Cancer.
Place: City, Anywhere, United States of America.
SITTING IN THE passenger seat of Lindsay’s car, Elijah stared blankly out the window. Outside, the world was a blur of muted grays and shadowy blacks, all color leached from the vehicles in the underground parking garage. The cold seeped into his skin, a chill that had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the icy fear gripping his bones. He didn’t even notice the warmth of the black leather seats beneath him.
The doctor’s words echoed in his head on a relentless loop: get your affairs in order. The voice was clear, the pronouncement final.
Elijah would die of cancer.
His gaze snagged on a flicker of movement, and he turned to watch his friend as she drove, her hands steady on the wheel.
“I brought you a cherry lemonade.” Lindsay motioned to the cup in the holder between them, its plastic sweating with condensation.
“Thanks.” Elijah forced a smile onto his lips, a tight mask he hoped would conceal the roiling storm inside. He ached to shove the riot of emotions deep down, to bury the truth and ignore it all. But he knew from experience that hiding and discounting reality never worked.
The car lurched as it emerged from the garage and onto the street. Sunlight streamed through the windshield, and Elijah picked up the brightly colored plastic bottle. He rubbed a thumb over the raised lettering of the label. The cap twisted open with a sharp click, and he brought the cold bottle to his lips. A sharp swallow of the refreshing drink sent a jolt of pain down his throat. Typically, cherry anything was his favorite, a perfect blend of sweet and tart, but even as the liquid coated his tongue, a bitter taste lingered. The sour notes were the salty, unshed tears he swallowed down to keep from dealing with the truth.
The icy cold cherry lemonade couldn’t soothe the spiky lump of reality wedged in his throat.
This truth—like the truth of Elijah being gay—was something he never wanted to face. But he would. He’d learned long ago that ignoring problems or pushing away facts didn’t make them vanish. He had to face them with strength and acceptance. A wave of weariness washed over him. Ugh. Some days, he just wanted to say to heck with it all. The plastic bottle in his hand crinkled, a loud, sharp noise. His grip turned to iron, his knuckles bone white. He forced himself to relax his hand, needing to calm himself before his friend noticed.
“How did the appointment go?” Lindsay’s question sliced through his thoughts a second time. She pulled up to a traffic light, her head turned toward him. “Is the radiation and chemo treatments working good?”
Elijah had told Lindsay that the cancer treatments were going reasonably well. Earlier this month, the words had been true. Today, however, he discovered that the last scan was disappointing. The doctor told him the cancer had spread to his lymphoid system. He didn’t know much about the disease, but he knew that cancer spreading was a giant step backward on the road to recovery.
The doctor’s words hammered in his head, and it was all he could hear... get your affairs in order. The sentence kept going around and around, a nauseating spin cycle of dread.
His hands shook as he fumbled to close the cap on his drink.
Elijah believed in the Ten Commandments and tried to live by God’s rules; he didn’t want to lie. He needed to say something honest without saying the one thing he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud: he was dying. He couldn’t say it now. Maybe he would say it tomorrow.
“The pills the doctor gave me make me tired. I haven’t painted in weeks.” He popped the cap open again while swallowing the rock lodged in his throat. Painting, the one thing that brought him joy, was now gone. The last of Elijah’s life would be lived without his art.
For a second, his father’s voice filled his mind. God hates him for being gay. The cancer is God’s punishment, and that is as it should be.
“I don’t understand you, Elijah.” Lindsay gave him a quick side glance, her eyes narrowing. “Why don’t you ask JP to heal you? He would do it.”
“I did ask,” he whispered. “He said no.”
“Really?” Lindsay’s voice dripped with skepticism. “He said no. What did you say exactly?” She pulled to a four-way stop, her frown deepening. “That doesn’t sound like JP. Ever since he helped you with Sloan’s drug dealer, the alien has had a soft spot for you.”
“I asked him if someone was sick here on Earth, if a Dagerstanteen would fix them, even if that human didn’t have an alien he was connected to or whatever.” Elijah’s hand slipped, his fingers instinctively tracing the stitches where they had cut away a ball of cancer growing in his neck.
“And?”
“And he said that the Dagerstanteens couldn’t go around and heal every sick person on the planet. Some things must be. Fate.”
“Elijah,” Lindsay groaned out his name. “They are aliens. You can’t talk to them all confusing like that. You should have said it was you. You were talking about yourself, not just anyone walking around the planet.” She paused. “Did you tell Sloan that you have cancer? He’s your best friend.”
“No.” Elijah shook his head.
“Why?”
“Because.” Elijah clenched his jaw, the muscles tight. “I don’t want his pity. I’m already plenty pathetic without adding this to it. I’m not ready to tell him yet.”
“You’re not pathetic.”
Elijah wanted to argue, the words a burning lump in his throat. In his head, he even added that he deserved cancer. His family was right. Being gay was a sin, and this was the Lord’s way of punishing him, precisely like what God did to his friend John. Maybe he should die, and he deserved to be alone. His guilt and shame were what prevented him from begging JP to help him, and he couldn’t talk to Sloan.
As of late, his jealousy of Sloan and Octnavin had eaten away at his bond with the other man. Elijah coveted what Sloan had, a deep, aching desire even though he shouldn’t yearn for weird alien sex. Wanting tentacle sex was most likely a sin, and in the end, even if he could get over his yearning for strange sex, he couldn’t get past one other small thing.
Love.
What Elijah truly thirsted for was a love that knew no bounds. Sloan had the kind of companion in Octnavin that Elijah could only dream about. He fantasized about having someone who would understand him and like him, flaws and all.
And now he would die before getting anything even remotely close. He would die before he had a close, meaningful connection with someone or found out what real, honest love felt like. That’s just how it was for him.
Elijah said none of these things. He was tired, both physically and mentally. He leaned his head against the headrest, the cool leather a small comfort.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He felt lost, adrift in a dark sea of despair. Maybe with a bit of sleep, he would feel less despondent tomorrow.
“Okay.” Lindsay took a left and pulled up to the curb in front of the art gallery. His apartment was above the business. “Do you want me to come up? We don’t have to talk. We can just hang out.”
“No, no.” Elijah shook his head, his voice strained. “I’ll see you later.” He paused. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Just text me when your next appointment is, and I’ll be here.” She grinned. “Call me your chauffeur until you beat this thing.”
A hollow laugh escaped him. He wasn’t going to beat the cancer. The disease would win. This sickness was the will of God.
“You’re the best, Lindsay.” He gripped the cherry lemonade so hard his knuckles paled as he lifted himself out of the car.
“You sure you don’t want me to come up?”
Elijah worked harder at looking happy. He forced a wide smile and loosened his death grip on the drink.
“No, really.” He shook his head. “I’m going to get some food, eat, and then go to bed early.”
Lindsay nodded, and after he gave her another bright smile, she finally drove away with a wave.
When her car disappeared past the stop sign, Elijah’s smile hit the pavement and shattered. He stared at the entrance to his apartment as he thought about what he’d said.
Elijah hadn’t planned on getting food, but now that he thought about an eggroll, he decided to head to the Golden Garden. He didn’t want to be a liar. Plus, maybe Father Fin was at the restaurant. His heart lightened at the notion. Sometimes, the priest was there getting a meal for the lady who lived in the alley near the building. The more he contemplated the priest, the more he found himself drawn toward the restaurant. The man was always what he needed.
Taking a right, Elijah started trotting. As he strode, he pulled out his phone and brought up the long email thread between him and Father Fin. For a second, Elijah considered asking if Fin would meet him. Then he changed his mind and stuffed his phone into his jeans, the fabric rough against his skin. He didn’t want to be a bother. The priest probably had better things to do than meet up with him.
The Golden Garden was a block from his apartment, and as he shuffled, he asked himself what he would do now. Elijah’s mind returned to the phrase get your affairs in order. He didn’t have any affairs.
First, he had few friends because he had a tough time talking to people and believed in aliens. There were a couple of people he worked with at the art gallery, but no one was close. Second, he had Sloan, but his friend was on an alien planet, in love, and raising alien babies. Forget that.
And third, he considered the religious compound where he used to live with his family. Was returning to them the action of getting his affairs in order? They threw him out after what happened with John. His parents and older brother would never speak to him, and he didn’t expect his cancer diagnosis to change that. Sure, he’d told Sloan that he’d left the religion, but the leaving wasn’t voluntary. Ultimately, he had to go because he was sexually attracted to men, and no matter how hard Elijah worked to change that, he couldn’t. And his family could see his failings.
That was Elijah’s life.
Everyone could see his ever-present shortcomings. He was a colossal lead balloon—painting was the only exception.
Since he knew that he constantly failed at everything he tried, Elijah decided long ago that the sidelines were where he would sit. Yes, he could paint, but that one skill didn’t make up for the rest of his uselessness.
So that was it. No affairs. No nothing.
The green door to the Golden Garden was on his right. He passed the glass windows of a clothing shop and caught his reflection. The sun glinted off his bald head. Ugh. Elijah looked thin and sickly. All his life, he’d wanted to be attractive, but now he looked frail and near death.
Shaking off the depression that threatened to eat his soul, he opened the door to the Chinese restaurant. The smell of the spices, the fryer, and a cleaning solution cheered him. As his eyes adjusted to the low light, the dangling paper lanterns, and the red-and-green interior, he hoped to see the one person who could always chase away his loneliness.
Elijah’s eyes swept the red booths and the golden dragons on the walls. His heart gave a painful lurch. Then he spotted him.
The priest leaned against the back counter as if Father Fin was waiting for him. A sigh of contentment passed Elijah’s lips. Father Fin would make everything better.
He always did. Elijah never felt lost when he was with this man.
