“My mom has no clue about lube.”
Takira falls onto my bed and chuckles. “Girl, I bet your mama knows all about lube. Your daddy passed a long time ago. Now you know your mama got her some at some point in the last twenty years.”
“Ewwww, David!” I scream, pulling from our Schitt’s Creek vernacular.
“We need to binge the last season, and you will thank me for that lube later.”
“I’m taking your lube because I want to normalize women carrying their own lube,” I say, but give her a wicked glance. “But we’ve never needed it.”
“Ewww, David!” She pretends to gag. “You will refrain from telling me how wet you get. Ma’am, boundaries.”
We laugh and I fall onto the bed beside her, forgetting for a few moments that I’m sick and just enjoying being alive. It feels like a regular day with my best friend. Except my suitcase is not just packed with lube, but with a battalion of bottles, meds to stabilize me until I can get a kidney.
“You know, if we don’t find a kidney soon,” I say, staring up at the ceiling, “I may have to go on dialysis.”
“I know.” Takira reaches for my hand. “If that happens, we’ll get through it. Whatever. I got you, Neev.”
“I know you do.”
I’ve been holding it together. Going through the motions of my life. Distracting myself with the work I’ve always dreamt of doing, but as soon as it all stops, the life-altering reality comes crashing back in on me. I’m racing against the clock in some ways, but will manage this condition in some shape, form, or fashion, forever.
Tears prick my eyes and leak from the corners. I swipe at them quickly because if I start now, I won’t stop. I’m at my emotional tipping point. In a matter of four months, I’ve starred in my first movie, fallen in love, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness that requires an organ transplant. I’m reeling. It’s a lot for me to process. I can only imagine how Canon is actually doing.
“This isn’t what Canon signed on for,” I say. “It’s one thing if this happens to your long-time girlfriend or fiancée or wife, but we haven’t been together long. This has to be the last thing he wants to go through after what he saw with his mom.”
“Is that why you’ve been avoiding him this week?”
“I haven’t been avoiding him,” I lie. “We’ve both been busy.”
“Neevah.”
“I need to finish packing.” I slide off the bed and, I hope, out of the conversation.
“Imma let you get away with it for now, young lady, but you need to discuss this with Canon. I already know he doesn’t feel trapped or—”
“T, please.” I grab a dress from the closet and toss it into the suitcase. “Can we talk about something else?”
“You talked to your sister about getting tested?”
Not quite what I had in mind.
“Not yet. Tomorrow.”
“You have to. She may be your sister, but so am I. I can’t lose you.”
I stare at the rows of dresses in my closet, grasping for my composure. I can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t end up with me in a puddle Takira has to mop up before Canon comes.
The doorbell rings, and Takira says, “Your love has arrived.”
“Who said I love him?” I walk to the mirror to adjust my floral-patterned headscarf.
“Since when do you have to tell me something for me to know it?” she asks. “And leave that scarf alone. Your hair is fine.”
The cornucopia of meds has eased my nausea and helped with fatigue, though sometimes both return, but it hasn’t stopped the hair loss. Lately, if I’m not wearing one of Dessi’s wigs, I wear a head wrap to hide the gaps which, even with hair as thick as mine, are noticeable now. My stage makeup still camouflages the butterfly-shaped rash that has spread its wings over my nose and cheeks, but there’s no disguising how my face has started to swell. The hollows beneath my cheeks that used to sharpen my bone structure have filled into a puffiness no amount of dieting can reduce. This is one way the powerful steroid I’m taking is wreaking havoc on my physical appearance. I don’t want to think about the invisible toll the drugs may take on my body.
“I look okay?” I ask, meeting Takira’s compassion in the mirror.
“You look beautiful,” she assures me as the doorbell rings again. “He’ll think so, too. Now go get him before he busts that door down.”
I kiss her cheek, grab my suitcase, and answer the door. On the front porch, Canon wears the perma-frown he can only shake for so long until the movie wraps. It clears, though, as soon as he sees me.
“You ready?” he asks.
I miss my chance to answer when Takira screams from the back, “Don’t forget the lube!”