Untitled

“I’m sorry,” my dad breathed, his voice shaking as he reached out for Bastian’s hand. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s okay,” Bastian uttered, squeezing Dad’s hand. “I’m glad it’s finally out.”

I stared from the red, flustered expression on my father’s face… to Mom’s sad, knowing, apologetic eyes… to the tears now rolling down Bastian’s cheeks.

“Is this true?” I asked, my frightened voice a mere shadow of the shouting I’d just done.

Bastian sniffed. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. I’ve wanted to tell you since the day Doc Morgan diagnosed it. But I couldn’t. I just… couldn’t.”

“Wait. You were diagnosed with this while you were here in Mulligan’s Mill? While we were together?”

He nodded but said nothing.

“That’s why you left me? You left me because you got sick?”

Another silent nod.

Suddenly I was the one with tears spilling down my face. “Why would you leave me… just when you needed me most?”

Bastian said nothing once more.

Beside me, Bea looked across the table. “Maggie, Connie, Great Nan… I believe I need some assistance shedding this musky masculinity and slipping back into my sequins and heels. Do you think you ladies might like to come to my boudoir and help me get changed over a sumpin-sumpin eggnog?”

Without a breath of resistance, Maggie, Connie, and Great Nan accompanied Bea to the front door where they all bundled themselves up in coats and scarves then shuffled out of the house, leaving me, Mom, Dad, and Bastian at the dining table.

I had so many questions—so many emotions swirling and tumbling through me in a storm of adrenaline and hurt and betrayal and concern and fear—I could barely think straight.

I glanced at Mom and Dad and said in a hushed, broken voice, “You two knew about this. You’ve known all along. That’s why you’ve stayed in touch. That’s why you’re always fussing over him.”

Mom’s voice quavered as she blinked back tears of her own. “Oh sweetheart, it wasn’t our place to say anything. Bastian called us one night soon after he left. He wanted to call you but couldn’t. He was terrified about what it might do to you. Darling, we wanted to tell you. But we also needed to help Bastian through it, and that meant respecting his wish.”

“And that wish was to keep all this from me?” I palmed away a stray tear and I looked glassy-eyed at Bastian. “Why? Why would you think I couldn’t handle this? Why would you think I couldn’t help you through this? Why would you think that breaking my heart would do me less harm than sitting by your side through cancer?”

Bastian shook his head. “You weren’t the one who I thought couldn’t handle it. It was me. I was terrified of letting you see me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like the person I became when my hair fell out and my teeth turned gray and I couldn’t speak or think or get myself up off the shower floor when even the water was too fucking heavy to bear.”

My brain was busy adding and subtracting the days, wondering how advanced the cancer was when he left me, wondering exactly when he met—“Sterling. Were you with Sterling through all of that? Did you choose him to go through it with instead of me?”

Bastian sighed, frustrated. “Sterling and I met at work, in the marketing department of the Chancellor-Waterford. At first, I thought I might be able to hold down a job while I started treatment. But the effects of chemo are cumulative. The longer the course, the worse you get. My hair was falling out in clumps. I looked as sick as I felt. It became impossible to hide. Sterling noticed, and before I knew it, I became his charity case, his passion play… I was the reason he got a ticket into every not-for-profit ball in Chicago. I never intended him to be the person to help get me through this. I didn’t want anyone to help get me through this. But Sterling just happened. And despite the fact that I didn’t want anybody’s help… when it comes to cancer… there comes a point when that option is no longer yours. You take the help… or you die. I know that now.”

His words came in a flood of numbness, a wave of confusion, a deluge of heartache. I had to pause to try to muddle together a semblance of clarity in my head, of questions to ask. “What… What kind of cancer is it… How did you catch it?”

Bastian chuckled through his tears. “You don’t ‘catch’ cancer, Benji.”

“You know what I mean. How did you get it?”

“I don’t know. Bad luck. Fate. I guess a random number came up in the universe and that number was mine. As for what kind of cancer…” He took a breath and seemed to compose himself at that question, as though he’d heard so many doctor’s reports and diagnoses and treatments over the past three years that the medical questions were actually the easiest to answer. He spoke almost with relief. “It’s called Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Believe it or not, if you’re gonna get cancer, that’s the one to get. There’s an eighty percent chance of being cured, but that’s not to say you don’t have to go through hell first.”

“But, how… How did you even know you had it? How did I not know?”

“Remember when we thought I had a cold that wouldn’t go away? There were night sweats and that cough I couldn’t kick. One day I stopped thinking it was a lingering cold and started thinking it was something more. I went and saw Doc Morgan, and he ran a bunch of tests. My lymph nodes were riddled with growths, but the worst one was a tumor in the middle of my chest the size of a tennis ball. The next thing you know, he was talking to a bunch of oncologists on the phone and referring me to a hematologist in Chicago. Doc Morgan had sent him all the results of my tests. It wasn’t long before my hematologist decided on a course of treatment for me, a German regime called BEACOPP, and that I needed to start chemotherapy immediately. He told me if I wanted to live, I would need to relocate to Chicago.”

“Is it still…? Do you still have…?”

Bastian shook his head. “As of last April, I’m in remission.” He tussled his head. “My hair grew back… everywhere. But cancer is the gift that keeps on giving. I have neuropathy that may never go away.”

“What’s neuropathy?”

“It’s something that affects my fingers and toes. They’re not numb, there’s a kind of constant burning sensation. That’s all I feel. And I have to watch my platelet levels, if they’re low I need an infusion before the count drops below fifty. And I have an autoimmune disorder called immune thrombocytopenia, which means—”

“Wait. Immune what?”

“It’s called ITP for short. It means I’m susceptible as hell to basically everything. But hey, I’m alive, right? You’ve gotta take the wins when you can.”

I stared at him, gazing at him like he was a complete stranger now. I didn’t know him at all. I let a tear streak down my cheek, not wiping it away, instead clasping my hands over my mouth. My words were muffled, choked. “My God, why didn’t you tell me?” I looked at my parents. “Why didn’t any of you tell me?”

“I didn’t want them to. If I couldn’t tell you, I didn’t want to burden your parents with the job of delivering the bad news. So, I decided to hide it from you. Right or wrong, I couldn’t put you through it.”

“But… you’re supposed to put me through that. That’s what being in love means… through good times and bad, right? It’s my job to be there for you. It’s my job to take away as much of the pain as I possibly can, just by being there for you. How could you take that away from me? How could you assume that seeing you go through all that pain would hurt any more than you walking out the door did? How could you choose that over us ?”

He shook his head, and the movement set off a new cascade of tears. “I don’t know. I panicked. I had no idea what I was in for. I just knew I loved you too much to put you through all the pain.”

“Did you? Because if you ask me, it felt like you didn’t love me enough.”

I stood to go.

Bastian reached for me, but I pulled away. “Benji, don’t leave. You’re always leaving.”

“That’s rich coming from you.” I stormed for the front door, yanked it open, and jumped with surprise to see someone there on the doorstep, hand raised and knuckles ready to knock.

Only it wasn’t just someone.

“Sterling?”

Sterling rolled his eyes dramatically. “Who were you expecting, Santa Claus? I hate to break it to you honey, but he doesn’t exist. In fact, he’s the greatest lie humankind has ever created. Worse still, he’s a lie told to children. And people wonder why we’re all so fucked up. Now are you going to invite me in out of the freezing cold or are you just going to stand there gawking at me. Oh, forget it, I’ll invite myself in.”

As Sterling pushed past me, wheeling an expensive pink suitcase behind him, Bastian, Mom, and Dad came running to the front door.

“Sterling?” Bastian slid to a halt at the sight of his boyfriend, eyes like saucers. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to salvage what is clearly on the verge of being the worst… Christmas… ever!”

“You’re telling me?” I muttered to myself.

Sterling didn’t even hear me. He simply released the handle of his suitcase and said, “Will somebody please take my luggage. I’m exhausted.” Shoving his way past everyone, he headed through the nearest door, into the living room, and collapsed into Great Nan’s chair. Everyone followed him, including myself, so stunned by his appearance I needed to know why the actual fuck he was here.

Clearly, I wasn’t the only one.

“Sterling, what’s going on? Why are you here?” Bastian repeated. “You’re supposed to be in Belize.”

“Getting a tan and a pedicure poolside,” he added. “Which is exactly where I would be if not for the torrential rain that set in the second I landed.”

“So, you decided to crash our family Christmas instead?” I demanded sharply, crossing my arms over my chest.

Sterling fluttered his eyelids at me disdainfully. “No. I came to steal my boyfriend away so that he and I can save this abominable festive season and go somewhere far, far away… like Dubai or Doha or the fucking Sahara Desert. Someplace where it doesn’t snow or rain. So long as it has cocktails and a Wi-Fi connection, I’m happy.” He pouted at Bastian and suddenly became possessed by the most stomach-turning baby voice I’d ever heard. “So whaddaya say, schnookums? Are you ready to whisk me away to an Arabian oasis and forget this whole disastrous Christmas?”

“No!” was Bastian’s very definitive one-word answer.

Sterling spat the baby voice out like a dummy. “What do you mean ‘no?’”

“I mean exactly that. No. I came here to spend Christmas with the Larsons.”

Sterling sneered in my direction. “Including your ex-boyfriend?”

“He is a Larson, so yes. This is his childhood home, so yes. Sterling, I had my Christmas plans, and you had yours. I’m not changing mine just because yours didn’t turn out the way you expected them to. But we’ve talked about this. You knew I was coming here, and you knew why.”

“That’s right. You were stricken with guilt and felt the burning need to finally come clean and tell Benji why you left him.” He turned and gave me a glare like this was all my fault. “Well, did he? Did he tell you about his fucking cancer, and how I had to nurse him through it? Spoiler alert, it was the worst time of my life. Cleaning his vomit off the bathroom floor. Changing the bedsheets when he shat them. Watching him sit on the couch shuddering when all I wanted to do was watch the Kardashians. God, it was like being a nurse and a housemaid rolled into one. If I’m honest I wish it had been the other way around. I wish I was the one with cancer, being looked after night and day, getting all the sleep I wanted while Bastian did all the running around. He had no idea how hard that was on me.”

My brow creased in shock and disgust. “My God, how can you even say that? Who says that kind of thing?”

“The person who had to live with it for two fucking years. That’s who. When I found out about Bastian’s cancer, sure I wanted to help. And all the sympathy posts certainly helped boost my following on Insta. But I signed up for a boyfriend, not an outpatient. Lucky he went into remission when he did because let me tell you, I was at the end of my fuse. Even now, the blood tests are constant, the platelet count is anyone’s guess, and frankly I’ve given up sitting at his bedside watching plasma being infused into his veins. Have you even seen that shit-in-a-bag? It looks like baby diarrhea. Gross.”

In utter disbelief, I stared from Sterling to Bastian and uttered, “This is what you left me for?”

Sterling gasped so dramatically I expected him to press the back of his hand to his forehead. “Excuse me! Ah… rude!”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I can’t listen to this anymore. I have to go.” I turned to the front door once more.

Again, Bastian tried to stop me. This time he managed to grasp my forearm, tightly. “Benji, please. Don’t leave. I know I haven’t handled things the way I should have but—”

“Bastian, please let me go.” My voice was calm, as though all the fight was leaving me. As though I was spent. Done. “Just let me go.”

His grip loosened.

I couldn’t look at him.

All I could do was turn and walk away.

The front door was still open, making my getaway swift.

I closed it behind me, not turning my head to see if anyone might stop me.

Nobody did.

The click of the door closing felt so final.

So cold.

So wrong.