Page 24 of No Place Like You

“Still,” she urges. “He hasn’t asked to see a single one of my pictures. And I tookplentylast week when we were shooting the neon line. I really thought he was going to give me some feedback on the purple blazers, but he didn’t even give me the time of day.”

I smile apologetically, placing a gentle hand on her forearm. “Maybe you can get some pictures today and he’ll take a look at them. He seems to be in a giving mood.”

She ignores my optimism, as placatory as it is, and grabs my hand. “Come on,” she urges, glancing at the dwindling staff as we approach our lunch break. “It’s almost lunchtime, and we need to celebrate this new development.”

“Are we finally going to try those chocolate cupcakes across the street?”

“I literally cannot think of a better excuse to get chocolate wasted on our lunch break.”

I giggle. “Let’s go.”

My fingers clutch a plastic container holding my extra chocolate cupcake while I practically skip home. I’m still on a high from today after Kyle sternly reminded me to have my edited pictures to him first thing Monday morning. Normally, I would panic or hyperventilate or have some sort of palpitation-inducing reaction but today, all I did was tack on an extra cheesy grin when I responded with a cringe-worthy “alrighty” to Kyle’s bemused expression. I think I even added some finger guns, but who cares?

The sun is slowly gliding across the clear blue sky, and the humid heat is finally cooling a bit. When I enter my building, the air feels much stuffier than outside, and I suddenly remember the small AC unit in my apartment may not be functioning at its full capacity, much like the toaster oven that doesn’t go above three hundred degrees or the broken hinge of the closet door.

I sigh.Only two more months.

Once on the landing to the second floor, I peer around the corner to the hallway leading up to my apartment. The last thing I expect is for the light to be streaming into the hallway from my door.

Did I leave my door open? My heart drops into my stomach. When I rush to my apartment, I’m greeted with a zombie apocalypse level of damage. I wish I was being dramatic. Like someone would jump out of the armoire—which is surprisingly still standing—telling me to calm my tits, and I’d simply laugh the whole situation off. And maybe when I look back at this moment in five years, I’ll realize that comparing my trashed apartment, with my dirtied clothes scattered on the floor and furniture knocked over as if a tornado ran through it, to a post-apocalyptic world is pretty dramatic. But I don’t have that kind of logic at this moment. Instead, I feel like the cloud I floated home in has evaporated and I’ve fallen into the biggest pile of rubbish my life has ever created.

14

Dexter

“I never thoughtI would live to see the day my big sister does drugs.”

Janet shoves me, the bony points of her knuckles poking my shoulder when she punches me with her small fist. “I’m not doingdrugs, asshole.”

She pops a second medicinal cannabis gummy into her mouth, her mouth twisting to one side as she shoulders through the “interesting taste” she keeps commenting on. She extends the small jar in my direction, offering me one.

I shake my head. “I’m not the one going through chemo.”

She rolls her eyes. “Marijuana can also be enjoyed by people who aren’t dying from cancer,” she points out.

I blanch at the mention of my sister dying, even if it came from her own mouth.

“Anyway, the dispensary dude said my insurance would cover it since it’s being used medicinally.”

“Well, hopefully it’ll give you your appetite back,” I comment, scanning my eyes over her wasting body. She’ll be coming up on five weeks since she’s had her surgery, but even with all of the cancer out, her doctor still recommended chemo.

The chemo was expected, something the doctor prepared her for, but on the day of her first treatment, she left her apartment in a puddle of tears and anxiety. She couldn’t stop worrying about how she was going to react to the harsh meds in her body. And now with the treatment well in her system, the constant pain, and gradual changes in her appearance causing her tolooklike an actual cancer patient, those harsh hits on her mental wellbeing haven’t gotten any better.

“Maybe,” she muses, her lids falling heavy when a forceful wave of fatigue takes over her. She stretches through a yawn before grimacing through a sharp intake of breath.

“You okay?”

Her face tenses as she adjusts her position, shifting on the cushioned seats of her couch while wincing from the jerky movements. “Oh, you know. Just…chemo. And cancer. And blah blah blah.”

Her most recent chemo session was yesterday. The first cycle of treatment is already coming to an end, and we’re hoping for some good news for once. She came home throwing up into a plastic bag before she sucked on a popsicle to help with those pesky mouth sores and took a long nap. These chemo sessions are taxing on her. They’re painful and tiring and leech all of the energy from her. She needs days to recover, and even then, she regains barely enough strength to get her through a workday. Luckily, she’s been able to cut back on her work hours without losing her job completely, doing mainly admin work from home. She’d be devastated if she lost her job altogether on top of everything.

Still, she tries to keep a positive attitude through self-deprecating comments and wry jokes about her cancer. But I see herhiding behind that fickle mask of a smile as it occasionally slips, only for her to brush my concern off with indifference. I wish she would talk to me about what she’s afraid of, how she feels, instead of constantly telling me she’s fine.

As the much-needed medicinal cannabis makes its way through Janet’s body and she relaxes a little from her high, my phone buzzes in my pocket. When I pull it out, I see Lucy’s name flash on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Dexter,” she calls. Her voice sounds weary, like she’s a combination of scared and tired. “I’m so sorry to call you like this…”

---