but they'd caught it early and it was a treatable form of cancer. It wasn't great, no cancer is, and it was going to be hard, but it was going to be fine.

Sally was going to be fine.

The morning of her surgery, my family and a few of our neighbors formed a line on both sides of Romeo's street, holding up signs and balloons that had things like You Rock, Sal and Get Well Soon written on them for Sally to read as Mike drove her to the hospital. When he got to us, Mike stopped the car and Romeo got out. Romeo, Mike, and I were all wearing our Fuck Cancer caps. Sal got out too. She hugged my mom first and then me.

"Love you, Sal," I said before I let go.

She pulled away, cocking her head so she could get a good look at me, and said, "I love you too, Jude."

I must have visited that memory a thousand times over the years, looking for something. A knowing. A foretelling. Some clue that she knew what was coming. I never found it. Her eyes were clear. Powder blue. At least two shades lighter than Romeo's and dreamy in a totally different way. They carried a message for me. The same message as always. A message that didn't need to be said in words.

Look after Romeo.

"‘Course I will," I whispered. "Always."

Romeo and I walked to school together that day, like any other day. We had double math, which was a drag, but we all agreed it would be better for Romeo to be busy at school than sitting in a hospital waiting room for hours and hours. In the last period, his name was called on the intercom, and he was asked to go to the office. We were expecting the call, so we didn't think anything of it. I squeezed his shoulder as he packed his things and told him I'd come over later.

I didn't think anything was wrong until I saw my mom in the parking lot waiting for me. She fetched me sometimes if the weather was bad or we had somewhere to be, but usually, because we lived so close, I walked or biked to and from school. Her waiting for me wasn't the thing that made my blood run cold though. It was the fact she had her sunglasses on, and when I got closer, I noticed her knuckles were white from how hard she was gripping the steering wheel.

I'd never felt horror before. I thought I had, but I hadn't. Not really. I'd never felt the kind of dread that makes your limbs heavy and your reactions slow, but I felt it when I saw my mom in the car, and I felt it again, even worse, when we got home and I saw my dad. He was crying. His eyes were red in a way that looked so wrong it almost looked violent.

I'd never seen my dad cry before.

It was one of those things that wasn't supposed to happen. You know, one of those things you hear about, but they don't happen to real people and definitely not to people you know and love.

It was twice as rare as getting hit by a car while walking your dog.

An allergic reaction to anesthesia.

Sally went to sleep and didn't wake up.

A low, ringing sound screeched in my brain as the words landed, and I couldn't swallow. My hands felt hot and my face felt cold. For the longest time, I didn't move or react. I watched my parents moving around me like they were skating on rails. My mom fetched tissues. My dad blew his nose. The sound was so loud I started to shake.

"Romeo," I said after I don't know how long. " Romeo ." As I said it, time started to speed up. There was an urgency, a franticness. I needed to get to him. I needed to be with him. " Romeo! "

It took both my parents to hold me back. Two sets of arms. Two faces and two voices saying the same thing .

"Wait, baby, wait. You're very upset. You're in shock. You won't be able to help Romeo now. He's with his dad. They're at the hospital. Sal's mom and sister are on their way. You can see him tomorrow." There were hands on my face and hands on my back. "You can see him tomorrow."

I locked myself in my room and paced from the door to the bed. I must have done it for hours. I had my phone in my hand the whole time, checking incessantly for messages from Romeo.

I didn't know what to say or where to start. Eventually, out of desperation, I sent him a message.

My window is open

I don't know what time it was when he came, but it was late. Or rather, it was early. I was in bed, but I hadn't fallen asleep. I couldn't. I heard his footsteps on the flat roof of the garage and a soft crash as he pushed my window open fully. His silhouette was ink black, a carbon cutout of my Romeo with a wall of moonlight behind him.

I opened the covers and he got into my bed with his shoes on. Grief clung to his clothes and his hair. It was everywhere. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close. I held on as tightly as I could as Romeo's tears ran down my neck and onto my chest .

His cry was ragged and broken. Great, wracking sobs followed by alternating splinters of the voices he had as a boy and then as a teen. His words were garbled and mostly inaudible, but when I could make them out, he said the same thing over and over.

"I want my mom."

If there were any parts of me that didn't already love Romeo, they died that night.

For the rest of that summer and well into the next school year, I sent him the same text every night before I went to sleep.

My window is open.

He didn't come over every night, but he came often. After that first time, he took his shoes off before he got into my bed. I don't remember him setting an alarm or anything like that, but he was always gone by the time I woke up in the morning.

My family had planned to go to Florida that year for Thanksgiving. The plan had been made before Sally died, and I'd been looking forward to it for ages. My parents had to physically wrangle me to get in the car. I invited Romeo, obviously, but he didn't want to leave his dad alone over the holidays.

"Come on, honey," said my mom. "It won't be so bad, and I think you could use a little break."

I almost blacked out from rage when she said it. I could use a break? What about Romeo? He was the one who was hurt, and I was being dragged off for a vacation. For a holiday. I was furious. I was as sullen and difficult as only a seventeen-year-old boy could be for the entire journey and then some.

It wasn't until I got into the too-small twin bed in my gran's guestroom that night and saw a message from Romeo that anything felt close to normal again.

Is your window open?

I couldn't help smiling. It was ridiculous, and it was Romeo.

I was more than a thousand miles from Alabaster, and there was no way in hell he could come over, but I got out of bed anyway, threw my window open wide, took a photograph of it, and sent it to him along with a single word. It was a word I meant with my whole heart and soul. A word that was more than a word. A word that was a vow. An oath.

Always