I had managed to convince her that we could clean up while she and Hilary sat down. They had been giggling when Liam had said his simple statement.
“What should we do, darling?” Hilary asked in a baby voice that made Julie cover her mouth. Concealing more giggles, I suppose. It made me grin.
Liam stood up straight, shrugging slightly. “We need to go on a road trip,” he announced.
The funny thing was, none of us protested.
The first one to say anything was me. I figured I needed to give some sort of objection. “Julie would never be able to just leave,” I replied.
She looked to me, with a small, sad smile. Because she knew it was true. She couldn't leave while she was still going through chemo and radiation.
Liam shook his head. “Maybe not for a long time, but a few days she could. And if she'd just get that trans-”
“Liam, shut up,” Julie snapped. She stood up, glaring at her brother, who hadn’t heard her, but had seen my face. When he turned to her, she told him to shut up again.
“Why? It's true. We all know that the chemo isn't helping. I don't see why you still sit there and let them pump that crap into you when all it's doing is making you worse,” he said.
“It's not your body. And it could help. It's worked that last two times,” she replied.
“No, it postponed it. You actually have a chance at a normal life. I don't understand why you're refusing to take it,” he told her.
“It's not your choice.”
“No, if it was, I'd choose to live. I wouldn't sit there and put everyone else through all this pain just so I can wimp out and die!” he shouted at her.
Hilary was sitting there, her mouth parted, but I couldn't tell whether her eyes were nervously wide like mine were. Hearing Julie and Liam arguing was a difficult situation.
On one side, I agreed with Julie. She was the girl I loved, and the one I would stand behind. If she wanted to take chemo, then she should. It was all her choice and her decision.
But, I agreed more with Liam, because I loved her, and watching her die was not something I wanted to do, not yet. Maybe when we were old and gray, it would be different, because then I wouldn't be too long behind. But not now, not at eighteen.
And then, there was the position that both Hilary and I were forced to take. It wasn't our fight. When siblings fought, we really had no right to butt in.
So we sat on the sidelines, and remained quiet, listening to them, both wishing we could say something to diffuse the situation, but lacking the right words to do so.
“I'm not wimping out!” Julie countered back. “Wimping out would be killing myself, and I'm not doing that!”
“No, instead you're just waiting for your cancer to do it for you!”
“You don't know anything! And it isn't your decision to make!”
“Because everything you do to yourself only affects you?” Liam asked, and then pointed toward me. “What about him? What about us, Julie? Do you think we love the decisions you're making about dying? Do you really think Falon is okay with you killing yourself?”
I wanted to tell Liam to shut up. Please don't drag me into this, I would beg.
Mostly, because it was true.
If it was my decision, I would already be on an operating table, knocked out cold, so they could extract some of my bone marrow. Julie would be waiting and ready for the transplant, and everything would be okay again.
But it wasn't. I was forced to watch her slowly fade away, and not just her outward appearance. No, everyday it seemed another part of Julie left and was replaced with her cancer.
“Falon stands behind whatever decision I make,” Julie said, but her voice sounded almost unsure. Like she wanted to believe it, but knew it was reaching.
Liam turned to me. “Do you? Do you really, Falon?” he asked, her words lined with sarcasm. The way his eyes cut into me, I knew I was in dangerous territory.
“Liam, I'm not getting in this,” I said gently.
He rolled his eyes, laughing bitterly. “Of course not. Wouldn't want Julie to be mad at you again, for what, the fourth or fifth time? It was okay when you were going behind her back though,” he told me.
I knew what he was trying to do, and it wasn't going to work. I knew because he was still angry, still hurt about Julie's disease, just as he had been when he had sent his car spinning.
“Liam-”
“No!” he yelled automatically. “No! It's not fair that she gets to choose!” he yelled at me, and pointed at Julie. When he looked at her, he looked dangerously close to completely melting down. “It's not fair that you get to choose whether we lose you or not. If it were the other way around, you would feel the exact same way,” he told her.
Julie moved toward him, shaking her head gently. “If the tables were turned, I wouldn't be able to stop you either. I would have to be okay with what you chose,” she said softly.
When she came to him, she wrapped her arms tightly around him, and she squeezed her eyes closed. I saw my friend, big, tough, easy going, Liam melt in her embrace and cling to her, shuddering.
“I'll never be okay with this, Julie. I won't,” he told her.
“I know.”
I was suddenly jealous of Liam. Because he didn't have to be okay with it. He could hate it, and tell her he hated it, and that was okay. He could say what he felt.
I
