‘I’m not saying that I’m going to hide from everyone; I’m not hiding from myself,’ I protested. ‘I just think it might be better for both of us if maybe you aren’t so involved with it. In the long run, I mean.’ In all honesty, I didn’t have a clue why I was fighting so hard with him or what I was hoping to achieve by it. It was so stupid really, arguing with him over something he’d clearly already made his mind up about – especially when I wanted nothing more than to give in, to be selfish and let him talk me into believing I was being idiotic and put an end to this pointless fight. But, no matter how much I wanted that, I hated the thought of hurting him.
Because, if there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that he would end up hurt. I couldn’t tell you why, it was just a feeling, something that I knew instinctively, a deep-seated feeling I just couldn’t shake. I told myself over and over again that everything would be fine, and I told Jai too. But, try as I might to convince us both, I just didn’t believe it. And, in the end, if and when things went south, it would be Jai left behind to suffer.
I knew he’d never understand that, I could explain until I was blue in the face and he’d never properly understand it, but, all the same, I had to do him the courtesy of at least trying. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, okay? As much as I don’t want to go through this alone, I am not going to let this affect your life, not more than it already has,’ I told him, hoping that I’d made it clear that the matter wasn’t up for debate.
Unfortunately for me, Jai isn’t one to back down from a fight. ‘It’s a little too late for that. There’s no way this isn’t going to affect me. You can lie to me, you can push me away but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re my best friend, the most important person in my life, and standing by and watching you suffer when I could be doing something is going to be worse torture than stabbing a hot needle through my eye. I’m not saying that seeing you in pain, being by your side through that suffering and not being able to stop it isn’t going to hurt like hell. It will, we both know that. But at least I’ll be there for you, same as I’ve always been. And at least that might make some small difference at least.’ He paused, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly before speaking again. ‘The choice is yours and, no matter how much I may hate it, I guess I’ll go along with whatever it is you choose. But know that, either way, it’ll have an impact on me and there’s nothing you can do to stop that.’
‘If you don’t know what’s going on, how is it going to affect you?’ I questioned, trying to make him see it my way.
‘Because, even if I play along and pretend that I believe your lies I will still know. You can’t do a damn thing to take that information out of my brain, it will always be there!’ he exclaimed, letting out a frustrated huff before seeming to deflate. ‘Besides, if I don’t know what’s going on with you, who’s going to cover for you with your parents? If you can’t trust me, how are you going to trust anyone else?’ I knew it was his last resort, his most desperate argument, but, I had to admit, it was a good one. We both knew I had no answer to his question; hiding from my parents without having Jai to cover for me would be impossible.
‘Okay, you have a point,’ I conceded. ‘But, I’m only agreeing to this on one condition.’
‘She says like she really has a choice,’ he mutters, rolling his eyes at the glare I sent his way but gesturing for me to continue.
‘Promise me you won’t keep the tough guy act up. If it gets to be too much, you won’t just bottle it up like you always do, you’ll talk to me, we’ll work through shit together.’
‘Lia, I’ve been dealing with my emotions the same way for years. Why try to fix something that’s not broken?’
‘Your system only works because eventually you rant it all out and I listen. I know you well enough to know that you’re going to be reluctant to vent to me about this because you wouldn’t want me to feel bad for it and then it would stay bottled up inside you until one day it explodes. And you know me well enough to know that I’m not just going to let that happen. So, if you don’t want me hiding from you, you’d better not hide from me.’ For a minute, he just looked at me blankly, not saying a word. I waited for a response, trying to figure out if he was just shocked by my sudden outburst – which was likely considering I was usually mild tempered – or if he was angry at me and about to storm off and leave me stranded.
He stayed silent for minutes that stretched on forever, his face maddeningly unreadable, even to me, and I started to worry I really had pissed him off big time.
And then, when I felt like I might just burst, he laughed.
It was my turn to stare blankly, wondering if my best friend had gone completely mental because that was the only reason I could come up with for him bursting into laughter at that moment. ‘Ah, Li,’ he sighed, shaking his head as his chuckles subsided. ‘It’s funny how you still manage to surprise me. How is it that I know you better than I know myself yet sometimes you still manage to catch me off guard?’ he asked, my favourite lopsided grin making its way onto his face. I shrugged, too astonished by his sudden mood swing to find words. See, Jai didn’t have mood swings; if he was angry, he’d take hours to cool down and if he was happy, there was very little that could bring his mood down. I had no clue what to make of this weird behaviour. ‘Alright, let’s make a deal. I won’t keep things bottled up so long as you don’t push me away,’ he offered, the words effectively snapping me out of my confusion.
‘You do realise that’s pretty much exactly what I just said, right?’
‘Well yes, but I said it much more calmly,’ he reasoned, mischief twinkling in his eyes as his grin morphed into a cheeky smirk, all traces of his anger having disappeared.
‘Idiot,’ I muttered, rolling my eyes and trying my hardest to keep up the exasperated act but failing miserably, unable to stop myself from smiling at the familiar shine in his eyes.
‘I may be an idiot but you know you love me Li.’
‘In your dreams Jai-Jai,’ I scoffed.
‘Oh really?’ he questioned raising an eyebrow.
‘Yes.’
‘If that’s the case, I guess you’d rather not have lunch with me?’ I blinked a couple times, trying to make the connection between my joke and his question. ‘I mean, that’d be a shame you know, all that food you ordered… I mean, I guess we could always ask for it to go if you’d rather not sit around here, spending so much time with me. I’d understand.’ He spoke with a perfect poker face that lasted for all of thirty seconds once the words were out before my bewildered expression apparently became too amusing for him to continue ignoring and he cracked a smile, quickly letting it evolve into a chuckle.
‘Wh-what? What are you laughing at?’ I questioned, beyond confused.
‘Your face Li! You should have seen your face!’ he laughed. ‘I mean, come on, you should know I was just messing with you; I’m not nearly half as sensitive as all that.’
I let out a huff, looking up at the ceiling in a lord help me kind of way before returning my attention back to Jai. ‘Do you always have to be such an infuriating, immature kid?’ I demanded, more annoyed at myself for falling for another one of his stupid jokes than I was at him for making it.
‘Uh, yeah. I mean, that’s pretty much my job, annoying you.’ My only response to that was to roll my eyes and turn away from him, deciding to simply ignore him until the food came. The somewhat childish behaviour only earned me another chuckle which, of course, only served to irritate me some more.
Chapter Nine
After I stopped acting like a moody toddler, I did get around to telling Jai the actual reason I’d wanted to talk. He took it surprisingly well, maybe to prove to me that he really could handle this all like an adult or maybe because, after the conversation we’d just had, he’d figured that it was something like this so it wasn’t really all that surprising. He nodded and told me he wanted to come along and, this time, I didn’t bother to argue, not at all wanting to go to this appointment al
one.
Honestly, I was terrified.
Try as I might to hide it, to act like there was nothing to worry about and to convince myself of the same, it just wasn’t working. As selfish as it may sound, the fact that Jai hadn’t let me argue my point until I’d convinced him was a major relief at that point. I was glad that he’d be there with me, that he’d taken it on himself to be the brave one.
It was that realisation, the terror that was gripping me, that made me realise that I’d been lying to myself ever since the night in the doctor’s office. I’d thought that I was handling things well, that I was taking in the information and processing it fine and my calm in the face of what was undoubtedly a crisis was just a result of years of dealing with other people’s bad news. I’d convinced myself that I had just developed a solid system for dealing with this kind of shit and that was that.
In actual fact, that was all a bunch of horse shite.
The truth was that, up until that moment, none of it had actually seemed real. It seemed to me like something I might read about in a book, the story of a girl who had a pretty good life, had a future set out for her, a path to follow until one day, things went sideways and she’s left trying to keep going like nothing happened. I mean, nobody ever thinks this kind of shit can happen to them. We read about it, we watch movies about it. But we convince ourselves that those events would never actually come to be in our own lives.
And then, one day, it does. It happens and, for the first little while, it seems like it can’t be real.
But, as surreal as it seemed at first, it was undeniably my reality, a reality that hit me in the face when I’d opened up the envelope with the NHS stamp in the top left corner and seen the proof of it on the page of me, the details of my appointment with a cardiologist and King’s Mill Hospital outlined on the paper in black and white, making it impossible for me to deny the truth any longer.
And yet, still, I’d tried to convince myself that I would be fine by myself, that I didn’t need the support of anyone, that I could handle it the same as I handled anything else life threw at me. It was only after I’d stopped being stubborn and listened to Jai, accepted that I needed someone to lean on, that the truth really began to sink in.
Having it out with Jai, hearing him say it, the truth had started to sink its claws into me. Telling him about the appointment put the final nail in the metaphorical coffin, made it something I couldn’t get around any longer, made me realise that this was actually happening, that it wasn’t just some kind of perverse joke. A cosmic one, maybe. But not a prank.
And that’s when the panic began to set in.
On a Saturday afternoon that was like so many others, sat across from my best friend in one of my favourite restaurants, reality finally caught up to me, hitting me full force in the face, momentarily stunning me. This wasn’t a book I was reading, wasn’t a story that I’d got so engrossed in that I’d begun to feel like I was living it. This was real life, my life, not some story that was confined to a page.
The thought was probably the scariest thing that had ever crossed my mind because there was no escaping from this, no way to slip out of this reality in the way I’d done so many times before.
For years, whenever I needed to escape, I’d lost myself in other people’s stories, left the world behind in favour of ones far, far away, and come back feeling so much better. For a little while, I’d be impervious to the insults and sneers of the girls that had made fun of me throughout my childhood and early teenage years, when I wore glasses and hand-me-down clothing. It was like a superpower really. While I was off having adventures with the friends that only existed between the pages of books, I was even temporarily oblivious to the struggles my parents were going through back then, and I came back strong enough to take on the world.
But now, there was no escape route, no way I could disappear and come back ready to face my problems, to fight them because the problem wasn’t some external force anymore. The problem was part of me, an essential part of me. There was no fighting it.
I was more desperate than I’d ever been not to believe the truth in that moment so I did what I’ve always done in those situations: I turned to Jai to make things better. ‘This- this is just a nightmare, right? I’ll wake up in the morning and tell you about it and you’ll me it never happened and everything’ll be okay. This, it’s not real, is it?’ I asked, clinging on to that tiny, impossible hope that he’d say no.
Of course, he didn’t. He didn’t say anything at all, but his expression said it all. ‘Jai, come on, tell me it’s not real,’ I all but pleaded, wanting so badly to believe in something, even if it was false hope.
‘I wish I could Ally but I can’t. I’m so sorry; I want nothing more than to tell you it’s not real but the truth is, there’s no waking up from this nightmare. Even I can’t protect you from this monster.’ His voice broke under the weight of the emotions he tried to hide and the tears he refused to shed.
And that was the exact moment I had to let go of that small, false hope because, if Jai couldn’t keep the monsters away, nobody could.
Chapter Ten
You know that feeling you get when you’ve been to see a movie in the middle of the day? You walk out of the cinema expecting it to be dark outside, sometimes even slightly expecting the world to have changed a bit but it’s bright outside and nothing’s changed, not one bit. You’re still in the same place, the same cars parked nearby, same trees, same shops. Maybe you feel different but that’s it, the rest of the world is exactly the same as it always was.
That’s how I felt going home that afternoon.
For me, everything had changed. My reality was different so I expected everything else to be as well, expected that my surroundings would somehow reflect that change but they didn’t. We stepped out of the restaurant on the same street, with the same shops lining it, the same faint smell of chips being carried on the air from the chip shop down the road. We walked down the same twisting roads and alleyways to the car park where the same cars were parked on either side of Jai’s bike, took the same roads home to the same house I’d always lived in and my family who hadn’t changed in the slightest.
It was surreal, walking through the front door and hearing the usual mess of noise that filled out house on the weekends and realising that it was only me that had changed, that it was only my world that had been knocked off balance, nobody else’s.
It’s not like I wanted anybody else to feel what I was feeling or even know what was going on; that was absolutely the last thing I wanted, hence all the secrecy.
I couldn’t let my family know the truth, couldn’t tell them something like this, not when things were finally settling into place after the years of hard work and stress my parents had endured to get us here. Of course, they’d never really let on how hard it had been when we were kids but we knew anyway. Despite the fact that they’d never really let us feel it growing up, we’d all known that we hadn’t exactly been in the best financial position. As the baby of the family, I’d felt it least of all in some ways and more than anyone else in others.
For the longest time, nobody told me the truth but I wasn’t an idiot. We never wanted for anything, we had a roof over our head, clothes to wear, food to eat and more than enough things to entertain ourselves with – even if some of it was fairly old. But we hit the hardest of times while I was growing up, the times my parents were hardly ever both at home at the same time. In that way, I got the worst of it.
But I don’t think they ever realised that. They simply hoped that they could shield me from the truth, my siblings helping my parents to hide it all from me until, one day, my brother and sister sat me down and told me everything.
I still remember it, how I’d been throwing a tantrum about never being able to get the brand new, excessively expensive toys and games like the rest of the kids in my class, always having to wait around until the price dropped or dad found it on eBay. They’d come up to my room and told me that they wer
e going to talk and I was going to listen and there wasn’t a point in arguing so I’d sat myself up in the middle of the bed and looked at the two of them – my sister sat on my beanbag and my brother on the edge of the bed. Being eight-years-old, I hadn’t entirely understood what they meant when they said that I couldn’t expect our parents to spend that kind of money on things that we could wait for because there were other things, more important things that we really needed the money for but I’d listened and I’d done my best to do what they asked and accept that that’s just the way things were.
It wasn’t until five years later that I got the full truth. I was thirteen when I found out that my dad’s business had run into trouble when his dad got sick, that his staff had taken advantage of the fact that he had to divide his time between the store in Blidworth and his parents in Leicester and skimmed money from the till, enough money that my parents had very nearly gone bankrupt.
When my parents found out, it had already been going on for two years and they had to do everything they could to get the business going steady again. They hadn’t trusted anybody enough to help them out after that though so they’d started running the business single-handedly.
Given that I’d been so young when my dada passed away that I only had one extremely vague memory of him, you can guess how much of my life I’d lived with my parents working themselves around the clock, papa leaving for the shop before we even woke up and not coming home until after we went to sleep while ma worked during school hours, carting me along with her until I was old enough for playgroup. I’d spent a lot of my early childhood sitting around in a convenience store, occupying myself with the toys and crayons ma kept for me in the back office.
Have a Heart Page 6
