Growing Pains

Chapter 65 - Wanting what I couldn't have

T R I S T A N

Dinner ended up with everyone crying. I didn't think there was any reason to cry. If anything, I thought everyone should be laughing. I didn't actually want to go shopping for coffins on the weekend. It was only a joke. Richard didn't get it. He started crying right away, which made Sam cry too, and then Linda, who did it only because it was what the humans were doing.

Caitlyn didn't think it was funny either when I told her later that night. She was sitting cross-legged on my bed, painting her nails black, and shaking her head at Sam, who was sitting across from her, begging her to let him do it.

I was by the window, trying to ignore the strong smell of nail polish, looking out at the backyard, and all the houses in the neighborhood behind ours.

Sam said, "I'm really good at coloring inside the lines! Tell her Tristan –"

I said, "No."

"For what it's worth," Caitlyn said, not to Sam, but to me, "I think you're being really stupid about this whole thing."

I looked at her and frowned, "I don't know what you're talking about."

She turned to Sam again, "I'll let you do mine if you let me do yours."

Sam threw his head back in a lazy embarrassed smile, "I'll be made fun of at school."

Caitlyn gave him the nail polish anyway, but she was disappointed. Sam didn't care. He was smiling in triumph and sticking his tongue out as he focused on Caitlyn's hand, who turned to me again with the same disappointed look on her face as she had shown Sam.

"Zoey," she said.

I had told her everything, as one tells a therapist. I hadn't told Sam, but apparently I didn't have to, because he looked up like he knew exactly what we were talking about, and said, "You obviously like her."

Caitlyn laughed. I made a face. He shrugged.

After a while, I said, "That's not the point."

Caitlyn didn't agree, "Yes, it is!"

"No, the point is, I'm dying," I said.

"Yes, but you're not dead yet! I don't know why you give this cancer so much power. It already took so much from you, and you just keep giving it more, and more, and–"

"Stop moving," Sam said, struggling to paint a moving target.

"And talking," I said, turning my back at her again so I could feel the wind on my face instead of the acidic stink of nail polish all over my room.

Caitlyn went on talking, "You're not giving her enough credit."

I didn't answer. I couldn't stop thinking about her. I thought I was giving her more than enough credit. Not Caitlyn. She went on, and on, and on. I wanted to throw myself off the window.

"She's not a kid. She knows what she's walking into and she's still walking into it. You don't get to decide for her. You don't get to tell her what to do. She likes you. I have no idea why. I don't think you're very nice to her –"

"I'm fucking nice."

"No, you're not." This was Sam, even though no one had asked Sam for his opinion.

I said, "Fuck you."

And he laughed, and said, "See?"

Caitlyn wasn't done, "The world's trying to make it up to you and you just don't let –"

I stopped her to say the obvious, "Yeah, at her expense, Caitlyn! If she really likes me, how do you think she'll feel when I die on her?"

"You're not that cute." This was Sam, again.

And then Caitlyn, "Yeah, she'll get over you."

"Fuck you both," I said, but maybe they were right, or maybe I just really wanted them to be.

I couldn't remember the last time I wanted something like I wanted this. I was a kid again, wanting what I couldn't have, hoping for the better after being given the worse, time and time again. I had grown out of it then, but I didn't think I was going to grow out of this. Not this time. Not when it came to her.

I would die with all this wanting still in me, all this hope.