My Skylar

Chapter 12
MITCH
I’d never been more petrified of anything in my entire life. When Skylar suddenly collapsed, I practically flew toward her, catching her head in mid-air just before it hit the ground.
“Help!” I yelled, but no one answered. Her stepmother must have left the house.
My heart was pounding through my chest. I tapped her cold cheek. “Skylar! Skylar, please.”
Just as I grabbed my phone to call 911, her eyelids fluttered.
“Skylar. Skylar, you’re okay. I’m here.”
“Mitch? What happened? Where am I?”
“You fainted.”
“Oh.”
“Has this happened before?”
“The doctor warned me about dehydration with all the vomiting lately. I must have gotten up too fast.”
“Do you feel like you can stand up?”
She shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
“Okay. We’ll stay here. I’m just gonna get up for one second and get a pillow.”
“No. Don’t leave me.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
I took off my jacket and placed it under her head. After a few minutes, she used my hand to balance herself slowly to a sitting position.
“I think I can stand up now.”
I led her over to the bed then grabbed a water bottle from my bag unable to open it fast enough. “Drink some of this.”
She sat up slowly against the headboard and drank from the bottle as I held it to her mouth. “Thanks. I never had water today. Dumb move.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“A little nauseous.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“Just stay here next to me.” She remained sitting up with a pillow propped against her back and closed her eyes.
She didn’t realize her wig had shifted and for the first time, I caught a glimpse of the bald head underneath. She would have freaked if she knew, so I didn’t say anything.
Admittedly, it was a shock to see it at first, but everything that had happened from the second I walked in that door had been a rude awakening. Somehow, despite hearing over the phone about everything she’d been going through, I had imagined her physically unchanged, which was easier when I was away and feeling helpless. The reality of how physically weak she had become was hard to accept.
I continued to watch her as she lay with her eyes closed. Black eyeliner was running down her cheek on one side. My heart broke that she felt the need to make herself look unrecognizable, thinking that it would please me. My chest felt heavy, ready to combust in pain, sadness, frustration and love for her all at once.
Even though she looked sick and had lost her hair, not for a second did I love her any less. It killed me that she worried that I’d view her differently because she looked different.
If she only knew how much more I loved her right now, how much more I respected her after witnessing firsthand the strength it took to fight the war her body was enduring.
On top of that, the threat of losing her seemed more real now.
In a way, you don’t realize the depth of your feelings until something like this happens. Through her frailty, I saw her soul—the essence of why I’d always loved her. It shined brighter, no longer paling in the reflection of her physical beauty. It made me realize that I truly loved her from the inside out, not the other way around.
She suddenly opened her eyes and turned her head in my direction, catching me staring at her. “What are you looking at?”
“Remember on the phone that day, how you said you felt like half of yourself?”
“Now, you can see why, right?”
My tone bordered on angry. She had it all wrong. “No. No…that’s not what I was getting at.” I grabbed her hand. “I’ve felt like half of myself, too…until now. I only feel whole when I’m with you. Now that I see with my own eyes what you’ve been going through, I feel like I’ve been living a lie all these weeks. I should have been here.”
“No. You shouldn’t have. I wouldn’t want you here all of the time to witness the worst.”
Tell her you love her.
The words wouldn’t come out. As usual, I convinced myself that she would think I was saying it only because she was sick. So, I decided against it. Another thought popped into my head instead. “Will you come to my prom with me?”
“What? What exactly about this situation screams prom queen?”
“I was just thinking. I know it’s a ways away, but it will be after your treatments are done. I could never picture going unless you were with me. It’ll be something for us to look forward to.”
She smiled for the first time since I had walked in the door. “Okay. I could use that.”
“It’s settled then.”
When I leaned in to hug her, her wig accidentally shifted further off her head. She jumped in a panic, frantically trying to reposition it.
I put my hand on her arm. “Wait. I want to see it.”
She let out a single laugh. “No freaking way.”
“Skylar, your wig’s been slightly off your head this whole time. I didn’t say anything, so I’ve already seen part of it.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“I need you to stop being so afraid. It doesn’t matter to me. You matter to me. I can’t prove that to you if you think it all depends on your wearing that wig.”
She shook her head, and a tear fell down her cheek. She mouthed, “I can’t.”
I fought like hell to stop my own tears from falling and looked deep into her eyes. “Please.”
I had honestly not expected her to go for it. When she lowered her arm, she gave me a conflicted look and a slight nod, reluctantly giving me silent permission.
My hand shook a little as I slowly pulled the wig back, letting it fall onto the pillow. I wasn’t nervous to see her bald. I was nervous because I knew she was scared. I worried that she’d misinterpret my emotions. The truth was, what she had just handed me amidst her own fear had truly surprised and moved me. It meant that somewhere inside of her beyond the insecurity, she knew how much I cared about her.
Her chest rose, and she wouldn’t look at me. I understood. Her self-consciousness didn’t keep me from doing the one thing I couldn’t help, though.
My rough fingertips rubbed along her smooth, perfectly round scalp. Her head was hot with slight beads of perspiration from the wig, which probably irritated her. And that irritated me. The skin on top of her head felt like silk. Her eyes were still closed as I moved my fingers in slow soft circles over it.
All of Skylar’s hair transformations during the phases of our friendship ran through my mind like a slideshow: the whimsical braids of the little girl who brought me back to life as a boy, the long, rain-soaked tresses of the vixen in the Catholic school uniform. I loved them all, but none had meant more to me than the vulnerable girl with the soft, smooth head who just put all of her trust in me.
I moved in behind her, and she rested her back against my chest. I lowered my lips and planted a kiss on her head. She was too tired to fight the contact. “You’re the most beautiful girl in the world to me.” I kissed the same spot again. “Please know that.”
Tell her you love her.
My mouth rested against the top of her head as she continued to lean against me.
Coward.
I closed my eyes and felt her breathing start to even out then realized she had fallen asleep in my arms. When I finally opened my eyes, I looked in the doorway to find Skylar’s father standing there watching us. I flinched and opened my mouth ready to apologize for being in her bed when he held up his hand.
“Shh. Stay. Don’t wake her.” His eyes were watery, and his voice was shaky. I wondered how long he had been there and what he had seen.
***
My back hurt from the couch downstairs. I wasn’t able to sleep knowing that Skylar hadn’t been feeling well last night. The house was quiet since everyone was still sleeping. I went into the kitchen and started to make coffee. The brown liquid dripped down into the carafe. I counted the drops with disdain, each one signifying another second closer to having to leave her again.
Oliver startled me. “Morning, son.”
I turned around. “Hi. I hope you don’t mind. I made some coffee.”
He nodded. “No, that’s good. I’ll take one black. How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine, just hoping she’s feeling better than yesterday.”
“This can’t be easy for you seeing her like this,” he said.
“I can handle it as long she’s feeling okay.”
“We’ve had some rough days lately.”
“Is she up?”
“I didn’t hear her when I came down.” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “Listen, I know before this, I hadn’t really been present all that much in her life, but she always has nothing but good things to say about you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Please call me Oliver.”
“Okay…Oliver.”
“She’s stuck with me now, but she would never stay here by choice otherwise. I know she’s not happy here. I wish she knew how much I loved her. I tell her all the time now, but I’ve made a lot of mistakes with her over the years.”
I handed him a coffee. “She knows you love her, sir…Oliver.”
He took a sip and peeked at me from over the mug. “Does she know you do?”
“What?”
“It’s okay to say it, you know.”
I nodded. He was definitely standing at that door longer than I thought yesterday. “I get it. Thanks.”
***
Throughout the weekend, Skylar continued to be sick as a dog. Despite her showing me her head, she insisted on wearing the wig around me.
I held the strands back for her while she threw up in the toilet Sunday morning.
“Mitch, you should go home.”
“No f*cking way.”
I was scheduled to take the eight pm train out of Manhattan tonight and wasn’t going to leave her a second before I had to.
That afternoon, she asked me to run to the store for ginger ale. On the walk home, a thought crossed my mind after passing one of those spinning barbershop poles. I stopped in my tracks.
Should I do it?
Why the hell not? If it would make her feel less alone, it couldn’t hurt. I’d do anything for her.
Bells rang as I impulsively opened the door to the shop. “Take it all off.”
The owner, Luigi, looked at me like I was crazy. “Do you know how many men would kill for your head of hair, and you want to shave it off?”
When I explained why, not only did he take it off, but he did it for free. Apparently, he had a daughter with breast cancer.
I took one look at myself in the mirror and couldn’t help but laugh. My head wasn’t exactly as smooth as hers. “I look ridiculous.”
He patted me on my back, wishing me the best of luck, and the patrons all clapped.
Back outside, my head felt like it was going to freeze into an ice cube. I put my hood on hoping this would help cheer her up.
When I returned to the house, Oliver and Lizete were watching a movie as I rushed past them up the stairs. Skylar was taking a nap, so I put the ginger ale on her dresser and lay down at the foot of her bed, waiting impatiently for her to wake up.
I ended up nodding off and awoke to the sound of her screaming.
“Mitch! What the hell did you do?”
“Don’t freak out,” I said groggily.
“Don’t freak out? Before I fell asleep, you had hair like David Beckham. I wake up, and you look like Mr. Clean!”
I couldn’t help laughing at her reaction. “What…you don’t like it?”
“No! I don’t. Unlike you…I’m honest about it. Nobody actually looks better bald.”
“Well, get used to it. As long as you don’t have hair, I won’t either.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. We’ll be the bald brigade, except at least I can wear a wig. You can’t. All of the male ones would make you look like a 1970’s porn star.”
“I don’t care. I just want to support you, and this is my way of doing it.”
After several minutes, her initial shock seemed to wane, and she rubbed her hand along my head and laughed. “I get why you did it, but you’re insane, Mitch Nichols.”
“Only when it comes to you.”
Tell her you love her.
“Clearly. I can’t believe you did this.”
“Skylar, I…” Say it. “Got your ginger ale.”
Coward.
“Thanks.”
“I have a few more hours before I have to leave. What do you want to do?”
“Just lie next to me.”
“I can handle that.”
Over the next several minutes, she became very fidgety and seemed uneasy.
“Are you okay?”
“My nerves are acting up. Some of the meds cause anxiety.”
“My mom’s therapist told her to create a happy place in her mind whenever she got like that and then meditate on it. Where would you go if you could go anywhere?”
“Hmm. It’s not really a specific location, but it would probably be like a beach house right on the water. It would have one of those reading nooks by a large window overlooking the ocean.”
“What would you be reading?”
“Probably smut.”
I laughed. “Of course. Okay, imagine yourself there reading your smut. Whenever you start to feel nervous, just keep imagining that peaceful place.”
“Where’s your happy place?”
“Lately? Anywhere you are.”
“That’s cheesy, baldy.”
“That’s the truth. As long as you’re there, in my mind, the place is interchangeable.”
She stared at me for a while and suddenly looked sullen.
I gently shook her arm. “Hey…what’s going on? What did I say?”
“Nothing.”
“Something is bothering you.”
She closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them said, “There’s something I’ve always wondered but haven’t asked you because I’m afraid of the answer. It’s been eating at me lately.”
My pulse raced. I had a feeling I knew where this was going. “Okay…ask me anything.”
She inhaled. “I know you’ve dated a lot of girls…but have you ever had sex?”
Honestly, I didn’t know how I’d managed to avoid this conversation for so long. I had to be honest with her.
I swallowed. “Yes, I have.”
She let out the deep breath she had been holding. She looked devastated. F*ck. I hated this. I hated that I just hurt her on top of everything else she’d been going through.
Her eyes were watery, and her neck was breaking out in hives. “I suspected but wasn’t sure. God, I feel so stupid. I had this fantasy, that by some miracle, you hadn’t and that one day, we’d be each other’s firsts.”
Hearing her say that crushed me. “I wish so badly that could be true, that I could take it back. I need to explain it to you.”
“Explain sex to me?”
“No…God…just let me talk, okay?”
A tear fell down her cheek. “I can’t believe I’m crying over this. These damn meds.”
I turned to her, and our faces were inches apart when I wiped her eyes. “You’re crying because you care about me. If you had just told me you had sex with some guy, I’d probably be on the train right now to go kill him. So, you’re handling it better than I would.”
She sniffled. “How many?”
“Two.”
“Who were they?”
I let out a deep breath. “My first time was with a girl named Leah. She was two years older. It was back in Long Island right before I moved to Jersey. It wasn’t special. It was a mistake.”
“And your second time?”
“A bigger mistake. It was with Brielle.”
She shuddered, closing her eyes. “When?”
“About a month after I moved here. It was one time.”
“Did you use protection?”
“Of course.”
She looked so sad, and it felt like my heart was in a chokehold. How do I explain to her that it didn’t matter without sounding like an a*shole? I had always regretted that night with Brielle, but I couldn’t take it back.
“I almost wish I hadn’t asked you.”
I needed to find the words to explain to her that no girl has ever mattered to me like she has.
“The first time happened so fast. I worked with her at the local supermarket. She had been coming onto me for a long time, and I gave in one night. She wasn’t a virgin, and I didn’t know what I was doing. We never went out again, and then I moved away. With Brielle, it was different. I had made up my mind to do it. It was almost mechanical. I was testing myself during a time I had vowed to stay away from you. I thought if I could move faster with someone else, it would somehow make it easier to be around you and not want you that way.”
“So, you were using her…”
“In a way, but I honestly think she was using me, too. She had just broken up with her boyfriend. I don’t want to sound like a dick, but it honestly didn’t mean anything. Then, she told a bunch of people at school, and that pissed me off. I regret it.”
“You make it sound like it’s no big deal.”
God, I sucked at this. Tell her how you feel.
“It doesn’t feel like a big deal if your heart’s not in it. All I know is, after the night you and I kissed, I couldn’t imagine wanting anyone else. That kiss alone was the most phenomenal thing I had ever experienced in my entire life. I'm sorry I can't give you my first time, but you’re the only girl who’s ever had my heart. As long as you tell me to wait for you, I will. I can’t go back and change the past, but I can guarantee that if you decide to give yourself to me someday, it will damn well mean something.”
She didn’t have time to respond before we heard footsteps. I jumped up off the bed.
Lizete opened the door. “Oh my God! Wow.”
At first, I was confused then realized she was reacting to my shaved head. I was so worried about Skylar that I’d forgotten about my hair being gone.
“Yeah, Mitch came home with a little surprise for me.”
Lizete tried to contain her laughter. “Wow…it’s…wow. Anyway, dinner’s ready. Then, your father’s gonna drive Mitch to Manhattan to catch his train.”
We followed Lizete downstairs without continuing our conversation. The fried chicken and rice she made tasted great, but I had to force myself to eat it. My stomach was upset because I didn’t want to leave Skylar, especially while she wasn’t feeling well. She was being really quiet throughout dinner. Oliver made small talk while she and I stole glances at each other. I hoped she wasn’t still thinking about my admission upstairs, although I suspected she was.
After dessert, Skylar excused herself to go back to her room. I waited a few minutes before following her and caught her as she was coming out of the bathroom.
The hallway was dark and before she had a chance to open the bedroom door, I pulled her toward me and hugged her tightly.
I buried my face in her neck and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For everything…for upsetting you, for not being able to make you feel better, for having to leave.” I spoke into her skin. “I feel like a failure.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Thank you for telling me the truth earlier.”
“I’m sorry it wasn’t the answer you hoped for.”
“Let’s not talk about that anymore, okay?”
“Okay.” I kissed her forehead. “I just want this to be over.” My voice was shaky, but I refused to cry. “I wish it were me going through this and not you.”
“Don’t say that. I wouldn’t ever wish this on you.” She lowered my shaved head to her mouth and kissed the top.
“What if I stayed and went to your treatment with you tomorrow?”
“Mitch, you have school. You can’t do that. That would upset me more than you leaving.”
“I can’t just go home and pretend that everything’s normal anymore now that I’ve seen firsthand what this has been like for you.”
“You have to.”
She let go of me, opened the door to her room, and I followed her in. She walked over to the mirror. “I’m starting to lose my lashes.”
Skylar continued to look at herself while I hugged her from behind, filled with anger. In just two days, I saw this f*cking cancer strip away at her bit by bit. That was only what I witnessed, only a fraction of the time she’d been fighting it with several months left to go.
I just wanted to make her forget for a minute. We didn’t have much time before her father would come upstairs, so I turned her around, put both of my hands on her face and pulled her lips into mine. I had been dying to kiss her all weekend, but there was never an appropriate time.
Her body was stiff at first, caught off guard by my sudden attack. When my tongue slipped inside her mouth, though, she slowly relaxed into it. It had felt like an eternity since the last time we kissed like this. I was quickly reminded of how sweet she tasted and how out of control it made me feel. Even as sick as she was, I was still so unbelievably attracted her. She sighed as I hungrily opened my mouth wider over hers and began to kiss her more aggressively.
I spoke over her lips. “Have I ever told you how much I love your lips, Skylar?”
She smiled through our kiss and moaned into my mouth. We both pulled back suddenly when someone knocked on the door.
She rubbed her mouth. “Come in!”
Oliver opened the door. “I’m sorry, Mitch. We’d better head out so you don’t miss your train.”
“Okay. Be right down.”
We just stood there staring at each other. My stomach filled with dread as I heard him start his car outside to warm it up.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward me. Our foreheads were touching as I said, “I may be walking out of here, but there’s not a piece of my heart that’s coming with me.”
She had to practically push me out the door because I wouldn’t let go of her.
The train ride home was like a bad dream. Sounds were louder than normal. The voices of the other passengers were intolerable. I felt like a shell, so disconnected from the rest of the world, a fish out of water. It angered me that all of these people were moving toward something, while with each second, I was moving further away from the one thing that mattered to me. It felt wrong, like I had left not only my heart but my entire self back in Skylar’s bedroom. I had no clue how I was going to function tomorrow, knowing that she was getting more of that poison pumped into her.
When the cab dropped me off at home, I looked up into the darkness of Skylar’s empty bedroom window across the street and said a silent prayer before entering my house.
My mother was in the kitchen. “Mitch?”
Ignoring her, I walked upstairs in a daze. I had a hood on, so she wouldn’t have seen my head.
Seamus was unusually quiet when I opened the door to my bedroom. I was sure he’d start barking again the second he saw me. I opened the cage to make sure he was still alive, and he was just looking at me quietly. He looked how I felt. “Hey, little guy.”
He squawked once and tilted his head.
“I know. I miss her, too.”
When I leaned in to kiss the top of his head, he nipped my nose. “Ow.” I guess I had pressed my luck.
The urge to call Skylar was killing me, but I didn’t want to wake her because she had an early appointment tomorrow. I sent her a text instead.
I’m home. Well…“here.” Home is wherever you are. I feel lost without you. And I miss your lips.
I felt restless, like I needed to do something for her. I opened my laptop and started a Google search on Hodgkins Lymphoma. The statistics were promising, but of course, that’s never the information your mind zones in on. What stuck in my brain were all the potential long-term side effects of chemo, the possibility of a bone marrow transplant if the chemo didn’t work the first time around, the risks of radiation, the chance of secondary cancers developing later in life. The list went on and on. I was doing exactly what I urged Skylar not to: focusing on the “what ifs” and letting my fears take over because seeing her suffering had weakened me.
What put me over the edge was an article about a girl around Skylar’s age that recently lost her battle. The girl’s smiling face in the photo stared back at me, a reminder that nothing was guaranteed. I slammed the laptop closed. The reality that there was a chance Skylar could die from this was unthinkable. The mere thought was so painful that every muscle in my body tightened in an attempt to resist the unwelcome emotions that were rising to the surface.
My mother gasped when she entered the room to find my shoulders shaking as I bawled with my head in my hands. Everything I had been in holding in this past weekend came flooding out.
She ran her hand across my shaved head. “Oh, Mitch.”
“I can’t lose her, Mom.”
“Did something happen?”
I wiped my eyes, angry at my loss of control. “She’s just going through hell. It’s not fair. Her eyelashes are gone…her f*cking eyelashes. It’s not about that, but she can only take so much. This is tearing apart her spirit slowly. I see that happening and can’t stand to see her suffering. I love her. I love her so much, and I was too much of a coward to tell her.”
“Why? Why couldn’t you tell her?”
“I don’t know. It’s like I associate those three words with bad things happening from when I was a kid. On top of that, I’m so afraid she’ll think I’m only saying it because she’s sick.”
“She needs to hear it. And if you don’t want her to think you’re saying it only because she’s sick, then you need to tell her exactly why you love her, why you’ve always loved her. It will give her strength. Don’t let what happened between me and your father make you afraid. I’ve watched you fall in love with that girl, and it’s real. Your father never loved me like you love her.”
She kissed my forehead before I suddenly walked toward the window, staring vacantly across the street at Skylar’s house. “I want to be alone, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
I stayed awake that night, wired, drawing her a new comic in the Adventures of S&M series where S and M were bald bandits banding together to fight the evil C until it was destroyed.
At one in the morning, my phone rang. My heart pounded in terror when I saw her name.
“Skylar? Are you okay?”
“You told me to call you anytime, and I know you didn’t really mean one in the morning, but I just had a dream. I don’t know if it’s the meds or what, but it was so vivid. I almost needed to call you to make sure it didn’t really happen.”
For the first time all night, I relaxed enough to get into my bed. “A bad dream?”
“No. It was beautiful. We were…having sex, but it was more than that. It was what I imagined it would feel like. It felt so real, and I wished it were. It made me realize how much I—”
“Wait. Don’t say it. I love you, Skylar. I love you so much. I should have said it a million times before.”
“I was gonna say it made me realize how much I need to get laid, but that’s really…wow.”
“Seriously?”
“No.”
“You little shit.” I breathed into the phone. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mitch, so much it hurts. When I think about worst-case scenarios, out of everything, it’s being separated from you that scares me the most.”
The tears were burning my eyes. “Skylar, listen to me, okay? I need you to know that I’m not just saying this because I’m afraid or because you’re sick. I need you to know that I have loved you since we were kids when you called me out for acting like an a*shole and were the first person who cared enough to try and figure out the reason why. I love you because you know what I need or what I’m thinking before I even do. I love you because you make me laugh everyday, especially at myself. I love the way you look at me like I’m the only person in a room full of people. I love the way you smell and the way you whimper when my lips first touch yours. I—”
“Mitch…I already knew you loved me, and I knew how much it scared you to say those words. The way you look at me, the way your heart beats every time you hold me, what you did to your hair for me…actions speak louder than words, and you have been showing me how much you love me. That’s what matters.”
“I feel like I won’t be able to breathe until you come home.”
That day would be farther away than I could ever have anticipated.
***
After her first round of chemo ended, cancer gave us a short break.
At the end of that stretch, my prom rolled around and what was supposed to be the most special night of our lives, was anything but.
She had looked so angelic in a white strapless dress. Her friend Nina had come all the way from Boston to help her get ready.
Everything was fine up until we danced to a certain slow song, and then her mood dramatically changed for the rest of the night.
After the prom, on the way to an after party at a hotel, she made a confession in the limo. She hadn’t wanted to ruin our night and had been holding back some news. That morning, her doctor had told her that tests showed a recurrence of the Lymphoma.
It had felt like my tie was choking me, and I remember having to undo it because I felt like I was gonna hyperventilate.
Not again.
I ended up taking her home, and it turned out to be one of the worst nights of my life.
The next phase was the lowest point in her cancer journey. A higher level of chemo was followed by a bone marrow transplant, which meant weeks of isolation and a long recovery.
By the grace of God, her tests following that procedure were clear, and it seemed to have been a success.
All in all, from the time she was first diagnosed, it took nearly two years before we would have her back for good.
The months following her return home were the best of my life. Like a spring flower blossoming after a long season of rain, at 18, Skylar emerged from that hell somewhat changed but stronger and more beautiful than ever.