Page 139 of When Worlds Collide
My phone pinged in my pocket, and I pulled it out to look at the screen, clocking at the same time my low battery – a direct result of how often I had taken to pulling it out during the day.
UK TO CONSIDER NATIONAL LOCKDOWN. EXPATS, AND TRAVELERS ARE ADVISED TO POSTPONE PLANS AS SITUATION EVOLVES.
Ice slipped down my spine. The word ‘lockdown’ was being liberally thrown around by the global news media now, with several countries discussing how it might work.
Would I get locked out of the UK? How would that effect my pending Visa application?
“Hey, Kaiya!” Hana’s voice broke through my reverie. “Get your butt over here, I can’t move this on my own.”
“Coming,” I called back, shoving my phone into my pocket, stowing my thoughts. For now.
I called Becka on my way home, tucked into a corner of the bus that in no way resembled the ones we used to take to and from Pisces studios, but hearing her voice in my ear threw me all the way back to that crazy period of time, where for a little while I lived in the city of angels and met a K-Pop star. And fell in love.
“What’s wrong?” Her voice washed over me, a perfect blend of assertive, and concerned.
“What makes you think anything is wrong?”
Despite my roiling emotions, a grin still managed to creep up my face.
“You’re calling me at 1:00 am.”
Horrified, I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at the 6:09 pm on my phone screen, struggling to work out the maths in my head.
“Ah, f…” I trailed off, mindful of the group of ahjummas sitting a couple rows away from me.
“So, I repeat: what’s wrong?”
“I’ll let you get back to sleep, don’t worry about–”
“Babes, I swear to god if you don’t spit it out, I will fly over there–”
“My mum has cancer.”
Only the sound of the chugging bus engine assured me I hadn’t gone deaf, as all I heard down the line was a silence so loud it was deafening.
“What did you say?” Becka’s voice was so strained I barely made out the words.
“I know,” I sighed.
Once upon a time, I’d worried that Becka would be too much, too brash, too American for my parents, but upon meeting her for the first time, they’d damn-near adopted her. Becka had loved it, relishing the attention like a well-fed house cat.
Traveling back to the US for every other national holiday was completely impractical, and so she’d come back up north with me, to stay with my folks. I didn’t even bother asking after the first couple of times. Becka just packed a bag and asked me what time the train was.
We were both the only children our parents had, and I guess that was one of the reasons we’d stuck together – maybe we saw in each other the same parts of ourselves that other people didn’t always understand.
And in my parents, in my home, I think she found a little more family that maybe we all crave.
“Tell me what you know,” she demanded.
Ah, there was Rebecca Hanson – the practical one that made sure shit got done. I’d always envied her ability to turn any kind of situation around, to detach from the emotion and see something as a problem to solve.
So, I told her everything I knew.
That she was stage II, she was having a single mastectomy, followed by chemo, her prognosis was good, but she’s high-risk. All of which I’d managed to fact-find after grilling my mum about her treatment this week. She was practical and didn’t believe in sugar-coating it for me.
“When are you going home?”
“I–” My mouth opened, and shut reflexively, because when was I? Was I? Should I? My head swam, and the familiar knot of frustration rose in me, because these were the same questions I’d been asking myself all week, and I still had no answer.
