by Katia Rose
I take a few careful steps over to our tiny kitchen and then stare up at the cupboard where we keep our glasses.
“Đu má. This is gonna hurt.”
My first attempt to raise my left arm above my head fails completely. I don’t know how exactly my left shoulder is connected to my right one, but I fucking feel it. I drop my arm to my side and gasp while staring into the sink, fighting back the nausea that has me on the verge of bending my head over the basin to puke.
The second try is a little better. I don’t make it all the way up, but I have a better handle on how to move without upsetting my other shoulder now.
A few more tries and I’ve got the cupboard open. Getting a glass takes a bit more work. I stand on my tiptoes so I don’t have to stretch my arm as much and fumble around the lowest shelf.
“Why the hell are they so far back?”
My arm is shrieking for me to stop, but I keep pushing. I touch the side of a glass and do a swatting motion to bring it closer. That works a little too well. The glass tumbles over the edge of the shelf, partially smashes on the counter, and then bounces to completely shatter on the floor. My arm, meanwhile, goes haywire, and this time I really do start retching into the sink, dry heaving and gagging when nothing comes up from my empty stomach.
Of course, that’s when Youssef decides to walk back in.
“I got the—Holy fuck! Paige!”
“Glass,” I wheeze, lifting my head just in time to save him from stepping on the mess of shards and fragments.
He looks from the floor to the sink and back to me. “What the hell did you do?”
“I was trying to get some water.”
He shakes his head. “Paige, you’re kind of an idiot. You know that?”
I glare, but once again, my go-to withering expression has no effect on him.
“You’ve got to stop dropping glasses around me.” A smirk curls his lip. “I know I’m sexy, but it’s just not safe.”
I point at the glass on the floor. “I told you. I will cut you.”
“Okay there, tiger.”
I glance at the pharmacy bag in his hand. I could really use some heavy duty painkillers right about now.
“Thanks for getting them. You can leave them in the bathroom. I’ll be fi—”
“Paige.” He throws his hands up in the air, and the pills make a click-click sound as they shake in their bottles. “I’m going to help you, okay? I challenged you to spend more time with me, and it looks like the universe complied, so you might as well too. You really don’t have much of a choice.”
Again, he has a point. Again, that doesn’t mean I like it.
Ten
Youssef
TEMPO: The speed at which a piece of music is played or performed
I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh into the phone. “No, Mom, I do not want to bring your favourite barista to Aaliyah’s wedding. Why do you want me to bring some random girl to my sister’s wedding? Wouldn’t that be weird? Why is this so important?”
My mom also sighs into the phone. “For many reasons, Youssef. First of all: symmetry.”
“Symmetry?” I shout before glancing at Paige’s closed bedroom door and lowering my voice. She passed out after spending half an hour trying to eat a bowl of soup with her left hand. “What do you mean, symmetry?”
Normally my discussions with my mom don’t get this heated. Normally she has a rational, logical, highly developed academic mind, but she will not let up about this wedding date thing. I ignored a few texts from her today, which resulted in this phone call.
“Yes, Youssef. For the pictures. And the table setting. And the procession.”
“I’m not in the procession!”
“I mean the pre-procession.”
“What on earth is a pre-procession? Does Aaliyah even care about any of this?” I know it’s her wedding, but my little sister seems chill enough to not need something called a pre-procession.
I can picture my mom adjusting her glasses. “Youssef, you’re getting emotional.”
“I’m getting emotional?”
She ignores me. “You don’t really need to understand the reasons why. You just need to bring someone to the wedding. I am happy to arrange that for you. So I’ll ask you again—”
“No, Mom, do not proposition an innocent Starbucks employee on my behalf. I will find a date. I promise. Just mark it down as a blank in the seating plan for now, or whatever it is you need it for.”
“Hmm. Okay. I will need a name soon, though.”
I slump down farther on Paige’s couch and let my head rest against the wall. “Is there anything else you’d like to talk to your son about?”
She pauses. “Am I forgetting something?”
“I don’t know. Just thought you might be curious about my life and career...and hopes and dreams and aspirations. The state of my health, perhaps. You know, my general existence.”
“Well now you’re just being dramatic.”
“I’m being dramatic?”
She huffs, and then I can hear her sipping on something—probably coffee, even though it’s almost eight at night. “I have been a little focused on the wedding. I’m sorry.”
I hold back the urge to reply with, ‘A little?’
“Tell me about you,” she continues. “I would love to know more about your general existence. A while ago you mentioned your manager was hinting at some big news? I could get Baba and put him on speakerphone so you can tell us both. ”
“Oh, uh, no. That’s fine.” I don’t know how to segue into telling her I spent the night at the hospital, which is where I was hoping to lead us. Wedding obsessed or not, I trust my mom’s judgement in a lot of situations, and I could use it in this one. “He just got me booked to headline this big club opening. Some famous DJ dropped out, so they picked me to replace him.”
“Youssef, that’s amazing!”
“Mmm.”
A note of suspicion comes into her voice. “But?”
“But what?”
“It sounds like there’s a but here. What’s the problem?”
There shouldn’t be a problem. I should feel as excited as she sounds. I’m exactly where I always wanted to be. I’m exactly where my parents have always wanted me to be. I have probably the only parents on earth who were disappointed I went to university for engineering instead of the arts. My whole life, everyone close to me has been telling me they just know I’ll be a big music star someday.
I’m finally on the brink of those dreams coming true, and all I can do is wonder how it would feel to throw them all away—all the contracts and record deals, the first class flights to far-off places and the sight of my name in lights—so I can sign on to co-own an outdated recording studio in Montreal.
“There’s...”
There’s something wrong.
I can’t get the words out to her. My voice fades, but in my head, I’m shouting.
It all feels so wrong that sometimes I can’t even breathe.
“There’s...There’s no problem.”
She stays quiet for a second. “Youssef, you know you can tell me anything.”
I force myself to swallow and change the subject.
“Thanks, Mom. I know. I’m just, uh, distracted, I guess. Something really crazy happened yesterday. Do you remember Paige, that girl I used to hang out with in high school?”
“The one who broke your heart?” she asks without missing a beat.
“Mom! She didn’t break my heart.”
“Yes. Yes, she did. You spent that whole summer locked up in your bedroom. You were so sad about her breaking up with you, I was almost scared you’d flunk out of your first semester at McGill.”
“Nobody broke up with anybody. We weren’t dating.”
Not officially, at least, and she made it clear that’s not what she wanted when I wrote her a letter to ask her if we could be.
“Semantics,” my mom replies.
“Anyway. We bumped into each other last
weekend and were supposed to hang out last night, but she got hit by a car, and—”
“Wait, what?”
“She’s fine,” I continue. “Well, not fine. She got pretty messed up from the fall. I went with her to the hospital. We only got back this morning, and she slept most of the day. She’s sleeping now, actually, and—”
“You’re still with her?”
“Yeah.” A beat passes, and I swallow down the lump that rises in my throat. “Yeah, I am.”
The silence that follows is charged with understanding.
“You took care of her.”
“She needed someone.”
She needed me.
“She’s gonna be in pretty rough shape for the next few days,” I explain, “and her roommate is away. She said her parents can’t come, and I guess she doesn’t have many close friends here. She won’t admit it to me, but she needs someone to help her. I mean, I left for like twenty minutes and she almost dislocated her shoulder all over again trying to get a glass of water. I should stay, right? I should look after her. Is that bad? Am I, like, not respecting consent by pushing her on it? She’s being really fucki—I mean, really freaking stubborn about it. I just don’t want her to get hurt again, Mom.”
“Oh, Youssef. You remind me of your father so much.” She chuckles in that lighthearted way she only does when she’s talking to or about my dad. “He had to fight me before I let him help me with anything, especially in the early days back during my placement in Cairo. It took me a long time to realize that being part of a team doesn’t mean you lose your independence.”
“Oh. That’s, um, cool?”
She sips her coffee again. “But back to your question. Has Paige told you to get out of her house and leave her alone?”
I think for a second. “Not precisely, no. She’s mostly just grumpy that she can’t do things and even grumpier when I do them for her.”
“Well, if she does tell you to leave, you’ll have to listen. It might be hard to do, and it might be very stupid on her part, but that’s her choice. Otherwise, I think it’s a very admirable thing for you to look after someone in need, especially when she doesn’t seem to have anyone else. You don’t need to feel obligated, though. If she’s going to be rude to you, you don’t need to put up with it.”
“I wouldn’t say she’s being rude. It’s more just that it seems to physically pain her to depend on somebody.”
“Probably especially when that person is you.”
“What do you mean?”
She chuckles again. “You two thought you were so secretive and subtle back in high school, but I could see—”
“Hold on.” I cut her off when I hear a loud bang followed by a hiss and a curse from inside Paige’s room. “I think she just woke up. I’ve got to go. Thanks for your advice.”
“Anytime. I hope she’s all right, by the way. It sounds like it was a nasty accident.”
“Yeah.” I shudder as I push myself up off the couch. “It was. I’ll talk to you later.”
We say goodbye, and I pocket my phone before reaching for the bedroom door. I find it’s already cracked open, and when I get inside, I discover Paige plopped down on the floor just beyond the doorway. She’s rubbing her arm, and she grimaces when she looks up at me.
“Yes, I fell down.”
“Shit.” I drop to my knees in front of her and kind of flutter my hands around her arm, not sure what to do with them. “Did you hurt yourself?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing new bruised except my ego.”
“How did you—”
I look between her, the door, and a milk crate full of CDs on the floor. Then it clicks.
“You were listening to my phone call, weren’t you?” I can’t help smirking. “And then you tripped over that.”
“That is not a provable theory. I was just trying to leave my bedroom.”
Even after all these years, I can still recognize the difference between her usual defensiveness and her ‘I’m totally lying and being extra defensive to cover it up’ defensiveness. It’s a subtle variation, but visible to the expert eye.
“I just...” She stares down at her knees, still rubbing her arm, and she seems to get smaller all of a sudden. “I hate how trapped this makes me feel. It fucking sucks to not be able to look after yourself. It’s degrading. It’s...It makes me feel like I’m stuck in a cage with people poking sticks at me, and I can’t do anything about it. I hate not being able to control my own body. It’s just...I can’t...”
She trails off and shudders, and I’m pretty sure I know what she’s thinking about. I still remember everything she ever trusted me with, every story and memory and fear.
“I know.”
We sit there for a moment, wrapped up in a past that clings to us like perfume. I want to put my arms around her and tell her everything’s all right. I want to hold her until I believe it and she believes it too. I open my mouth to speak again, but she beats me to it.
“I shouldn’t have taken that out on you, though. I was rude. I want you to know that I’m...grateful.”
I almost chuckle at the face she makes when she says the last word, like she’s just downed a shot of the world’s most gag-inducing cough syrup.
“It’s my pleasure. I mean it. I mean hey, you’d do the same thing for me, right?”
Her eyes lock onto mine, and they’re filled with a hollow, ghostly pain. She’s watching me like I’m a knife that cut her a long time ago, one that’s gone a little dull with the years but not enough to make her forget what it was like to feel the blade digging in.
It doesn’t make any sense. If anything, I’m the one who should be looking at her like that.
“You know what?” she murmurs, almost to herself. “I would.”
We’re so close. I could lean forward and kiss her if I wanted to. I do want to. I want to take her face in my hands and start over.
Instead, I give her my hand.
“Come on. Let’s get you off the floor.”
After some manoeuvring—and a lot of swearing and groaning from Paige—I get her into the living room and ask if she’d like more food.
“You can take more painkillers now, I think. You’re supposed to have them with a snack or some milk. You can wait on the couch, and I’ll—”
“Actually, I...” She pauses to take a breath, and I see her jaw set in a tight line, her teeth grinding in protest over whatever she’s about to force herself to say. She stares at the wall behind me. “I really need to take a shower.”
That should not be able to give me a semi in zero point five seconds. This is not the time.
“Okay.” I fight to keep my voice even. “Cool.”
Cool? Seriously?
“What do you, um, need?”
She stares straight ahead and speaks in a monotone, but I can see the flush rising on her chest. It does not help with the semi situation.
“I think if you cut me out of my shirt, I can do the rest.”
“C-cut you out of your shirt?”
That brings up way too many mental images for me to handle. Despite my best efforts, I can’t keep from sounding hoarse.
“Yeah. It’s fine. It’s an old one. It will be easier than trying to get it over my head.”
“Right.” I clear my throat, pushing away thoughts of her bare skin. “And how are you, uh, going to shower with your sling and stuff?”
“Actually, I think I’ll have a bath and just kind of splash what I can reach.”
I am not going to make it through this ordeal if she keeps saying stuff like that.
“Right.”
“Look, I’m not so thrilled about this either. I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t desperate to not smell like a hospital anymore.”
Desperate.
That word and various synonyms bounce around my head as I follow her to the bathroom. She’s all right to walk on her own; it’s any bending and stretching that seems to set her pain off. That’s what I should be focusing on: the f
act that she’s in pain, not the idea of her bending and stretching.
“There are scissors in the kitchen. The drawer under the utensils.”
“Got it.” I head off to retrieve them and come back to find her in front of the bath. The whole room is so small that we can’t stand more than a couple feet from each other. “Here, I’ll get the water running.”
The gurgle of the tub fills the silence between us when I straighten up and look at her. She turns around after meeting my gaze for half a second.
I pick up the scissors again. “You sure about this?”
The room has become so charged I can feel the air sparking between us. I stare at the back of her head, my breaths getting heavier and heavier.
“We could try to take it off instead. If we take your sling off first then—”
“Just cut it. It’s fine.”
I step closer and pull the hem of her tank top away from her hips.
I took her shirt off once before. It didn’t involve scissors, but I still felt the same mixture of terror, excitement, and wonder as I tugged it up over her head and revealed her body underneath. We never went any farther than making out without our shirts on, but it meant more than most of the nights I’ve spent with women since.
Seeing her like that, touching her, holding her—it was the greatest gift, the highest privilege. Even before I really knew her, I could tell it had been so long since Paige had opened up to anybody. Even as a teenager, she was an island with shores wrapped in barbed wire.
Somehow, I got through. I got to see her in a way no one else had—not just her body, but her—and I could never shake the impact of what that meant. She chose me, just like I chose her.
Until she didn’t want me anymore.
I make the first snip with the scissors, and she shivers. I go still.
“Did I hurt you?”
She shakes her head and rasps, “No.”
I keep going, as slow and as steady as I can. I cut a line up the middle of her back, revealing the ridges of her spine inch by inch. As I get higher, the tank stop starts falling away at the sides, revealing smooth golden skin. My breath catches.
Nobody has skin like her.