Sunday, Bloody Sunday!

Her smile disappeared with the sun behind a cloud; she hadn’t been out in weeks. She watched the world move rapidly around her, not slowing down for a second. Deeds had been done, hands had been shook, tight smiles were oppressed and her life was sealed in an infinitesimal room. She searched the area of her bedroom, looking at the evil stuffed toys gathering dust on her timber shelfs. Her Sunday was no different to any of her other days, sitting in an uncomfortable bed that she had somehow gotten painfully used to. Monitors attached to the soft inside of her elbow and her nose had pipes poking out of it, too. Now, when she thought back, she couldn’t remember how she got there.

Her bones seemed small, fragile and breakable, like they could have the huge sticker saying ‘handle with care’. The people danced on the street outside, their small portable CD players vibrating across the concrete as they pumped music so loud it shook the glass windows like a miniature earthquake. She wished it was her, either dancing without a car of what people thought of her, or dropping the discarded small change into their straw hats. Dancing, walking… moving. All the things that her condition stopped her from doing.

She lay there, quite, breathing. Her world was slow, consisting of nurse visits and delivery guys with arms full of flowers. The television reception went out a few times a week because she had no one to pay for her. She stayed still, her chest rising and falling in an irregular pattern, not daring to move a wire to set off an alarm. There were other people her age around, not that she spent much of her time looking.

There was a boy beside her, missing a leg, he spent his time flipping through magazines and pissing off nurses. There was something about him that she liked. She knew his name, the nurses had said it in an annoyed tone so many times it was hard not to realise. She was sure he knew hers too, with all the times they had mentioned her in a way that they hoped would make him be quiet. His name was Leon. He had floppy red hair that sat on his scalp, doing nothing. He looked like he was dying for company, as was she.

The words slipped out between her chapped lips, “Hey.”

His head snapped round, looking her dead in the eye. His celery coloured gaze frightened her, she hadn’t had anyone look into her eyes in such a long time. She knew if they did, they would have to take a step in her sorrow. He didn’t look away like the others, he wasn’t scared. “What?” His tone came out harsh, but he cleared his throat, and coughed a few times after doing so. “What was that?” He asked again, softening his tone as his gaze cut through the shell she had worn for so long, just to protect herself.

“I said ‘hey’.”

“Oh, well hey!” His voice was full of fake cheer, something a hospital was flooded with.

“So Leon…” she giggled, he made her feel giddy.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” He asked, oblivious to the meaning of his own question, “I haven’t done that for a while!”

He swung himself to sit on the edge of the bed with his stump hanging over the edge. “Uh, Leon?”

He turned back to her, looking her down. “Wheelchair race?” she asked quickly.

“Good idea, Fearnley!” He pressed his thumb on the ‘nurse alert’ button and lay his head back down.

The nurses fluttered into the room, two in total though. He smiled as they grimaced and turned to walk away.

“Two wheelchairs, please!” She called after them; her sweet voice hit them where it was soft.

They returned and wheelchairs were placed at the foot of their beds, the beds squeaked under the moving pressure, they heaved themselves into the chairs with minimal help of the by standing nurses. Their hands found the way to move easily, gripping and pushing down on the rims of the tires. They moved smoothly and silently through the quiet, sickly smelling wards.

They laughed; the noise was foreign to her. They stopped after a while, their arms tired and sore. Their happy tones were mingled with puffing and breathing. The nurses looked at them with pride, their eyes crinkling at the sides.

“So how’d you lose your leg, Rebecca?” he asked when they had returned to their unwelcoming ward.

“It’s Becca, just Becca.” She said, it was easy for her to be a child now, she and her leg had to be a grown up now, “Well, my family, mama and papa, we came for a holiday here, we are from England. I know you can notice my accent!” She laughed, but her smile disappeared quickly, “Yes, so we were driving along and this car behind us hit our car into a tree. Mama and papa died, and I lost a leg.”

He looked at her in disbelief, trying to move closer to her so he could comfort her, she smiled at him - he was the first person who didn’t already hear about her story plastered all over the papers. And furthermore, he was the first person to ask and truly care. The tears rolled down her near-translucent skin, her bones did seem frail. She had a broken and stolen heart. Stolen by a drunk driver taking the lives of her role models.

She snivelled, her nose was blocked, but she didn’t bother for a tissue, it felt good to have the warm, salty water running down her hallow cheek. “How about you, Leon?”

“I was out on the farm and I was mowing the grass. It was reaaal tall, and I couldn’t see the bump in the ground, and I hit it. I fell off, and the mower hit my leg, chopping my skin open and fracturing my bone.” He cringed away from the image in his mind, “I was told I would have a dead leg if they could fix it, so I told them to get rid of it.”

Her jaw fell open with a soft pop and she looked at the boy beside her with different eyes to her usual vision. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all…