Page 78 of Just Come Over
“I know you think you can fix anything,” she said. “You’ve fixed too much. You can’t fix this. Not anymore.”
“Wait,” he said again. “What? Talk to me.”
“I... I can’t.” Her voice was shaking, but he couldn’t tell why. Sadness. Fear. Something. “I’ll talk to you on Sunday. I can’t do this on the phone. There are too many things to ask, and to say, and once I start... And not before your game. I’ll help Casey text you tomorrow. You can send her one as well. Please don’t text me.”
She hung up on him for the third time, and left him there, staring at the screen, wondering why he felt like he’d just been driven back in the tackle with a shoulder to the solar plexus. He couldn’t get his breath. He couldn’t calm his thoughts. He breathed his way through them, and he still couldn’t.
Something was wrong withher,or with Isaiah, and it was bad, because she was shutting down. The same way she’d done that afternoon at Dylan’s tangi, when she’d reached the end of her rope, and he’d known she needed to be quiet, and to be alone. That was how she sounded now. Like she couldn’t cope, and she had to cope anyway.
If it was Isaiah, it would be worse. That would be how she’d feel. She’d battle through anything for herself, but if it was Isaiah? She wouldn’t be able to stand it, and she’d have to stand it anyway.
Wait. It couldn’t be Isaiah. He’d sounded fine on the phone—well, in the background—and so had Casey.
If it wasn’t Isaiah, it was Zora.
Cancer wasn’t catching, no matter how it seemed when your Dad and grandmother had both died of it. No matter how it had felt when your brother had been diagnosed with testicular cancer, too, and it had ravaged him like it wasn’t meant to do. Even though it was meant to be survivable. Everybody had said it was survivable.
He’d never reckoned he’d get it himself. He’d reckoned it would happen to somebody else he loved instead.
Zora was young, though, and she was strong.
So was Dylan.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, gripped the edge of the mattress with both hands, dropped his head, and held on.
He’d been in Japan when Dylan had called him with the news. He’d been here. In Tokyo. In this same hotel, the night before a game, lying on the bed and watching a movie. It was the same thing all over again, and he couldn’t... he couldn’t...
“It’s bad, bro,” his brother had said that night, and his voice had wavered. “I’m not going to be playing again.”
“It’s all right,” Rhys had said instantly, so sure it would be. “Nobody plays forever anyway, and you’ve had a good run. You’ll be all good. You’ll do treatments.”
Dylan had been released from his English club anyway. If he’d been playing again, it wouldn’t have been at Super level. Time to do something else, Rhys had thought. Time to man up and move on. Dylan had a wife and son to support, and the house he’d bought had been too much of a stretch. He’d been talking about TV, about becoming a commentator, but Dylan was always talking about something. Which was, of course, why he’d be a good commentator.
“They’re going to take one of my balls,” Dylan said, and Rhys’s mind caromed back to the moment, back to where his focus was supposed to be. “And they’re going to do radiation on the other one. It’s going to make me sterile. Zora... she wanted another kid. She used to, anyway.”
“So they take one. That’s why you have two. You get her pregnant before they do it, that’s all. Or you... dunno. Freeze sperm, or whatever, and save it for after. And then you fight.”
He heard what Dylan hadn’t said.What if I can’t fight hard enough? What if I don’t win?And, as always, he stepped into the breach. “You’re going to fight hard enough,” he said. “You’ve got the blood of warriors. Time to prove it. I’ll come home during the bye and go to the next appointment with you, talk to the doctors, find out what else we can do. You’ve got me behind you, and you’ve got Zora. You’re going to fight, and you’re going to win.”
“Yeh,” Dylan said, and drew in a long breath. “OK. That’d be good, if you came.”
“How’s Zora?” A question he never asked, but one he had to ask now.
“She...” Dylan said, then stopped.
“She what?” Never tell him Zora wasn’t stepping up. Zora had steel underneath.
“She was talking about... leaving. Her and Isaiah. And I don’t think I can do it without her.” More shakiness, now.
“Wait. You got the diagnosis, and she told you she was leaving? Are you sure that’s what she meant?”
“No. Before.”
Rhys had a hand in his hair, was forcing the calm. “Bro. What did you do?”
A long silence. “She found a few texts. From a girl. And me. But I told her it was nothing,” Dylan hurried on into the silence. “Just blowing off steam. You know it’s nothing. She’s in England anyway. She’s not even here. Nothing for Zora to worry about.”
If it’s nothing,Rhys thought and didn’t say,why do you keep doing it?He said, “I can’t help you with that.” He knew it was cold. He said it anyway.
