I trace the duffel bag’s stitching. “I haven’t been back to shul with my parents since the diagnosis.” Heaviness threatens the tent, so I do what I always do. Deflect with humor. “Though I do have a long-standing routine of using the day of atonement to wish ill on my enemies.”
“Oh, we can definitely do that from this tent.”
Igiggle. Like a schoolgirl with a crush on her teacher.
Eitan’s face shifts into something serious. He balances his chin on his hand, eyes wide and soulful. “You don’t always have to be funny.”
It cuts through my bravado like a knife. “Yeah, well, me being a depressed, bitter version of myself is the reason things have been so difficult socially, since…” I make the mistake of meeting his eyes, hazel in the yellow light of the tent lamp. My throat itches with the urge to tell the truth. To say, out loud, the reality that Penelope only visited me once during my entire treatment. That we sustained contact because I replied to her Instagram stories with a bare minimum consistency. That every time I saw her, out, with friends, surrounded by people I recognized and—worse—people I didn’t, it was like crawling to the rim of a wellto look out, only for someone to be waiting there with steel-toed boots, kicking me back to the bottom.
But there’s some lingering loyalty at the base of my spine that seems to think telling the whole truth to the best friend of Penelope’s fiancé is a stitch too far.
I settle on some distorted, impersonal version of the truth. “Sometimes normal people are too happy. I tell myself that everyone has to go through things, and this thing is mine. But still. It’s like I’m waiting for something bad to happen to other people.” I pause. His thoughts are written plainly on his face. “Don’t say it! I know what you’re going to say.”
“What am I going to say?” he asks, amused.
“Misery loves company,” I say, lowering my voice an octave. “But that’s not what this is! I’m notwishingfor something bad to happen, justwaiting. Because I can’t be the only person to suffer like this, can I?”
It feels safe sharing this with Eitan because, in this way, I know we’re on equal footing.
“I think that a lot of people are suffering in a lot of different ways,” Eitan says carefully. “But I think that happy people aren’t growing.” Emotion crackles in his voice. “I think the Universe lets you in on some secrets when you go through something like this.”
I sit up, shifting so that I lean toward my duffel too. We meet over the edge of this threshold, faces only inches apart. “What secrets did you get access to?”
The space between us is paper thin. Could easily close with one small movement.
Eitan’s gaze flits between my eyes and my lips. “I’m still riddling through them.” His lips mash together, like he wants to say more.
“What was it like?” I ask, needing to hear everything he can’t say. Wanting to know everything about him, even though I can’t have him. “Going through that with him?”
Eitan’s quiet for a moment. I’m not sure he’s going to answer until he speaks, words quiet and tight. “Before you go through it, death from cancer feels like something that should be dramatic and quick.” His hand whips out above us. “A burning slash through the wide expanse. But it’s not. It’s a slow, quiet deterioration.” His hand curls back into his chest. “When you get the diagnosis, it feels like it’s going to be a binary all or nothing. Either Dad fights this thing and wins, or he loses. But there’s a third door that every metastatic cancer patient walks through: living with it. Trying to squeeze what you can out of the indeterminate minutes you have left.”
The indeterminate minutes you have left.Everyone’s remaining minutes are indeterminate, if you think about it. Metastatic cancer patients just have a little more certainty.
Eitan groans. “I can’t believe I shared that story in front of the entire wedding party. I’ve never talked about it openly, like that.” His eyes slide to mine. “It’s your fault, actually.”
I bark a laugh. “How is thatmyfault? If you pay attention, I’m actually verygoodat being repressed.”
He shakes his head. “Not around me. You’re like this huge tornado, this vortex that tears through me and wrecks everything I try to keep very neatly compartmentalized.”
I check my ears for wax. “Sorry, uh, vortex? Is this supposed to be a compliment because it’s not?—”
“There’s this sad, messy side of myself that isn’t exactly palatable. You have a habit of completely annihilating the separation between my put-together, happy, enjoying-life self and the sad parts.”
“Well, I like that sad, messy side of you,” I say.It’s the only thing that makes me feel sane, sometimes.Our gazes connect,his washing over mine like a swell of saltwater. If eyes are the window to the soul, then Eitan’s are flung open, everything laid bare.
“I want to talk about what happened,” he says, suddenly.
“We don’t need to,” I protest. I want to enjoy this moment without ruining it, for once.
“I’m sorry I haven’t reached out. I needed to sort through my” —he runs a hand through his hair— “head.”
Is this going where I think it’s going? I dig my nails into my palm, refusing to get my hopes up.
He fiddles with his sleeping bag zipper, tugging it back and forth. “I started seeing a new therapist,” he says. “One based in Chicago,” he adds, rushed. “I was thinking that it might be time to try expanding beyond justnow. Give a city a real shot. Try to, I don’t know, build something. A life here. Even if it’s complicated,” he finishes, sheepish.
I’m not breathing anymore; air is merely flowing in and out of me. Does that mean thatwecould expand beyond now too? My feelings are a thorny, tangled mess. I like him.Of course I like him.But he’s said it himself—he doesn’t know how to be in a relationship. If he can fulfill what someone needs. And if he ends up being right, and we were to implode, I don’t know how to survive something like that again.
“I wanted to tell you, even if I ruined things for us. I just—I wanted you to know.” Eitan sees the uncertainty in my eyes. “It’s okay—you don’t have to say anything. At least I know that I have two good friends in this city.” He doesn’t leave any room for me to respond. Just reaches to turn the lamp off, and leaves our duffel bag peace summit behind. I sink back slowly, too, all of my insides in chaos, trying to reason with myself that having Eitan’s friendship back is more than enough.
