Midnight sun

31 | Noah

The irony of my mother calling me on my birthday to tell me she's dying isn't lost on me. And the fact that I didn't hang up on her or say a few curses speaks a lot about how much I changed during my time in Alaska. But some of those old, dark thoughts are slowly coming back. Anger and frustration are the strongest ones. But underneath that, I'm not as strong as I thought I was. Because when I heard my mom's voice I was that small kid again. I was eleven years old, standing next to her shaking form in front of a casket trying to be a brave boy for her as we had laid my dad's body to rest.

I shift in my seat, and look at Dylan who's sitting next to me. We'd made an unspoken agreement to keep our words to ourselves, and to go back to pretending like there is something to celebrate. But Dylan's face says everything–he doesn't want to be here anymore–there's something really morbid about celebrating one's birthday while someone else's death is looming over all of us.

"I should go," Dylan speaks and stands up. For an hour now, he's been quiet, his demeanor changed from concerned to uncomfortable to closed off.  And I really can't blame him, he was never supposed to be a part of my circus–I selfishly dumped all of my baggage on him. But I want to know what's on his mind. We became so attuned to each other that this now is uncharted territory for me.

"Can you stay, maybe we can talk?" I ask him before he leaves the room. He takes his time to respond, but after saying goodnight to my Uncle and Aunt we climb the stairs to my room.

"You ok?" He talks first after he closes the door behind him.

"Yeah, just... what the fuck, you know?"

"Oh Noah.."

"This is just so fucking typical. Of course she had to be dying. Of course she is calling me to say she's sorry when it's too little too late. Of course!"

"She might not be dying, babe. She'll be going through dialysis."

"Yeah, but it's non curable apparently. She's going to be dependent on dialysis forever. And it's not going to work out for long." I am not entirely sure about the details of her condition but she sounded certain that it is not something we should get our hopes up about.

"I'm so sorry that this is happening to you..."

"I don't know what to do," I release a long breath.

"You know."

"Dylan..." The tone of my voice is threatening because I can't handle him saying what he's about to say.

"You have to. You have to see your mother and talk to her. This is coming from someone whose mother passed away from cancer. I will always carry those last moments with her with me."

"But your mother was actually that, mine abandoned me."

"That's true, and it's ok to not forgive her for that. But when you came to Alaska, you said you wanted to find her. There was a reason for that."

"Yeah, but that was before," I turn my back to him and go to sit on my bed.

"What changed now?"

You. I fell in love with you.

"Well, I met you," I say instead. "I'm happy here, with you, with Paul and Adel. I don't want to ruin this."

"Ok. If that's what you really want, then stay. Just tell me, how does that make you feel?"

I'm quiet. Images of my dad flash through my mind and one thought is a constant–if only I had one more chance to see my dad, even just to watch him play football from the distance, watch him do something completely random like loading a dishwasher. If I had one more chance to spend time with Maya, to just sit on a fire escape metal staircase sharing my earphones with her so we could listen to a new song from our favorite band. I'd give anything.