The doorbell rings, and Takira says, “Your love has arrived.”
“Who said I love him?” I walk to the mirror to adjust my floral-patterned headscarf.
“Since when do you have to tell me something for me to know it?” she asks. “And leave that scarf alone. Your hair is fine.”
The cornucopia of meds has eased my nausea and helped with fatigue, though sometimes both return, but it hasn’t stopped the hair loss. Lately, if I’m not wearing one of Dessi’s wigs, I wear a head wrap to hide the gaps which, even with hair as thick as mine, are noticeable now. My stage makeup still camouflages the butterfly-shaped rash that has spreadits wings over my nose and cheeks, but there’s no disguising how my face has started to swell. The hollows beneath my cheeks that used to sharpen my bone structure have filled into a puffiness no amount of dieting can reduce. This is one way the powerful steroid I’m taking is wreaking havoc on my physical appearance. I don’t want to think about the invisible toll the drugs may take on my body.
“I look okay?” I ask, meeting Takira’s compassion in the mirror.
“You look beautiful,” she assures me as the doorbell rings again. “He’ll think so, too. Now go get him before he busts that door down.”
I kiss her cheek, grab my suitcase, and answer the door. On the front porch, Canon wears the perma-frown he can only shake for so long until the movie wraps. It clears, though, as soon as he sees me.
“You ready?” he asks.
I miss my chance to answer when Takira screams from the back, “Don’t forget the lube!”
Canon and I lock eyes for half a second before we both laugh. It feels like forever since we laughed together. He pulls me into him, and I let myself go limp in his arms.
I let go.
For the space of a few heartbeats, I let go. The sound of his humor vibrates through his chest and reaches all the parts of me hungry for hope, for joy.
And yes, for love.
I haven’t even told him, and I’m not sure I should. If he does somehow feel he can’t walk away from the sick girl, won’t me telling him how I feel, how much I’ve come to love and need him in even just a few months, only make it worse? He’s always said he can read my every emotion. I’m glass, an open window.
For the first time since I’ve known him, I want to pull the shade.
FIFTY-NINE
Canon
“Neevah, we’re here.”
I say it softly, and she doesn’t wake, her head drooped against the passenger side window. On the short drive from her place to mine, she fell asleep almost immediately. I’m in no rush so I sit back with the car parked in the driveway and watch her sleep. She still wears the heavy makeup from being on set today, and not for the first time, I hope she isn’t overdoing it. Dr. Okafor wouldn’t have cleared her to come back if she wasn’t stabilized and able to work. Fortunately, most of what we have left is musical numbers, just her singing, so not as demanding as the last few months.
I wrestle with guilt constantly. I cast her in the movie that stressed her out so badly it triggered this flare. I push hard to get what I want from my actors. Did I push her too much? Is there anything I could have done differently? Did I overlook the signs that she was getting sicker? That day she was so exhausted, she fell asleep in her room. We argued. I blasted her for being late, when she was…
Dammit.
She shifts, slightly dislodging the headscarf covering her hair. Right above her ear there’s a hairless spot, and my heart pinches. Not because I give a damn about her losing hair, but because she has glorious hair, and she’s worked so hard to keep it.
I’ve done this before—walked with someone I love through a tough disease. When Mama died of complications from MS, it had eaten its way through her life, and bearing witness fundamentally changed me. It’s how I learned to compartmentalize—to shelve my grief and deepest emotions so I could get through life. WhenThe Magic Hourbroke out, I was still grievingMama’s passing. I learned how to smile for cameras and to get through press junkets with a heart torn to shreds. And to a degree, I put my heart in a deep freezer box so I could do what I needed to do, and it worked.
Until Neevah.
She found that box when she wasn’t even looking, stumbled upon it and right into my heart. It’s hard to compartmentalize—to focus on this one thing and not worry about this other thing when this “other thing” is the woman I love navigating a life-threatening illness.
Dr. Okafor keeps saying they’ve come so far in lupus research and, with the huge pool of people willing to be tested, she’s hopeful Neevah will find a donor soon. But I lie awake at night doing what I always do—running through all the worst-case scenarios and troubleshooting how I could fix them.
And I can’t.
There isn’t a damn thing I can do to control or to fix it. And this helpless feeling, the one that hounded me to every pier my mother wanted to visit, that dimmed every sunset—it’s back. The one woman who reaches my heart could shatter it the same way my mother did when I lost her. I don’t let myself think that way often because it would drive me crazy and I’d roll Neevah in bubble wrap and hold Dr. Okafor hostage twenty-four hours a day to make sure my girl is okay.
And that would be extreme.
Or would it?
