Chapter Text
The others take the news of JJ’s relapse as well as she might expect. Sarah cries for a second before she catches herself. Cleo sighs, and promises to do whatever it takes to help him out. Still at school, Pope breaks out his phone and starts his research again, looking for anything new they might have missed about leukemia innovations in the last few months.
It’s weird, though. No matter how many times Kiara hears JJ say it, she doesn’t know what to do with it.
JJ says it easily, though. He says that his cancer’s back. He says he has to do the treatment again. He says it’s sucks, but it’s okay. He says he’s going to fight, and that he’ll beat this son of a bitch if it’s the last thing he does.
She wonders if it will be.
The last thing he does.
Because there’s one thing JJ doesn’t say, and it’s the one thing Kiara can’t get out of her head now. The one thing she can’t deny away.
JJ’s dying.
JJ’s dying.
-o-
The truth cycles through her on repeat all night long.
In the morning, she’s numb to it.
Totally numb.
It’s not real, she decides. There’s no way any of this is real.
-o-
The impossibility is grounding at least. After all, Kiara is 19 and has everything she wants. She’s free from her parents, and is now independently wealthy. She can pursue her dreams of conservation, and never worry about money.
Oh, and she just moved in with the love of her life. And they are happy. So ridiculously, impossibly happy.
So, cancer? Poor odds of survival?
No. No way. No how.
-o-
She wakes up with that confidence.
And it falters the moment JJ gets up. He’s moving slowly, like he’s sore. They both know he should eat as much as he can before the hellish cycle of chemotherapy starts, but he just seems to lack the muster. He lacks the conviction.
Like he’s ready to go into the fight only half cocked.
Like he’s ready to go into the fight with the expectation he might not win.
“Look,” he says, when he finally manages to eat something. He’s dressed and ready, and Kiara is fishing around for the car keys. “You really don’t have to come.”
She barely spares him a look. “What?” she asks, pulling the keys triumphantly from her purse. “Come where?”
“To the hospital,” he says. “To treatment. Whatever.”
He says it nonchalantly, like he’s not talking about a treatment that will destroy him—mind, body, and soul. A treatment that is probably his only chance of survival.
She stands there, thinking he must be joking. “What?” she says finally. She shakes her head. “Of course I’m going.”
For some reason, JJ digs in his heels. He stalls, waffling at the kitchen table. “But we’ve been there and done that.”
She’s still staring at him. It sounds more ridiculous by the minute. “This isn’t a recreational outing,” she reminds him. “It’s treatment. For cancer.”
He reddens a little, and she sees him swallow hard enough that his Adam’s apple bobs. “Exactly,” he says, and he looks at her hard. “I know how hard this was last time for you.”
“For me?” she asks, her voice rising incredulously. “JJ, it was hard on you.”
“It was hard on you, too,” he says. “And I know the others will come along, and really all I need is the ride there and back. The nurses take good care of me–”
She can’t believe this is an argument they’re having. She can’t fathom that this is what he’s trying to convince her of. To leave him alone while he faces hell.
Except – she can. This is classic JJ. This is the JJ who ran hard and fast from her when she first fell in love with him. This is the JJ who stole a money clip just to piss her off, and took his sweet time to apologize for it. This is clean-slate, etch-a-sketch JJ.
Before they were dating, she was patient.
They’re in too deep, though. She’s not going to let him shut her out now, not even if he’s doing it for what he thinks is her own good.
Screw that, especially not when he thinks it’s for her own good.
“I’m going with you, JJ,” she says.
“But it takes so long and it’s depressing as hell–”
“Who the hell cares?” she says, half exploding now. She can’t control it, this emotion. She’s not sure she can control anything, as it all slips from her grasp. “JJ, who cares?”
“I care!” JJ says, and he gets up now, moving toward her. His eyes are bright, in that way that makes them too blue to be real. She can feel the heat of his breath, the heat of his skin. She sees him shudder a little as his voice softens. “I care about you.”
He’s so soft, so sincere, that it’s easy to melt into him. Part of her wants to; part of her wants the out. She can talk tough; she plays tough. But sometimes she still feels like a little girl, needy and desperate to be taken care of.
But that’s not how it is. It’s not who Kiara has chosen to be.
She shakes her head, brow furrowing. “JJ, I’m not letting you sit there and get chemotherapy alone. There’s no way.”
“I won’t be alone,” JJ says. “John B will come. Or Cleo. I won’t be alone.”
She makes a face, because all of it hurts. The fact that they have to do this. The fact that JJ is trying to shut her out. She hasn’t fought so hard in her life for this. She’s going to keep fighting. For JJ – and herself. “No,” she says, unrelenting now. “Not a chance.”
Something threatens to break in his expression. “Kiara, I don’t want to do this to you,” he says, and it sounds like he’s pleading with her now. “You don’t deserve this. I know you’re scared, and I know you’re hurting, and I promise you I’m going to beat this.”
The mix of emotions is too hard to sort out now. Her face starts to crumple, but she holds on doggedly to her resolve. “Then what’s the problem?” she growls out, voice thick with emotion she’s just barely keeping in check.
“I can’t stand to see you suffer,” he says, almost helpless with the admission. “And seeing you watch me–”
He trails off with a shrug that says what he can’t.
“It just means we’re both suffering,” he concludes gently. “I don’t have a choice, but you don’t have to suffer. You don’t.”
She takes a breath. She has to get herself together, then. JJ is offering her an out, which means the universe is calling her bluff. She told herself she didn’t know how she could do this again.
This. This is how she can do it again.
The resolve hurts like hell, but it’s steely. It’s certain.
She takes his hand. “Yeah, JJ. I’m scared. Yeah, JJ, I’m hurting a lot. Watching you suffer is about the worst thing I could ever imagine.”
He swallows and waits for her to finish.
She reaches her hand up, brushing it through the short blonde strands still finding purchase on his head. “The only thing worse is not being there for you,” she says. “You promised me you’d fight. And I promise you I will stay by your side until you win.”
He hesitates. Her certainty threatens to undo him a little, and she sees his confidence waver. But she doesn’t let go. She doesn’t back down. And he finally nods.
With a faint smile, he lifts a hand to her face. “I love you, Kiara.”
“And I love you, JJ,” she says, leaning up on her toes to kiss him. “I love you so, so much.”
-o-
They know what to expect this time.
And they are still completely unprepared.
It's the same, in so many ways. The same rooms, the same IV port, the same nurses. The same tests and procedures, and all the same side effects.
But worse.
JJ is hit by it almost immediately. It takes days for his progress to be reversed. Within a week, he’s lost most of the weight he gained, and the color drains from his cheeks. His stamina is depleted even faster, and it’s mere days before his appetite vanishes and he’s spent.
It overpowers him. He doesn’t so much fade as he does dissipate. Kiara feels like she blinked and he was a shell of himself, and she doesn’t know where he’s gone.
JJ is a ghost this time.
And she doesn’t know how to get him back.
-o-
The nurses notice too. They’re quieter this time. They joke less. They help him back into the chair and don’t ask if they’re hurting him. They just apologize because they know they are.
“Round two is always a bitch,” they soothe.
Kiara doesn’t have the heart to ask how many survive to round three.
-o-
It hits him hard; it hits him bad.
Within a week, the rest of the weight he had gained is gone. His appetite dissipates almost instantly, though he does his best to force feed himself, relying mostly on bland energy smoothies to get calories down. He’s exhausted from day one, and he no longer has the energy to go to work with Cleo, much less shop with Sarah or surf with John B.
His world gets small again, and he pulls in on himself. He does his best to stay upbeat and positive, but she sees that dwindle, too. She sees his spirit waver. She thinks, sometimes, the sleeping is less about the treatment and more about the effort it takes to convince everyone he’s fine.
His hair, which had just been starting to rebound nicely, starts falling out in patches again. JJ is more pragmatic about it this time. John B doesn’t have to force him; JJ asks him to come over with the clippers at the first clumps on his pillow.
JJ objects, but John B insists on shaving his first. “You have a weird-ass head,” JJ says miserably as John B gives himself a tight buzz cut.
“Better than yours,” John B says smugly.
JJ mutters a curse. “You really don’t need to do this.”
John B shaves off the last bit, and Kiara can see him from where she’s watching just beyond the door as he turns off the clippers and gestures wide. “It’s already done.”
It’s something to consider, really. The contrast between the two of them. John B’s confidence – and JJ’s doubt. She feels like she should turn away, offer them some privacy, but she’s forgotten how to move.
It feels like her place now, that she’s the relegated spectator, chosen to bear witness to JJ’s suffering. It used to feel like her story, but she’s forgotten how that works, too.
Sometimes, she thinks she’s forgotten everything.
JJ, for his part, doesn’t seem to know he’s being watched. Kiara has positioned herself outside the door, angled away from him. She keeps meaning to walk away, but her legs seem planted on the spot.
Maybe JJ just doesn’t care.
“JB, what’s the point?” JJ asks, and he looks down. “Like what are we doing?”
“We’re fighting,” John B says, and he leans down with a hand on JJ’s shoulder. “We’re keeping up the fight.”
“Sure,” JJ says, and he doesn’t seem to have the energy to look up. “But if it’s my fight–”
“Our fight,” John B says without hesitation.
JJ looks up at him. His jaw tightens. “But if I can’t win it–”
“Screw that,” John B says. “You can’t give up.”
“And if my body already did?” JJ asks. It would be easy if he were being flippant. If he was being a smartass, sarcastic anything.
But that’s not–
JJ’s not–
JJ is breaking.
Kiara feels like she’s already broken.
She doesn’t know how she’s still standing there, honestly. How she’s breathing, how she’s here. How anything.
“No, you promised,” John B says, and he says it like only John B can. The way John B is when he’s convincing them to go on treasure hunts and that they’re all going to be rich. He was right about all that; he can be right about this. “You promised Kie, remember?”
John B is a good guy, is the thing. John B’s sweet and nice and gentle and good.
He’s also his father’s son. He knows how to manipulate you when it counts, and he will. He will lie to you to get what he wants, and he will lie to himself more than anyone else to make sure it happens.
John B will lie and JJ will always believe him.
Always.
“Fine,” JJ says. He sighs, almost with defeat. “Do it.”
The buzzers start up again, and Kiara has to look away as John B skims them over the top of JJ’s peach fuzz.
Over the top of JJ’s head, where he’s seated on the toilet with his thin shoulders slumped, John B looks at her. He knows she’s watching; he’s known since she stopped there.
The look is one of an apology.
The look is one of solidarity.
He buzzes another line through JJ’s hair.
The look is one of inevitability.
It’s a crazy thing, how winning can seem like losing sometimes.
-o-
Kiara retreats to the living room and sits on the couch. She curls up her legs like she might be comfortable and opens up her book on the end table. It’s something about plastics in the ocean. Or maybe it’s about sea turtles. It might be about endangered species of the Atlanatic.
She doesn’t remember. She’s been reading the same page for approximately 30 minutes.
And she’s been reading the same book since before JJ got diagnosed last summer.
If JJ has noticed, he doesn’t say anything. In fact, he’s not talking at all by the time he gets out of the bathroom, and Kiara’s attempt to look nonchalant is meaningless. He slumps on the chair opposite her, with a hat pulled down over his eyes.
She looks at him, not sure what to say.
He looks back, and it’s pretty clear he’s not sure what he wants her to say either.
Are they still going to pretend that this is okay? Are they still going to offer each other the same platitudes? Even relative measures of fine are harder to grapple with as the standard sinks lower and lower with each treatment, each blood test, each appointment. Kiara feels like a frog in a pot of water, bringing it slowly to a boil. It doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s far too late.
John B comes in behind JJ and breaks the silence.
“Is there a game on?” he asks, reaching for the remote without asking. “A movie?”
Kiara can’t speak, like she doesn’t know what words are anymore.
JJ takes an audible breath. He’s rallying himself, she knows. “Sure,” he says. “Whatever’s on.”
John B turns on the screen and Kiara stares at the page.
Stares at the words without reading them for another 30 minutes at least.
-o-
That night, JJ passes out before he has a chance to pull the covers up. He’s laying on his back, mouth hanging open, one hand outstretched for the blanket that he never quite reached.
He’s so vulnerable like that, so exposed.
She stands there and watches him breathe, and wonders about this responsibility. JJ made the promise to her, but it requires her promise in return. The promise to stay, to stay until it’s fulfilled.
She has to stay and watch him fight.
The thought of it crashes through her mind, and she pushes it away. She reaches for the blanket and pulls it up over JJ, covering him so he’s more comfortable.
She doesn’t know if that means she has to stay and watch him lose.
-o-
The doctor is still concerned. “I’m going to add another cocktail to your current regimen,” he says.
JJ is too weary to reply.
So Kiara asks, “What does that mean?”
“Nothing much for you,” he says. “It’ll just be a different treatment value, but it’ll be delivered the same way.”
“And that will work?” Kiara asks.
The doctor is good at smiling even when he doesn’t mean it. “I think we have to try something.”
“Right,” JJ finally says, shaking his head. “As if we’re not trying everything.”
-o-
It’s always been a game of ends and means. That’s what cancer treatment is. It’s poison that saves you. It’s torture that pays off. It’s Machiavellian, no matter how they try to dress it up, with nice nurses and comfortable chairs. You go through hell so you have the chance of heaven.
You kill yourself bit by bit.
So you have the chance at recovery.
It’s supposed to work.
It needs to work.
Last time it worked.
This time, it’s not.
-o-
It’s the same type of treatment, but JJ’s body takes to it poorly. The day after his first dose, he’s so dizzy he nearly passes out. He throws up until he’s slumped on the bathroom floor, shaking so violently that Kiara considers calling for help.
“No,” JJ says, gripping her as she tries to hold him up. “I have to fight.”
She wonders how long that’s supposed to last. She wonders about the virtues they invest in the struggle. She wonders if it’s ever okay to quit.
But then she thinks about life without JJ, life without part of herself, and she can’t make it compute. She’s put her life on hold for this fight. She’s put herself on hold.
All for what? So she can hold his broken body while he pushes on? So she can bear witness to his sacrifice, as parts of him are eradicated by the treatment meant to save his life? So she can hold onto him until he’s gone – just to find out she’s gone with him?
She wonders if this is what JJ’s whole life has been. Fighting a fight you can’t win.
If only because the idea of losing is simply impossible to bear.
-o-
The treatments get harder. JJ gets weaker.
His blood work is showing little sign of improvement.
The doctor hesitates now, and he asks, “If you guys want to talk about alternatives–”
“Treatments?” JJ asks. “Are there other options?”
The doctor is quiet. “It’s okay to stop,” he says. “You do get to make this choice.”
“The choice to what?” JJ asks. He’s indignant, and the edge to his voice is as sharp as she’s heard in weeks. “To die?”
The doctor wets his lips.
JJ looks like he’s ready to cry. He looks at Kiara, and only then does she realize she is crying. “I promised,” he says, and he says it to her. “I promised.”
-o-
She takes JJ home and gives him some water and saltines. The ginger chews still work a little bit, and she’s ordered as many as she can find. JJ is reading a boating magazine, something Cleo has picked out about new models, but he falls asleep within minutes.
Kiara marks his page and puts the magazine aside. She adjusts his hat so his face is more visible, and frowns at how cool he feels. She covers him with a blanket, moves his water to a safer location, and kisses him on the top of his head.
Then, she goes to the bathroom, and cries so hard she chokes, smothers her sobs until her chest hurts, and wonders what a promise even means.
-o-
No one says it, of course. No one will say it at all. They’re all cowards, every last one of them. Sarah starts to laugh nervously. Cleo gets real quiet. Pope rambles awkwardly when he calls from school, and John B is the only one who pulls off denial believably.
Kiara is just numb. Every second. Every day. She can’t feel a damn thing.
Because even the doctor says everything but the truth. The weekly checkups are growing increasingly somber. He orders extra blood tests. He changes JJ’s medications. He takes his vitals with a frown and asks JJ how he’s sleeping, how he’s eating.
The nurse looks nervous every time she weighs JJ.
They add vitamins. They ask him to come in for an extra session each week, and they want to supplement him with IV fluids. He needs iron pills; he needs something.
They don’t say what Kiara knows.
It’s not working. The treatment isn’t working. It’s wiping JJ out, destroying his body, while the cancer cells are still thriving.
No one will say what they’re all thinking, what they all know.
JJ is dying.
This time, JJ is dying.
-o-
“Kiara, hey,” Sarah says.
Kiara startles. For a second, she doesn’t know where she is.
She blinks a few times, and looks at Sarah, who is sitting across from her at the coffee shop. Sarah’s coffee is half-finished. Her bagel is nearly gone.
In front of her, Kiara still has an uneaten muffin. She doesn’t remember ordering it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sarah asks, looking at her with growing concern.
“What?” Kiara says. She’s holding her coffee, she realizes, so she takes a sip. It’s cold.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sarah says. She sounds doubtful now. “Maybe I should take you home.”
She remembers now — Sarah had wanted her to get out of the house. To get some fresh air. She had thought it would do her good.
It’s a nice idea, and Kiara appreciates the sentiment. She’s just not sure it’ll make a difference. No matter where she is, she knows JJ is back home dying. No matter how much air she fills her lungs with, she knows that JJ’s breaths are shorter and harder.
“It’s like you’re not even there,” Sarah says, biting her lower lip with concern. “Kie, I’m worried about you. We all are.”
All Kiara can do is stare back at her. “It doesn’t matter.”
Sarah wrinkles her nose. “What? Of course it matters–”
“No,” Kiara says. “Of course I’m not here. Until JJ is better, where can I be?”
She watches Sarah’s face as she processes it, and she watches Sarah think of the explanations without giving voice to them. Things Kiara knows; things she’s known for a while.
That it’s not healthy, what she’s doing. That it’s not good, to lay down all the parts of herself for a boy. She’s putting herself on hold, she’s all but giving herself up, and she doesn’t even recognize herself when she looks in the mirror.
That’s not what you’re supposed to do, and Kiara knows it. But the idea of a healthy relationship means nothing, not when one of them is wasting away. She can’t be healthy if JJ is dying; she can’t.
She knows no other way to do this. All or nothing, sink or swim. It’s why she jumped in after JJ on the Coastal Venture. If he goes, she goes.
If he dies, she dies.
If he’s dying, she’s dying.
That’s what love is, isn’t it? Absolute and selfless? The kind she wanted and had never gotten from her parents the last few years?
“Kie,” Sarah says again. Kiara brings her attention back around, realizing belatedly she’s zoned out again. “It’s not healthy.”
“I know,” she says, because she does. She does know. Sometimes, she hates it. Sometimes, she hates herself for letting it happen. “But I love him. I just – really, really love him.”
Sarah looks like her heart is breaking, ready to shatter in her chest.
“What if it were John B?” Kiara asks. “What if it were him?”
Her face twists, and she swallows hard. “I know,” she agrees softly. “You’d tear yourself apart for him. Because the idea of losing him is already ripping you to shreds. I know.”
Hearing Sarah say it, somehow, feels good.
Not better.
But good. The acknowledgement, it’s the closest they’ve come to saying it.
Sarah gathers a breath and reaches across the table. She takes Kiara’s coffee and puts it down for her, before taking up her hands. “You’ll give up everything for JJ, and I get it,” she says. “But if you’re going to fight for him, then let us fight for you, too. Because you both have to survive this, right? We need both of you to survive this.”
Kiara’s eyes burn then, but she doesn’t cry. She squeezes Sarah’s hands back, relieved that she sees her, she sees Kiara even when Kiara isn’t sure she sees herself anymore.
She doesn’t know how to say thank you. She doesn’t know how to ask for more. She doesn’t know how to do anything except let Sarah hold her hand, right there in that coffee shop. It’s not enough, and she knows it.
But sooner or later, she has to contend with the fact that nothing may be enough.
-o-
She finds JJ sobbing on the bathroom floor. He’s curled up on the tile, tucked in on himself. Fear pulls at her gut, but she tries not to panic.
“Babe?” she says instead. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t,” he says, eyes squeezed shut. He convulses a little, visibly trying to keep himself from heaving. “God, why can’t I?”
“JJ?” she asks, and she steps inside, kneeling on the ground. She puts a hand on his leg. “Do you need me to–”
“No,” he says, shaking again. He swallows so hard that it looks painful. “I have to keep down the calories – I have to–”
She’s going to tell him it’s okay. She’s going to get him water, crackers – a freakin’ ambulance – but he shudders again.
And this time, his eyes open and the color drains from his already pale face. He’s on his knees in a flash, gripping the sides of the toilet as he heaves.
She stays there, hand on his back, while he surrenders this battle.
-o-
Another drip, slow and steady into JJ’s arm.
She holds his hand and tries to smile.
JJ just looks away.
-o-
Cleo comes over later; she needs to talk business. She’s brought some papers – some order requests, bank details – and she lays them out to go over with JJ, as they have for the last several weeks.
JJ loves talking business most of the time; he loves his charter. He loves his boat.
But he seems to struggle to stay awake. His eyes are glazed as he looks over the papers. Kiara sits on the other side of the table, watching with concern.
“So I just want to be sure that we want to do the repairs – and not a replacement,” Cleo says, pointing at two invoices. “I’m not sure myself. Repairs are cheaper, sure, but the potential long-term savings of a new part could be worth it.”
JJ blinks slowly – too slowly. She’s not sure if it’s the lack of nutrients or the lack of energy. Maybe just the overall combined weight of the chemo with his regular medications. The accumulated effect is a brain fog that JJ can’t shake some days.
More and more days, if she’s being honest.
Cleo wets her lips, looking at JJ while he stammers. She looks at Kiara.
Kiara swallows hard. “You think replacement?” she asks Cleo.
Cleo looks anxiously at JJ and then nods back to Kiara. “I do,” she says. “But if JJ–”
“JJ trusts your judgment,” she says quickly. She tries to smile. “So do I.”
Cleo frowns for a second, looking at the papers. She slowly gathers them back up. She doesn’t need it explained; she doesn’t need Kiara to say it.
Instead, she reaches out, rubbing JJ gently on the arm as he blinks at her. “I’m going to take care of everything at work,” she says. “You take care of you, yeah?”
JJ nods, a little vague. His brow furrows. “Cleo?”
She smiles. “You got more than enough on your plate. You leave this to me.”
He nods again, eyes drifting away. Kiara is quick to move to him, helping him up and walking him over to the couch. She helps him sit, and he blinks at her – blue eyes wide and unfocused.
“Did Cleo–?”
“Yeah,” Kiara assures him. “Cleo’s got everything she needs. You take a rest, okay?”
He nods one more time, even vaguer than before, as his eyes close and he’s gone. Kiara stays for a second, watching him sleep. Then, she presses her lips together and looks back at Cleo. “Some days are bad,” she says.
Cleo has the papers in hand as she gets up, coming over to look at JJ. “It’s a hell of a fight he’s putting up,” she says. “All the things I’ve faced, I’ve never had to fight my own body before.”
Kiara’s chest clenches, and she feels an inexplicable sting of tears. “Cleo – I don’t know,” she says and can’t finish.
Cleo is quick to wrap an arm around her. “It’s a hell of a fight you’re putting up, too,” she says. “JJ already signed over secondary control of daily business operations to me, so let me do this. When he’s feeling like he wants to ask a question or have a say, you just call.”
“But you’re putting your life on hold–”
“Yes,” Cleo says, and she waits until Kiara looks at her. “JJ’s fighting for his life. The rest of us will put our lives on hold to make sure he wins. That’s what I know of family, Kiara. That’s what the likes of JJ has taught me.”
Kiara can’t help it; she is crying now. And Cleo takes her in her arms and holds her fast, holds her tight.
“You’re going to be okay,” Cleo soothes, calm and familiar.
She hiccups, the sobs still coming hard and fast. “But JJ–”
“JJ’s going to be okay,” she says.
Kiara shakes her head, still pressed onto Cleo’s shoulder. “He’s getting worse,” she says, hot and fast. “JJ’s getting worse.”
Cleo continues stroking her head, steady and reassuring.
“I know,” is all she can say. “I know.”
-o-
She can’t stop, though. She has to keep going.
The more JJ slows down, the faster Kiara needs to go. The more he lets up, the more she presses. The tears don’t matter. Her fear doesn’t matter.
If JJ is giving up, she is holding on.
If JJ is surrendering, she will hold ground for both of them.
-o-
“Hey,” she says, finding JJ with a grimace as he lays in the bed. “You okay?”
That’s a dumb sort of question. He hasn’t been okay in–
He’s just not okay.
“I can’t get – comfortable,” he says, a little breathless as tries to shift on the bed. He exhales heavily. “Everything aches.”
She frowns a little, perching next to him. She rubs her hand up and down his back. “You’re too tense.”
He nods a little. His face quivers with a cry he doesn’t indulge. “Kie, it just hurts.”
It’s the cancer. In his blood. Sore joints; it’s a telltale symptom.
She doesn’t tell him, though.
“Easy,” she shushes him instead, pulling back the covers lightly. She rubs his back, his shoulders. His neck and down his arms. “I got you.”
She rolls him to his side, and he submits easily. She smooths her fingers over his skin, firm and gentle, until the tension eases, until she feels him relax. When she looks at him, his eyes are closed. “Kie,” he breathes, eyelids fluttering. “Kie.”
“I know,” she says, still rubbing. “I got you.”
His breath catches. On a protest. On a plea.
On a prayer, an apology. On anything.
But she eases the tension away, smoothing the brittle edges of what’s left of him. He has no choice but to surrender to her touch, and she rubs until his eyes close, until his breathing evens out.
Until he slips away.
-o-
It’s a back and forth, though. She plays tug of war with herself. Blind belief, and violent disappointment. All pressed down by a deep, paralyzing fear.
JJ is dying.
It whispers in the back of her head. It screams in her subconscious.
JJ is dying, JJ is dying, JJ is dying.
-o-
The more the words fall through her brain, the less Kiara understands them. She can’t make it compute. Yes, she sees it happening. She sees JJ wasting away. She sees his will being depleted bit by bit, day after day.
And she still can’t make sense of it.
How is this the boy she fell in love with? How is this JJ, full of energy and life? Where is JJ’s humor? Where is his indefatigable spirit? Where is the sunshine boy who made them all laugh? Where is the crazy asshole who had the worst plans?
He can’t die. Right? It shouldn’t be possible. Fate should know it’s done too much to JJ already and take pity on him.
On her.
Because JJ is dying, and Kiara hasn’t really started to live. She has to watch him lose himself, while grappling with the fact that she doesn’t even know who the hell she is. She can’t do both; she can’t find herself and fight for JJ.
It’s a question of who she’s picking.
Which is to say, it’s no question at all.
She’s picking JJ.
Until the end.
She has to pick JJ.
-o-
“I just think we need a plan, is all,” John B says to her one night.
He’s been over to hang out, but JJ is already asleep and Kiara is smoking a blunt on the porch while John B nurses his beer. He’s barely touched it, even though he opened it an hour ago.
“He’s just struggling,” John B continues.
Kiara laughs. She’s just high enough that it seems hilarious that John B has a penchant for understatement now.
“So we need a way to ground him, keep him motivated,” John B continues.
She exhales a long puff of smoke. “Motivated? The chemo is taking everything he has.”
“Yeah, and it’s saving his life—“
Kiara can’t help it. Her laugh is short and brittle. “What if it’s not?”
He stares at her, eyes burning. It’s the first time since this started, the first time since JJ’s diagnosis, that she’s seen him pissed.
“It is, Kiara,” he says. “It has to.”
“The doctor says—“
“Screw the doctor,” John B snaps. “And screw you too. You can’t give up on him. Not you.”
The blunt hasn’t numbed her enough for this. The spike of anger is real and she stares John B down. “I’m here every day and every night,” she seethes. “I pick him up in the morning when he can’t get out of bed. I make sure to shove the damn pills down his throat. I clean up his vomit when he’s too weak. So don’t dare, John B. Don’t you dare.”
His eyes flash, just as hurt and hard, though. “That’s what loving JJ is,” he says. “It’s pushing through the impossible things, because he is worth it.”
“And I don’t know that?” She asked, voice strangled now while the blunt smolders. “He’s my whole damn world. I know it better than anyone.”
John B sits forward, intent now. “This is why we need a plan, Kie. We can’t wing this, not when the stakes are this high.”
All she can do is laugh. “My plan was to move in with him and start a life together. I was going to find out who I was and figure out how to be an adult. That was my plan, John B, but it’s not going very well, is it?”
She’s pissed how. She’s also crying.
Shit.
She sits back, shaking as she takes another drag.
Just that fast, John B softens. He’s not a bad guy, and she knows it. There was a reason he was the first Pogue she had a crush on. He’s soft and gentle and kind. “I know,” he says. “I just — I can’t lose him either. He’s my best friend.”
He says it like that, best friend. She knows what it really means, though. JJ is a constant in his life. He’s his brother in all the ways that count.
Brother.
To her, even more. Lover. Best friend.
All of it. Everything.
Her lips twist up. The smile is wry. It almost hurts. “Mine too.”
“I don’t know how to do this without him,” John B says softly. “I couldn’t—“
Kiara inhales and lets the smoke ease through her. It’s supposed to make her feel better, but the calmness settles over her with a terrible sort of certainty and acceptance. “It doesn’t even make sense to me,” she says softly. “He’s come so far. He’s got a family. He’s got a job. He’s got stability. And he still doesn’t get to be happy. Like fate has it out for him.”
John B, though, shakes his head. “JJ has always been the one to make the best of a bad deal,” he says. “But he can’t do it alone. So we have to suck it up. We have to come up with something, some kind of plan.”
She lets the smoke circle about her and she sinks back. “I told you. JJ was my only plan,” she says. “I put all my eggs in that basket. So I’ve got nothing else, John B. I’ve got nothing else.”
He looks at her, and for a second she realizes just how focused he’s been on JJ. He’s barely seen her at all. It’s been that way for all of them, the way the world narrows its focus when you realize what’s at stake. Kiara doesn’t know how to be hurt, when she’s done the exact same thing.
Because it’s JJ.
It’s just JJ.
And the only person who understands that as well as she does is John B.
“Kie. I— I’m sorry,” he says. “I know this is — this is hard on you.”
He’s fumbling over the words, and she takes another hit, letting the air rest in her lungs. “It’s hard for all of us.”
“I know but — JJ,” he starts not knowing how to finish. “Sometimes I think it's not about fair. Sometimes I think JJ has survived all this shit so he’s ready for this. He survived Luke all on his own. He can beat cancer with his family behind him.”
That’s the right thing to say. It’s the right thing to think. It’s the perfect sentiment, and Kiara wants it to be enough.
She inhales. She exhales.
It has to be enough.
Sometimes it’s not what you feel. It’s not even what you know.
It’s just what you choose.
Screw the odds. Screw everything.
You choose it until the choices are spent.
“Then, what plan do you need?” she murmurs.
“Just how we’re going to help him remember,” he says. “Because JJ will start to shut down as he gets more and more scared. He’s going to pull away and self-destruct, just like he did in high school.”
He is, is what John B is trying to say. JJ is pulling away. JJ is starting to self-destruct. He is.
“And?” Kiara asks, because she’s too tired. She’s too high. She’s too spent.
“We don’t let him,” he says, resolute now. “The more he pulls back, the tighter we hold. If he tries to quit, we keep going for JJ, even if it pisses him off.”
She regards him coolly. “It’s that easy?”
John B shakes his head soberly. “No. It’s that hard.”
She hums a little, inhaling again. “It’s not what I thought it would be.”
He looks at her and is quiet for a moment. “Are you going to bail? Because I wouldn’t blame you, but I need to know. For JJ.”
She looks at him, brow pulled together. “I wouldn’t know what else to do,” she says. “Losing him isn’t an option.”
Not when she still needs to find herself.
God.
“I’ll do anything,” she says suddenly. “I will do anything to save him.”
And now John B nods. In solidarity. “I’m going to have your back,” he promises. “Just like I have his.”
It simmers and it settles and she takes another hit to ease the edge a little more. “I feel like I’m making promises I can’t keep.”
“No,” John B says. “You’re making promises you can’t afford to break.”
“That’s not a plan,” she tells him candidly as the blunt finally burns out.
John B finally takes a swig of beer. “Close enough.”
-o-
So that’s the plan.
To believe.
To believe in the impossible. To believe in medicine and science and pills. To believe in miracles and moral support and the power of friendship.
To believe in JJ.
To believe so hard, so completely, that he has no choice.
He has no choice at all but to believe, too.
It’s a shitty, desperate plan.
It’s just the kind of thing that might work.
It has to work.
Having everything to lose is a lot like having nothing to lose. It forces you forward with reckless abandon every time.
And that’s the plan.
-o-
She doesn’t mean to, but Kiara thinks about it sometimes. What it means to stop.
What it means to quit.
What it means to let JJ go.
Honestly, it’s hard not to. Her entire life revolves around JJ’s cancer now. She’s so steeped in his suffering that it’s just hard.
She knows the reasons why they’re doing this. She knows JJ’s determination and the doctor’s explanation and the odds. She knows the other choice is to give up and let JJ die. She knows that’s impossible, it is.
But it’s cruel, isn’t it?
What they’re asking JJ to do.
What they’re expecting JJ to do.
JJ is expending himself, mind, body, and soul – and for what? What if he can’t beat this? What if the odds are even worse than the doctor is telling them? What if they’re torturing JJ and he ends up dying anyway?
What if they’ve asked him for everything and there’s nothing left?
What if it’s all for nothing?
She thinks about it more than she should.
In the bed, when she’s staring at the ceiling. In the shower, when she’s curled up on the ground sobbing. In the bathroom at the treatment center, when she’s throwing up her own lunch because she can’t watch JJ do this again.
She pushes it back. She pushes it aside. She pushes it down.
She doesn’t think about how JJ is doing this for her. She doesn’t think about how JJ would ruin himself for her, happily and willfully and completely.
Really, Kiara decides, it’s just best if she stops thinking altogether.
-o-
“What is the doctor saying?” Pope asks. Honestly, he practically demands it the second he gets home from finals. His car is still packed, stuffed with his things. He hasn’t even been home to see his parents or Cleo yet.
She’s not sure why. She’s told Pope everything. He hasn’t been there to go with JJ in person since he’s been at school, but he’s called after every treatment, every visit – all of it.
She knows denial.
Hers.
And Pope’s.
“Nothing new,” she says. They’re on the porch. A movie plays on the TV inside, but JJ’s been asleep for an hour. “His cancer markers aren’t going down as much as they’d hoped.”
Pope visibly tries to clamp his jaw shut, and a muscle twitches.
Kiara has to shrug. “And he’s getting dangerously malnourished,” she says. “They’ve started supplementing him regularly with IV treatments, just to get him enough nutrients to keep going.”
Pope seems about ready to explode. “What about other treatments?” he asks. “Why aren’t they looking at other options?”
“I think they have–”
Pope keeps shaking his head. “I nearly failed three classes because I can’t even focus when JJ’s like this.”
“Pope, you can’t fail–”
“I didn’t,” he says, clearly exasperated. “I’m exaggerating. But it doesn’t matter, you know? Like, what the hell does it matter if I get A’s or C’s when JJ is–”
Dying.
“He wouldn’t want that,” she says softly. “He asks about you all the time. He wants to know how your classes are going.”
“I don’t care about my classes,” Pope says, exploding a little. He shakes his head, rubbing his hand over his head. “Kie, he’s getting worse. I know everyone has said it, but I haven’t seen him since Thanksgiving, and he’s gotten so much worse.”
It’s kind of funny that he thinks he needs to say it, to her of all people. Like she doesn’t know. Like she hasn’t been here watching the decline in graphic detail. He’s in shock, she knows. But her shock has given way to something else, something – harder to explain.
Kiara doesn’t want to call it acceptance.
Even if that’s what it’s starting to feel like.
Inevitability.
“I’m doing everything I can,” she says. “I’m practically torturing him just to keep him going.”
Pope looks stricken, like he realizes his words seem like an accusation when they’re not. “Kie – I don’t know,” he says. “But I’m back now. So I’m going to look into shit. I’m going to look into all the shit. There have to be options. There just does.”
“Yeah,” Kiara says, because what else can she say? “I hope so.”
-o-
Hope, though, is a fleeting thing. Vain and fickle and gone.
It just looks like denial now.
It’s been here since the start, since the first day they sat in the doctor’s office and learned JJ had a 50/50 chance of survival.
But it takes hold now.
It’s just – all Kiara has.
Denial, in the end, is just the desperate form of hope.
-o-
With everything going on, Kiara hasn’t had time to think about much else. Between JJ’s medical appointments and managing their medical bills, she feels spent most of the time. Cleo and Sarah are handling all the other practical details, so she’s not even thinking when she opens the letter.
Honestly, she has to read it three times before she can make sense of it at all.
Her nonprofit.
Water and Light.
The paperwork is approved.
The legalities are in order.
Kiara is the head of her very own nonprofit organization.
It’s ready. Her life is ready.
She puts the papers away, out of sight, out of mind.
Her life is ready.
Kiara, however, isn’t even close to ready anymore.
-o-
Kiara doesn’t tell anyone about the nonprofit — especially not JJ. She refuses to do that to him. She can’t bring herself to show him a future that he may or may not get to see.
She can’t bring herself to be happy.
She can’t bring herself to feel hope. Not for herself.
Instead, she shoves the paperwork into a drawer and buries it as best she can. She looks over at JJ, poking at some toast she made for breakfast.
“What was that?” he asks, nibbling ever so slightly.
“Nothing,” she says, and it doesn’t feel like a lie. “Pointless paperwork. You know.”
He sighs a little, looking listless. “This isn’t fair to you. This shouldn’t be your life.”
“Hey,” she says quickly, crossing over to sit across from him at the table. “This is the life I want. Exactly.”
He looks at her balefully. “You’ve always secretly dreamed of being a cancer nursemaid?”
“Okay, the cancer sucks,” she admits. “But life with you. That’s all I want. And if we have to beat cancer to get it, then I’m game.”
JJ looks back at his toast and is quiet for a moment. He looks back at her. For a second, she thinks he’ll admit how scared he is. She thinks he’s going to say that maybe he can’t keep his promise. Her heart flutters at the idea of him telling her it’s over.
But he doesn’t. Something wavers in his expression, but he pushes it back. “I made a promise, right?”
She nods, resolute. “You made a promise.”
And that's it, that’s what matters. Not those stupid papers, not her nonprofit.
She thinks of life as a zero-sum game right now. If there’s just one happy ending, then screw the nonprofit. The happy ending she wants, the one she needs, is JJ beating this disease.
No future but that matters.
-o-
Kiara is struggling to keep JJ alive.
She lets their friends do the rest.
It’s a skill they’ve all had to learn. Trusting others. Not just a little, but with everything. No matter how much she lectures JJ about letting himself be vulnerable, it’s hard for her, too. To give up so much of herself to the care of others. To be so needy.
It’s less about trust. It’s more about surrender.
But to cling to JJ, she has to give up the rest. Including her pride and independence. She fought tooth and nail to carve out a life away from her parents. Now, here she is, giving that control to her friends.
Her family.
They don’t let her down.
More importantly, they don’t let JJ down. She’s always loved them – always. But the way they’re there for JJ makes her love them even more.
It’s Sarah and Cleo who come by, fit with plans for the day. JJ tries to demur, to say he’s tired and not dressed and he couldn’t possibly.
“That’s the point,” Sarah says with a brilliant smile. She’s perched on the bed next to JJ.
“We’re bringing the good time to you,” Cleo tells him. She’s standing at the end of the bed, bags in hand.
JJ is slumped on the bed; he hasn’t bothered to get out to greet them. Kiara stands in the doorway, hoping for the best. She knows what Sarah and Cleo are up to; she just hopes they can talk JJ into it.
Face pale and brow creased, JJ shrugs. “I’m not even dressed,” he says. “I won’t even tell you the last time I showered.”
“This is precisely why we’re here,” Sarah says.
JJ looks warily from her to Cleo – and then anxiously back at Kiara. If he’s looking for a respite from her, he can keep looking, though. She does her best not to smile while she leaves him hanging.
“I don’t get it,” JJ finally confesses.
“Spa day!” Sarah says, practically squealing. “I brought everything we need for rest, relaxation, and total rejuvenation.”
JJ looks vexed. “Spa day? That’s like – full Kook.”
“That’s what I said,” Cleo says. “But then she showed me the stuff. I don’t know, man. It looks pretty nice.”
“Pretty nice?” Sarah asks with a scoff, like she’s been mortally offended. “This is exceptional stuff. The real deal. Professional quality spa treatments right here in the comfort of home.”
JJ looks at Kiara again.
Kiara shrugs, stepping inside. “Do you all have room for one more?” she asks gamely. Sarah’s face brightens hopefully, and Cleo grins. Kiara shrugs at JJ. “I think we could both use a spa day.”
“Isn’t it wasteful?” JJ asks, like he’s looking for any excuse to get out of it. “Wasting water and shit–”
“Oh, shut up,” she jokes, reaching for one of the bags at Sarah’s feet. “And let’s enjoy this thing.”
-o-
It doesn’t take much for JJ to acquiesce, and Sarah and Cleo get right to work. They’ve thought of everything, with all the supplies they need ready and on hand. None of this is for her, but going along with things is the best way to make JJ feel comfortable.
She knows it’s not easy for him, being the constant source of attention. JJ has always deflected when he should accept help, and she can’t change how much help he needs, but she can help him feel less conspicuous about it.
Besides, she loves seeing him smile.
She loves him.
It’s easy to take that for granted, sometimes. Her constant devotion can make her numb; her preoccupation with his well-being can obfuscate the obvious. She loves him so constantly that sometimes she forgets what it feels like to love him.
But she does.
Love him.
She loves him so much it hurts. She loves the brightness of his blue eyes, the impression of his dimples. She loves the lilts of his voice and the sound of his laugh. She loves his self deprecating humor and the gentleness of his touch.
It seems impossible, then. That cancer could take him from her. When he’s so perfect, when he’s so good. Cancer doesn’t deserve him at all.
Kiara’s not sure she does, either.
She doesn’t care.
She’s not letting go.
She swears to God, she’s never letting this boy go.