TESNI’S STORY
PART ONE
CAPTIVE BY FAE
The day I let her in was one of the worst days of my life.
The day that my annoying housemate—Bee, with her stupid smiles and her stupid laugh and her stupid name—was the day I needed her most.
That’s my supreme flaw.
I let her in that day, after so long of her trying and trying and trying. I let her in because I was losing the only support I’ve ever known, and the truth is, that terrified me.
The truth about me is, no matter how independent I seem, how strong I appear from the outside looking in, I’m weak.
And I’ve always needed someone.
x
That appointment replayed in my head all the way home.
With each rock and sway of the train car, Mum’s stony face etched deeper into the grooves of my brain—and the moment her mask cracked, and her mouth twisted, and tears flooded her eyes…
That haunted me through the bus ride from the train station, then the five-minute walk in the rain back to the townhouse.
By the time I got through the door, I was drenched head-to-toe. If I had emotional scraps to spare, I might have been glad for the drizzle on my face, hiding the tears that glisten there. A camouflage that saved me from my housemates noticing that I was crying on and off for the past hour and a bit.
I wore that camouflage through the open glass doors—and my bloodshot eyes steeled when they landed on Sarah and her always-fucking-here boyfriend. Both sucked into the couch, surrounded by crisp packets and bowls of half-eaten ramen.
My lip tugged up at the sight of them, but there wasn’t enough strength in me to commit to the sneer.
They didn’t notice me as I dragged myself around the back of the couch and to the second set of double doors. They didn’t so much as look at me—too deep in Crash Bandicoot.
That suited me fine.
I shut the doors to the kitchen behind me, and all I saw was the white walls of the hospital, the smell of cleaning products and plastic, and then the quiet ride on the elevator, then around the maze of corridors to the oncology offices—
I blinked, and there I was, sitting in that consulting room, my mum in the chair next to me, her fingers twisting the strap of her bag.
The doctor had spoken gently, too gently, almost patronising, and I bristled against it right away.
It was a mask. A practiced tone he’d crafted throughout his career.
‘Liver cancer.’
‘Stage four.’
‘It has spread…’
The words sounded foreign and smooth.
I stared at the red bumps on his chin, those nasty ingrowns he hadn’t gotten to yet, and I wondered if he thought he’d made good work of his grooming that morning.
Is he even aware of those gross spots burrowed into his skin?
Then darkness coiled in me.
Had he shaved in the mirror, rinsed off his razor in the basin, laughed at something his wife said in the other room? Had he worn his plain gold wedding band then, as he did in the appointment, while he told my mum she was going to die?
