Sunshiner

When I returned to my house later that night, the sky was already a shade of velvet indigo and the stars were beginning to awaken. There was no moon. I knew my mom wasn’t home because her bedroom light was off; she was probably out with some friends, which I was thankful for because she hardly ever socialized nowadays.

I stumbled into my room, not bothering to turn on my light as I shut the door behind me. I was in the process of unzipping my pants to change when I noticed an odd shape sitting in my window. It was remarkably human-like and...oh dear lord, it had blonde hair.

“Candace?” I switched on the light and was greeted by her angry glare. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“To yell at you,” she curtly said and stomped right up to me, leveling herself up to my height and stopping only when she was a few inches from my face.

“About, um, about what?” I’ll admit it: I was scared shitless of this girl. She was a bit smaller than I was and probably weighed a lot less than me, but there was something about her that made me terrified for my life.

“How could you do this to me?” she said in a loud voice, and I was suddenly thankful that my mom wasn’t home to hear us arguing.

“D-Do what?” I stuttered.

“You’ve fucking ignored me since yesterday!” she accused. “How could you do that, Kasey? I told you my most personal secret and you just – you pretend nothing happened. Do you have any idea what was going through my head? I was so…I didn’t even know what to think!”

“I – you – hang on a second,” I said angrily. She was confusing me to no ends as well as doing a fine job of intimidating me, and, as ashamed as I am to admit this, the only way I knew how to react to this was by yelling at her. “You can’t just break into my house and tell me off. It’s my room.”

“I have cancer. I can do whatever the hell I want.”

“Oh, so now you’re going to play the pity card?” I tested her. I knew my words were nasty and I knew that they were brutal, but I could not stop them. I had been in such an emotional disaster over the past twenty-four hours and logical thinking seemed to be beyond me at this point. “You’re going to pretend you can do anything you want because you’re dying and people will feel bad for you? What happened to the courage you said you had? What happened to your secretiveness, and your goal to live a normal life?”

“What happened to the real Kasey?” she shot back. “Last time I checked you weren’t such an inconsiderate bastard. And stop asking me so many fucking questions. You have no idea what it’s like. And you know perfectly well that if this ever happened to you, you would spend the rest of your days wallowing in self-pity.”

“No I – ”

“You know I’m right. You’re too selfish to ever do the same thing I did.”

That shut me up for a moment. I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed them relentlessly as if I had just had a terrible dream, as if I would suddenly wake up and everything would be gone. “Why didn’t you ever try chemo?” I asked softly, opening my eyes again to give her a grave look. “I know it doesn’t help much with lung cancer, but I mean…it could help. It could have given you hope. It – “

“Do I really look like the person who would do chemo?” she snapped. “Do I really seem like the kind of girl who would succumb so easily? Do you think I want to lose my hair and be in pain all the time? Everything would hurt me. Changing my clothes would hurt if my jeans rubbed against my skin the wrong way. The rain would hurt as it pounded down on my skin. Even the sunshine would hurt. I couldn’t live like that.”

“It could be worth it – ”

“And what would I do in chemotherapy, anyway? Make friends with all of my other chemo buddies? And then just wait around while they drop dead like flies? I’m not going to befriend someone who I know won’t last long.”

“You did it to me,” I countered, my temper returning. “And we became a bit more than friends.”

“Do you know how painful it was for me to fall in love with you?” she yelled. “I tried my hardest to prevent it. I spent the last three fucking years avoiding Dayton because I didn’t want to become attached to you – to become attached to anyone. As soon as I found out I was sick, I distanced myself from my friends and my family and even my fucking dog, for Christ’s sake. ‘Why should I deserve to love anyone?’ I would always ask myself. It wasn’t fair to me or to anyone else.”

“Then why would you let yourself this time, Candace?” I hissed. “Why would you cave in and make us both miserable?”

“You were an accident!” she replied angrily. “A wonderful and amazing accident, yes. But a dangerous one, too. I’m not sure if I regret it or not, even now, with you screaming your ass off at me. You’re such a baby, by the way, you know that?”

“What, so now I don’t have a reason to be upset about this? You’re dying.”

“You think I don’t know that?” she screamed. “Do you really think I haven’t figured it out? What gives you the right to be yelling at me for it? Do you think I want it to end like this? Do you think I want to be in love with you?”

“I thought – ”

“The answer is no, Kasey. I don’t. I don’t mean to sound like a selfish bitch, but I should be the one who’s miserable right now. I’m the one who has a limited time left to live. You, well, you’re going to college. You’re going to meet someone who will take my place, and you’re going to marry her and then you’re going to have a bunch of little Kasey’s. But you know what really sucks? You’re the only one for me. No matter how much I detest that fact, it’s true. I’m still going to be in love with you when I die. And that will be that. Your death is what defines your life, it is what defines you as a person, and this is what I’m fucking stuck with.”

She collapsed on my bed and the room which had once been filled with shouts and screams was now eerily silent, save for a few quiet sobs emitted by the broken girl burying herself in my pillows. “I came back to Dayton as a sort of a final goodbye,” she cried softly. “I just wanted to see it one last time. It was so full of fun and freedom and…life. I just wanted to experience all of that again. And then you happened.”

“Candace, I…” I began. I couldn’t stand the sight of her like this. What had happened to the courageous, hard-headed girl that I had fallen in love with? She was tearing me up and wearing me down and she knew it. She wanted me to be as destroyed on the inside as she was. If she was going to love me, then I was going to love her. If she was going to suffer, then I was going to suffer. She wasn’t being fair. But then again, neither was I. “I’m sorry.” I crawled onto the bed beside her. I wasn’t sure if it would be awkward to put my arms around her, but I did anyway. And I was happy I did. It felt right. It was comforting. It brought memories back that I wish I could forget but I knew I never would.

“No you’re not,” she sniffled angrily and turned towards me, burying her face in my chest and grabbing the collar of my shirt in her small fists. “No you’re not.”

I nuzzled my nose into her hair and we lay there for a minute. Her body shook with her cries and I just held her tighter, as if that could make her stop crying.

“Please don’t ever leave me, Kasey,” she whispered into the darkness. “I don’t want to be buried with a broken heart. I can’t handle the…I just…I can’t.”

“Shh,” I whispered and kissed her gently on her cheek. “I won’t.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.”



The rest of the night had been surprisingly nice. We made love and then we just lay in the dark, basking in the warmth that was emitted by the other’s body, and whispered soft nothings to each other for an endless amount of time. I couldn’t even remember what we had said to each other; all I knew is that we didn’t bring up her cancer anymore. I think we talked about childhood memories and the pranks we used to pull on each other, and we even went into detail about our lives at home-home, which was a rare topic discussed amongst us Dayton kids. I did not learn anything about her that I didn’t already know but that was okay because all I really needed to hear was the sound of her sandy voice. Eventually her mumbled words laced into the tune of a soothing lullaby, and in time I had been swept into slumber.

When I woke up the next morning, the bed was empty. I had expected to find her cuddled in my arms; it would have been nice to wake up to the sight of her sleeping soundly. That, at least, would have created a feeling of peace in our otherwise chaotic lives.

The space beside me, I realized in dismay, was cold. I grumbled a few disappointed words and rolled over to go back to sleep, because I knew that if Candace had left early then that meant she wanted to be alone and I shouldn’t bother her…but then I heard a ruffling of clothing and a frustrated grunt from the corner of my room. Upon rolling over again, I saw that she was, in fact, still in my room; she was in the process of getting her clothes on, since the activities of last night that occurred after our long conversation had left her in nothing more than her underwear. She was hopping around like an idiot as she struggled to get her leg through her jeans.

“Wha’re y’doing?” I grumbled incoherently. She looked startled when she realized I was staring at her.

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said awkwardly and hastily zipped up her pants and threw a shirt (my shirt, actually, and I don’t think she even noticed it wasn’t hers). She walked over to the window and hauled it open, the old wood making a scratching sound as it scraped against the dust that had been engraved into my windowsill.

“What are you doing?” I repeated, only this time my words were a bit more understandable.

“I’m leaving through the window so I don’t wake up your mom…” She seemed hurried and anxious, as if she was trying to avoid getting into trouble. Or as if she was trying to avoid me.

“But why are you leaving?” I asked and sat up in bed, the sheets falling around my form and exposing my bare chest.

“I, um…” she started slowly and something in her expression changed. A few weeks ago, when I had considered her to be nothing more than just a girl who annoyed me to no ends, I would not have been able to read the emotion on her face. Now, however, I could tell that she was ashamed. “Listen, Kasey, please don’t be mad… I changed my mind. Maybe you should give up on me. It took me all night to realize that yesterday I was being incredibly unselfish… It’s just not fair to make you suffer along with me. I won’t judge you or hate you if you leave me, I promise. It will make things easier, I think.”

I stood up swiftly. “What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded.

“This is it,” she said resolutely and began to climb out my window. She turned around before she left and gave me a final, forlorn stare. “Goodbye, Kasey Ray.”