Page 69 of The Dramatic Life of Jonah Penrose
Saying goodbye seemed like an odd concept; he’d said goodbye to his dad in so many ways since his diagnosis. He’d said goodbye to the memories his father could no longer recall and tried to keep them safe in a neat box he tucked away in the recesses of his own mind. He’d said goodbye to their conversations, the ones they had back on summer nights in the garden as the sea crashed against the bottoms of the cliffs. And he saidgoodbye to the fit man who once competed in the dad races on field days and always won, lifting Jonah up into the air and yelling in triumph as the other dads still attempted to cross the finish line.
Jonah sniffed and wiped some tears from his eyes, looking out the car window at the darkness whizzing past them.
“There’s tissues in the glove compartment,” Dexter said, jerking his head toward the handle in front of Jonah’s knees.
“Thanks,” Jonah mumbled. He opened it to fish out a brand-new packet of tissues and pulled one out to swipe across his nose. “Sorry. I know I look gross right now.”
“You always look gross, so no change there.”
Jonah narrowed his eyes at him but managed a smile. “I can always count on you to make sure I never forget just how shit I look.”
“You sure can.” Dexter kept his eyes on the road, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and bobbing his head along to the music on the radio.
“You can stay at my mum’s house and sleep once we get there,” Jonah said, knowing they hadn’t discussed any logistics with their middle-of-the-night expedition. “Not that I’m expecting you to stay or anything.”
“Thanks. I’ll probably need to get some rest before driving back. If... if you’re okay with me heading back, that is.”
“Dexter, I still can’t believe you’re actually driving me. Of course I don’t expect you stay. Especially after... well... you know.”
Dexter cleared his throat and clicked off the radio, the comfortable backdrop of the music suddenly gone. “I know now isn’t the time for us to be talking about this, but I just need you to know I haven’t gone behind your back. Not with anything. I’m not interested in messing around in relationships, Jonah.”
Outside they passed a family of trees, all of them reaching out to each other, branches intertwined, bodies barren, the leaves already turned to brown and fallen away.
“You want to know what I do on Mondays?” he asked seriously. “Every morning at ten I have an hour session with my therapist. Then my mum calls me for our weekly check-in, which usually lasts about eight minuteson average as she fills me in on the lives of the half sisters I’ve never met.” He kept his eyes focused on the road. “Then I have to clean the house because I need to do something after that call that doesn’t make me feel like absolute shit because she ran away and left me. I thought maybe I could try something to calm me, which is why I went to yoga, but then you were there and I squashed your dick, so cleaning seemed the safer option.”
Jonah wanted to reach out and place his hand on his knee, but he couldn’t, not now, not now things were frozen between them.
“I think... maybe we both have some issues with trust, Dexter.”
Dexter allowed his eyes to drift from the road for a second as he looked at Jonah. “What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes already back on the road.
“It’s what it all boils down to, isn’t it, because why not tell me that before?” Jonah asked carefully.
“Stephen said therapy was a waste of time. And he hated the cleaning, said I was neurotic.”
“I’m not Stephen.”
“And I’m not Edward.”
Jonah tensed at the mention of his name, flashbacks of Wes walking toward him back at the Persephone, fingers curled in a fist, and the pain following shortly afterward. “I think maybe you’re right.”
“About what?”
“I can’t be with someone until I sort myself out.” Something inside of Jonah stung, a physical pain he didn’t know he could experience. He watched as Dexter swallowed thickly, and he wanted to kiss him, he wanted to touch him and beg him to hold him until everything felt okay again. But once the storm passed, would there be trust? Dexter didn’t deserve Jonah’s insecurities forced on him, and Jonah didn’t deserve it from Dexter either.
Dexter clicked the radio on again, and they listened to a woman drone on about illegal aircraft for twenty minutes until a song finally came on. “Afternoon Delight.” At three forty-eight in the morning. Jonah looked at Dexter only to see him glance back at him with a smile. They fell backinto a somewhat comfortable silence and watched the countryside pass them by.
The beeping of his dad’s heart monitor reminded Jonah to stay awake. He’d never felt so exhausted, but he saw his mum asleep in the chair next to the hospital bed and knew one of them needed to stay awake to hold his dad’s hand. He’d relieved Aunt Penny of her duties, and she left the hospital reluctantly, but he could see just how tired she was too. She took Dexter with her, instructing him to follow her back to the family house on the edge of the cliff where he would no doubt sleep in Jonah’s old bedroom and wonder how the hell he ended up in Cornwall with a man he just broke up with.
Jonah held his dad’s hand in his and looked down at the IV poking out from his skin, the surrounding area mottled and bruised, his hand skeletal, old, so terribly old. The selfish part of Jonah wished he would wake up so they could talk. It didn’t matter what topic his dad chose, he would talk to him about anything for hours if it meant he could just hear his voice. But he knew he just needed to be grateful he made it in time, that he was there, by his side in case the worse thing really happened.
“The man you came here with is handsome,” his mum said, pulling Jonah’s attention away from his dad’s peaceful, sleeping face.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I seem to only close my eyes for fifteen minutes before I remember where I am and I find my eyes are open again, looking at him, making sure he’s still breathing.” She sat forward and yawned, her own body frail. She seemed decades older than she really was. “How did we get to this point, hey, sausage?” She took his dad’s other hand into hers and carefully stroked his fingers.
“I still can’t understand how he’s deteriorated so quickly.”
