The Truth or Lies, It's the Same Pain

The Truth Or Lies, It's the same Pain

Angel of Truth, HA.

My parents must have cursed me, to be forever denied of what the angel they named me after stood for. In my short life of seventeen years, I have been lied to more times than I can count. Usually by the most important people to me. My mother lied to me when she said Santa was real, my father when he promised he'd be back in an hour, but never step foot in the house again, that doctor when she told me he'd pull through, my ex best friend Claire when she said she couldn't go to my birthday party because her mum was ill but in fact went to Susan's party instead. All those lies, in such a short time. I thought he was different, I guess I was wrong. Again.

My first love, he who filled me with such joy, light and made time stop just with his eyes. But behind those eyes, there were a pile of lies. He who was my first kiss,my first everything, was also my first taste of how cruel people can really be. He lied to me, everyday from the beginning. He had blinded me with his god damn perfect smile and fucking boyish looks. It was all a disguise, a hell of good one too. I never expected, I never ever question any thing about him. Not the weekends he couldn't see me, nor the constant ringing of his phone. The way he would get a text and have to leave right that second without even a goodbye kiss. He played me so well and I let him.

He broke my heart, ran off with the pieces and sold them on e-bay. He's left me here with nothing but the memory of them laughing at me and them kissing with their tongues all the way down each others throats. What did she have that I didn't? Sure, she was blonde, rich and a bloody size zero but she still also had the body of twelve year old boy. I had wasted so much time on liars and cheats. It was time I got them all out my life. I had thought, I already had. God, if this trend continue, it would turn out Anna actually doesn't have cancer and it was all a sick joke. That would be something I would love to find out wasn't true.

“Amitiel, I have something to tell you,” Anna said hiding from behind my bedroom door, that I hadn't heard open. I had been hiding from the world for about a week under a thick duvet. I only knew of the passing of time because my mother had inform me of it this morning, before she left for work. I push the duvet off my head and turned around to see only Anna's ocean eyes peaking from behind the door, like a child waiting to be given in trouble. I sigh.

“Come in,” I see the lost sparkle in her eyes for moment, then it disappears.

Anna slowly comes in and shuts the door behind her. She so frail and pale looking. Her sandy waves of hair were gone, her head now only covered by dark blue scarf. The diamonds in her eyes, once permanent only visits briefly now. As long as had know her, there had always been a sparkle in her eyes, even in the serious of situations. But ever since she found out about the cancer in her body, the sparkle has been slowly disappearing. I fear each passing day that I'll never see it again. The phase 'too young to die' flashes in my mind. It has too be the biggest lie of them all but the ones we tell ourselves usually are.

Anna slowly makes her way to my bed as I sit myself up. She would have just ran and jumped on me if she still had the strength. It breaks my heart to know that her days really could be numbered. I'm not ready to accept that really they are. I guess I'm happy to lie to myself but not for others to do the same. I feel so selfish as I watch her struggle to walk the metre from the door to my bed. I have all the time in the world to fall in love and get my heart broken again, but Anna hasn't even fall yet and it seems time is running out for her.

“I'm sorry,” I say pathetically.

“What for? You've just had your heart broken by that jerk. I'd be in bed too if I was you.”

You should be. She finally makes it to my bed and slowly sits down.

“Still, I could have been a better friend. You need me more than I ever needed him,” She smiles, just a hint of that missing sparkle. “What is it you need to tell me anyway?” I ask as I watch the spark disappear again.

“I...I don't want to tell you,” She speaks the words so slowly, pulling each one apart so that they seem to be each a sentence on their own.

“Lets go out and have some fun,” She says cheerfully and I force a smile.

This is the first time I've left the house since he broke up with me, even missing school to avoid him - and her. I don't really want to leave the house, or even my room but I do so for Anna. I would do anything for her now. She convinces me to go to the mall with her and get super sized blue slushie. Like we always used to do before her cells turned against her. We're already on to our second slushies, by the time I remember we're avoiding something. Something she doesn't want to tell me, something I'm scared to find out. So I don't ask her what it is. So I just joke and try to catch that sparkle I long to see.

Anna is still beautiful, even though she resembles death. She still has her best features. She no longer has the long blond hair that I had been jealous of, for as long as I can remember, but she still has her ocean eyes that were beautiful without their sparkle and the dark lashes that by some miracle had been black instead of blond, had just grew back, flaming them to perfection. Her laugh still rang out like an angel catching you and making you laugh until your ribs hunt. Why?

Why would something so horrible happen to such young, beautiful-inside and out- person? The truth avoids me and only leaves me with theories of pain and hate of an unfair world, created by a unkind God. She had been my best friend for so long, I didn't know what I do without her and pray to that God that I never have to find out.

It seemed that the mall shut too soon and kicked us out before we were finished with our fun. I drove Anna home in my small, three door car that still remains the colour of her eyes even at night. We sneak through the back door, even though we know we've been seen, stealing the last of junk food from the kitchen and returning to the backyard of our childhood. The sun is almost completely gone from the sky. I hear her sigh beside me and look at a face drained of all it's colour. She looks almost unrecognisable, so much older than her mere seventeen years.

It's time to be told the truth, the truth I don't want and for once I long for lies, but I know Anna was never good at lying or keeping things from me. So I sigh with her and prepare for the worse.

“I need to tell you this, God knows I don't want to. I don't want it be true,” The ocean begins to escape from her eyes. “It's not good, they say it didn't work,” her waves of hair lost for nothing.

“Its spread.”

Those two unimportant, usually so harmless on their own but are now the worse words in the world to me.

“They say they can only prevent...” Death, they can't stop it now, only slow it down.

“I'm sorry,” I say as the first of many tears trickle down my face. We hug and cry into each other, to release the grief. I moan the loss of a friend who will soon leave me and she moans the life she'll never get to live. I miss the lies and hate this truth. Lies protect you from pain, for wee while anyway. The truth always comes out.

Santa not real, my dad never came back, never mind in an hour's time and he didn't pull through. Claire wasn't my BFF, Alex never loved me and - I'll never be Anna's bridesmaid. A child's promise broken and made a lie by Fate. Lies are all I have.