Page 126 of The Moon Also Rises
“The way I’ve kept my sexuality from you. The way I can’t talk about my past, with anyone, even you all. The way I’ve kept it all a secret from Jake. I’m still not at peace with certain parts of my story, and it’s taking its toll on me. It’s stopping me from being with Jake and I don’t want anything to get in the way of that.”
“Oh, Rami, you really care for him.” Mama reaches a hand up to cup my face.
“I do, but I also… I care about myself enough to know that I need to do this.” I pull in another deep breath. “I’m also going to have a meeting with Cassie, my manager. You remember her?”
“The one I got in touch with to try and find out where you were, when you were in RemiX?”
I swallow down a jagged-edged lump. “Yes, she’s talking about me maybe going back to DJing. I’ve honestly not considered it until the last week or so but I can’t stop thinking about it. I think it would make me… happy.”
Mom considers this for a moment. “Yes, Rami, you deserve that. But what would that mean for you and Jake?”
“I don’t know, but I know I would only do it in a way that meant I could be with Jake. That’s why I’m going to meet with Cassie.”
Mama stares off into the distance for a few moments and I let her. She has a lot of information to digest.
“Whatever you do, Rami, chase your happiness. Life is too short to do anything but that,” she says, and I know exactly where the roots of her words lie.
“That’s why I’m going back to rehab. Because I need to believe that more than some of the other things that my brain tells me. I need to learn to trust myself again.”
She sandwiches my hands between hers and for a long time just stares into my eyes.
“Well, I trust you’re doing the right thing,” she says eventually. “When do you go?”
“Tomorrow.”
There’s another flash of shock but this one dissipates quicker. “What about your job?”
“I resigned. I don’t think it was the right role for me anyway and that’s what I’m going to be meeting Cassie about. She’s been working on me possibly doing a comeback tour.”
Much to my surprise, my mother laughs, loud and heartily.
“What’s got into her?” Roxana says as she brings a tray into the room and places it on the coffee table near us. I spare a quick thought to how it is almost a perfect copy of the tea trays Mama makes for guests and I smile at my sister.
“I’m just dropping a few bombshells. Want me to catch you up?”
Roxie shrugs as she kneels and pours the tea. “Sure.”
“Well, I’m in love with Jake, that guy you all met a few weeks back. I’ve also left my job and tomorrow I’m flying back to the States to do rehab and to discuss a possible work thing, a DJ work thing.”
Roxie nods while her brows pull together. “Okay. But like, none of those things make sense together. If you’re in love with Jake, why are you going to America? And why would you go back to DJing when you were working with him every day?”
I nearly laugh with how absurd it all sounds when spelt out in Roxana’s natural black-and-white logic. “You’re right, none of it makes much sense, but I am hoping while I’m in the US I can do some things that help it make complete sense. And then I’ll come home.”
“For Jake?” Roxie asks.
“Yes,” I say in a faltering voice because his damning parting words echo in my mind. “And to see you all. I’ll always come home and see you again.”
Roxie shrugs at this. “It’s okay if you don’t. If you want to move back to California, I mean. I’m still annoyed I didn’t get to visit you there.”
“I’ll take you to California one day,” I promise, and I mean it.
“I just don’t want to join that cult. That sounded awful. I like playing Nintendo and eating meat too much.”
I laugh despite myself then, and I smile when I see Mom chuckling too.
“I promise nobody in this family is going to be joining a cult ever again.”
“Thank goodness,” Mama says. It’s as close as she may ever get to joining in a joke about that whole episode, and I treasure it. “And you must come back,” she adds. “For us, yes, but also, for Jake.”
