CAPONE
After the bath, Tara stared at herself in the mirror again. I knew losing her hair was a hard pill to swallow. I also knew that me telling her it was just hair didn’t make things better, so I remained silent. Until she turned to me and asked me to cut her hair. I was already feeling like a piece of shit for taking her virginity during a moment of vulnerability, there was no way I was cutting her hair too.
But she wouldn’t relent.
“Please,” she begged. “It’s only hair, right? It doesn’t define me. I’m sick and this is part of the journey. You’ll still love me no matter what.”
“Of course I will.”
“I know,” she said, flashing me a weak smile. “That’s why it wasn’t a question. It’s only going to keep falling out, and it will look worse than if I just cut it all off.”
I could say no to Tara, but never for long. She was and will always be my greatest weakness. So I cut her hair. I expected her to cry when it was over, but she didn’t, and maybe that’s because she was all cried out.
But even the next day when we went back to Holly and Maverick’s and they caught sight of her shaved head, she still didn’t cry.
To their credit, neither did they.
They didn’t even threaten to kill me for cutting it myself.
Holly hugged her, and Maverick made a joke about them matching.
“Well, you always looked like your mother,” he said. “This might be the one time when I get to say you look like me.”
Surgery day rolled around, and that’s when things got really heavy. Kissing Tara goodbye before they brought her into the operating room, not knowing when I’d be able to see her next, broke me in ways I wasn’t prepared to deal with. I wanted to be strong for Holly and Maverick, but it was the opposite. They rallied around me, assuring me our girl would make it through.
Hours ticked by, and that fucking clock became my enemy.
“It was supposed to be over by now,” I said to no one in particular.
As much as I tried to block it from my mind, I kept recalling that conversation Tara and I had when she was first diagnosed. She was always more concerned about surgery than anything else. She didn’t want to go under anesthesia, and obsessed over all the possible things that could go wrong. I, on the other hand, remained positive. I told myself surgery was her best option at removing all the cancer, and I focused on the success rates. But sitting in that waiting room, watching the minutes tick by on the clock had me spiraling.
Two hours later we finally got word that the surgery was successful, and she was in recovery. Only one person was allowed to see her, and Maverick and I both agreed that person should be Holly. When I did finally get to see her, she was totally out of it.
The next day she woke up in excruciating pain, which was expected. They had removed the cancerous part of the hip bone and used a portion of her femur to reconstruct the missing joint, leaving her with two incision sites, and a cast. By the second week of her hospital stay, she fell into a depression. She’d barely talk to anyone, including me.
I tried to encourage her to make videos and do the content stuff. I bought her a new tripod, and some fancy light that clipped to her phone—I even offered to be in the videos. But her heart just wasn’t in it anymore.
The following week, Holly surprised her by making for Sadie to fly to New York for a visit. We were sure that would lift her spirits, and it would’ve had Sadie not mentioned prom or plans for graduation. She wasn’t intentionally trying to rub it in Tara’s face, and when she realized her mistake, she quickly tried to backtrack.
But the damage was already done.
In the weeks since the surgery, Tara fell behind on her home school assignments. We didn’t know when she’d graduate, and that led to the realization that she’d have to delay her first semester of college too. Not that she had fully decided on where she was going—but she did hope that by the time the fall rolled around, she’d be on her way to making a full recovery and finding some normalcy.
We all did.
But it was one blow after another. The worst of it came when they removed her cast from her leg, and she saw her scar for the first time. I’m not going to lie, it was brutal. Looked like a piece of her leg had been bitten off. I had seen her cry a whole lot, but I never saw her sob like that.
Broke my fucking heart.
It was Maverick who put things into perspective for everyone.
“You’re a Burnside, baby. We bend but we never break. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and realize how fucking blessed you are. There are people who have the same cancer you have and are missing limbs because of it. They don’t care though, they’re just happy to be alive.”
At first I thought his words were too harsh, and we actually fought about it. But the next day, Tara’s mood shifted.
“I couldn’t go to the Outer Banks this year, but I want to go next summer, and I want to wear a bright red bikini. When people ask me about my scars, I’m going to tell them I was attacked by a shark.” She turned to me, and I swear I saw the slightest hint of a smile.
“Well, that’s one way to clear the beach.”
“Right?”
Then the most beautiful sound escaped her lips, and she laughed for what felt like the first time in months.
Things slowly started to get better after that. Tara was determined to finish her homeschool work and spent the mornings doing her assignments. Her appetite came back too, and we sampled some of the best food New York City had to offer.
One day while we were eating takeout from Katz deli, Tara asked me to do a video with her. I couldn’t deny her, so there I sat next to her on the hospital bed, and we did what she called a couple’s challenge.
There was a voiceover, and we had to point either to ourselves or our partner in response to the question.
Who noticed who first?
I jutted my thumb toward my chest, and Tara pointed to herself.
“No way you noticed me first,” I argued. “That night we picked you up from the woods, was the first time I really saw you as a woman, and not an extension of Maverick. I wasn’t even on your radar.”
“Wrong.” She smiled. “Before Mark and I even started dating, I had a crush on you.”
This went on for about five questions, and two hours later our little video went viral. In the last weeks of Tara’s hospital stay we became a TikTok sensation much to my dismay, and she became a paid creator.
The day finally came, and she was released from the hospital in a wheelchair. The plan was to go back to North Carolina and have her do her rehab there. So that’s what we did. We took her home, but since Holly and Maverick’s house wasn’t wheelchair accessible, we stayed at the clubhouse. Everything was on one level there, and she and her physical therapist had plenty of free range to get her out of the chair and walking.
And in time, that’s exactly what happened. She finished her final round of chemo eight weeks ago. She stood from her chair and walked on her own to ring that fucking bell, and I’ve never been more proud of another person in my life.
But today… today we find out the results of her scans and I’ve never been more nervous. It feels like someone is holding my head under water, and I’m just waiting for them to let me breathe again.
A knock sounds on the door, and we turn to greet the doctor. The days of me sitting out in a waiting room and relying on others are long gone. Holly and Maverick crowd behind us as I take Tara’s hand in mine and give it a squeeze. I don’t know if the gesture is meant to comfort her or me.
“Alright, Doc, lay it on me…” Tara says, blowing out a ragged breath.
“Congratulations, there is no evidence of disease.”
I don’t hear a word he says after that. Releasing Tara’s hand, I turn to her and take her face between my hands. My mouth crashes over hers, and I kiss her with everything I’ve got.
Dear God,
Thank you for delivering us from evil.
THE END… for now .