“I had to! You were so obsessed with that fish, it wasn’t healthy. You just spent all day in your room with that thing, moping and crying. Moping and crying. What was I supposed to do! I had auditions lined up for you.”
“My dad had just died! Are you kidding me? I was sad, Mom. Of course I was moping and crying.”
She shrugs. “Oh, please. You were eight. Like you even knew what sad meant. Besides, it worked, didn’t it? You came out of your room. And you even booked your first shoot. So, you’re welcome for throwing away your stupid fish. Imagine being so ungrateful to your mother who birthed you. Who sacrificed everything for you . . . who has cancer.”
“Do you even have cancer?” I ask.
My hip is cocked, my leg pushed out. She and I are standing in exactly the same stance, a future mirror image. But as much as she believes it, I am not a reflection of her. It’s amazing I even came from this woman’s body.
I think about my own body. About the scales on my arms. They’re fading a bit now, just a tiny bit. Disappearing touch by touch, the bejeweled green dulling and flaking.
I could never show her. She would never accept it. She could never accept me in the first place, whether or not I take the medicine. Whether or not I stay beautiful.
And no one stays beautiful forever.
Like a hedgehog, the stark realization makes something inside my body turn in on itself. Like I want to hide again, like the armor on my outside wants to protect me again. The brave Jules of before, the one who found love, the one who walked the streets of the city, she’s gone. She disappears like a puff of smoke against the wind.
I’m not safe anywhere. But I’m less safe outside than anywhere else. Now more than ever, this is true.
My phone begins ringing in my pocket.
There’s no way I’ll answer the phone in front of her.
“You’ve got to leave now, Mom,” I say, rubbing at my eyes until the inner corners are raw.
“What? You’re kicking me out? Your own mother?”
I push her out by her shoulders.
“Get your hands off me!” she yells, trying to shake me off, but I’m physically stronger than I used to be.
And the sound of the phone ringing in my pocket is pricking my anxiety.
Finally, with one more shove and a slam of the door, she’s gone.
I don’t have time to decompress though.
My head is spinning now. This information has dropped on me like a ton of bricks. But I can handle it, right? As long as there are no more surprises. As long as there’s not one more thing piled on top of this wobbling Jenga tower I call my life.
But then I dig the phone from my pocket to see a familiar face on the screen requesting a video call.
I answer it. “Joe?”
Chapter 30
AverageJoeGuy . He doesn’t look right. He never looked right, but especially now, he really doesn’t look right. His face is pale white, and his eyes are red and glassy. And there are tears. Those are definitely tears streaming down his face.
“Hello? Joe? Are you okay?” I ask when he doesn’t start speaking right away.
But he shakes his head with jerky motions to the right and to the left.
“No, you’re not okay?”
“Dead,” he says, his voice strangely flat in tone.
“Dead?” I ask, alarmed. “Who’s dead?”
“Everything’s dead. All the things. Gone. Empty. Dead. Inside.”
I scrunch my face, trying to make sense of what he’s talking about. “Dead inside? Is someone dead inside?”
He nods his head. “The pills.”
I look over to the table where my bottle sits. “What about the pills?”
“They’ll kill you. But not on the outside.”
“The pills will kill you on the inside?” I try to clarify.
He tries to talk, but his lips are trembling, tears rushing down his face now, which is beet red, as if he just ran a marathon. “There’s nothing left of me.”
“Well, can I . . . Can I help?” I’m stuttering, but what else can I do?
He shakes his head, the flat of his hand coming to wipe at the wetness slick over his face. “Too late for me. I’ve been on them for years now. Too long. Much too long. But . . . but it’s not too late for you . . .”
My voice is frantic now. “Joe, can you come here? Can we meet again? I need to know more—”
“The protests . . . they’re coming . . . tomorrow . . .” Then, his image disappears abruptly, the phone tumbling to the ground, nothing but a horizontal line of black on the screen.
