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Its funny how the most tragic things can sound normal if you deal with them long enough.
His dad’s cancer used to be a taboo for Henry. He couldn’t even say it out loud for the longest time. His dad was battling cancer and he couldn’t even bring himself to utter the word.
Eventually, the sharp edge the word had dulled until he couldn’t even feel its weight when he said it. It joined the suicide jokes as one of the things he tends to say without thinking that it could trigger a negative reaction from the wrong crowd.
“My dad has cancer” slipped in anecdotes without him realizing and it often lead to awkward stares and Henry scrambling to make them understand that it wasn’t the point he was trying to make.
He couldn’t take any more fake smiles and “I’m so sorry”s from the people he just wanted to bond with.
And then there was Alex. Sure, at the beginning he was one of those people but, as time passed by and as he grew to know and love Henry, he started taking it in stride. He recognized that the weight the words might hold in his mind, maybe didn’t hold the same in Henry’s.
Until the remission news. The second one. Henry crashed and burned. He should be happy but all he could think about was how hopeful he was the first time and how bad it was when the relapse happened. He ended up sobbing in Alex’s arms, who didn’t quite know what to do with everything. Once Henry calmed down and they were cuddling in bed, he started the conversation.
“Sweetheart?
-Mhm?
-Do you want to talk about it?
-About what?” Alex shrugged.
“I don’t know, I just noticed that you never really talk about your Dad’s illness and what it was like for you. I just think now would be a good time to help you process this.
-To be honest, I don’t know if i ever processed any of it” Henry sighed. “I was 17 when the diagnosis fell and I didn’t even learn it directly from him the first time around. I heard Pip and Mum discussing it and I had to sit with this knowledge for weeks before he talked to me about it. Bea knew too, of course she did. They were both in college at the time, I was still a kid.
-They probably didn’t want to burden you—
-With this knowledge so I could live my life as normally as possible, I did all that work with my therapist already thank you Alex.” He winces after realizing how he sounded. “I’m sorry, love, it’s just that it gets tiring to hear that sometimes.
Alex smiles “Its okay sweetheart, carry on
-I think the worst thing about all of that is the secrecy. They never told me anything related to it beyond the fact that it was there. I never knew precisely what he was doing or why, cancer was just this looming shadow everywhere i looked and I didn’t even know what they were doing to fight it. How could i process any of it ?” He felt his eyes start to prickle with tears. “And then the first remission announcement happened, everything was so great until it wasn’t, again!” Tears started to stream down his face. “One day he couldn’t get up from bed because of the stomach pain and had to go to the hospital and suddenly i was seventeen all over again. Everyone left and I stayed home but I couldn’t get anything done. I stayed home the entire day sobbing, thinking about how maybe this was the end and I was going to lose my dad all over again and now he’s supposedly better and I can’t even fucking believe it because the universe’s greatest joke is that I can’t be entirely happy for more than a 6 months period”
A choked sob came out. Alex held him impossibly tighter, petting his hair while Henry cried.
“It’s okay sweetheart, let it all out.”
It hurt. It hurt so bad. It shouldn’t but it did, all the years of bottling up his feelings, being in semi denial about everything related to his father’s illness just came to a head. It felt like he was grieving a person that was still alive. Simply thinking about the past few years and how much his dad had changed because of the illness and how no matter the time he would spend in remission he would never be the same made it even worse. The tears kept coming and falling down his face and he didn’t know how to handle all those emotions until he e ventually calmed down. Henry and Alex fell asleep in bed after debriefing the conversation. The next day they would board a plane to go to London, celebrate the good news. Henry still wasn’t convinced they were out of the woods, but he knew that even if they weren’t, at least he would have Alex to help him through it this time around and this was worth everything.