Not Afraid to Die

"Stupid math," Lolita grumbled, staring at the frenzy of problems she had left on her final exam sheet.

Her father, being the "amazing" man he was, decided Lolita needed to finish her Calculus final the moment she got home, which hadn't been more than twenty minutes after Dante decided she could help with planning the Christmas special. According to the Hello Kitty clock on her desk, it was nine o'clock at night and she still had fifteen problems left to do. The only way she could still be sitting at her desk working on math was if her father was possessed by the Devil. She was quite convinced that was the case.

She even looked up how to perform an exorcism on her laptop while doing question number eighty.

Or pretending to do question number eighty.

Maybe she should have done question number eighty instead of procrastinating. After all, she had been staring at question number eighty for the past hour. She hadn't actually read it yet. She had been trying to decide what priest she could hire to perform the exorcism.

Sighing, Lolita sat back in her chair and glanced at the problem. Various symbols, numbers, and letters stared back at her, daring her to solve them. Lolita tilted her head to the side, mind trying to decipher the gibberish.

Was it supposed to mean something?

With one cautious look over her shoulder, Lolita pushed her Calculus final into the trash bin next to her desk. She leaned over, gazing into the bin with mock shock. White papers were scattered amongst miscellaneous trash items.

The final fit in well with the other members of her trash bin community.

"Oops," she said, "Looks like I can't finish now."

Her work no longer necessary to complete, Lolita leaned back in her chair. A glimpse of her father's face flashed through her head. It would probably be a good idea to tell him what happened to her final.

Well, maybe not exactly what happened. Spontaneous combustion was looking like the best excuse.

Whether or not he would be angry wasn't an issue. She knew he would be angry. But her father angry was very similar to an angry Chihuahua. Not intimidating. In fact, he would soften the moment she revealed her head was hurting, which wouldn't be a lie at all. She had been trying, and failing, to ignore the pounding in her head for awhile because she hadn't felt like walking down the stairs to get medication. That was part of the reason she couldn't concentrate on her test, and it wasn't even that bad yet.

It was time for her to take her new set of HIV medications, though. If she had to lug her body down the stairs, she was going to take pain medications while there.

Lolita pushed her body from the chair, pausing to allow her feet to get used to the burning sensation consuming them. She wanted to assume this ache was simply from her feet falling asleep while she sat at her chair staring at her test, but she knew that wasn't the case. Aches that affected her nervous system were extremely common with her illness. Burning or tingling sensations and numbness in her feet and hands were what she felt when her nervous system decided to go through its aching spells.

But it was nothing a little HIV drug cocktail couldn't fix.

With pain-filled steps, she began walking across her room. She didn't make it far. Her eyes caught on the full length mirror against her wall, her body ceasing all movement before she could make it to the door. For a moment, she simply stared at herself. Her reflection stared back at her, embodying her in everyway. The slightly teased pink and black hair, the moss green eyes analyzing every detail, the white tank top and snowman pajama pants covering her healthy-weight body, it was all there. There were no distortions, no feelings of hatred masking how she saw herself.

There were no feelings of intense happiness masking how she saw herself either. She only saw what the mirror portrayed. She never interpreted it as ugly or pretty. It wasn't something she ever did. Things like that wouldn't effect how she felt during the day. She wouldn't feel ugly or pretty. She would feel the aches running through her. She would feel miserable. She would feel thankful to be alive. The lack of care about being pretty hadn't bothered her before. Dating wasn't on her bucket list and the point of being pretty was for attracting a potential significant other. She did what she wanted with her looks, despite how miserable she felt, and didn't care if she looked pretty or not because she liked the way she looked.

That was until Jazz brought up feeling pretty.

It had never occurred to her that she could feel pretty. She didn't even know what it meant to feel pretty. Was it a matter of confidence? Was it feeling attractive that day? Was it feeling healthy? Was it strictly physical or was it emotional? Did feeling pretty effect how pretty a person was? It was such a foreign idea. She knew people could be attractive, but to feel attractive was something completely different. She rarely felt anything beyond the pain encompassing her daily. Perhaps she looked as bad as felt.

Frowning, Lolita pulled her eyes away from the mirror. With the thought heavy in her mind, she left her room, walked through the hallway, and descended the stairs to the front hallway of the house. Clicking resounded in the air, fast-paced and filled with purpose.

Her father was typing. He was always typing. As an author, that's what he did. Because he had well-selling novels and wrote more than one novel a year, he didn't need to work a second job to live a comfortable lifestyle and take care of Lolita's illness. It hadn't always been that way. It took awhile for her father to get published and have a profitable contract. In the bottom drawer of his dresser was a large stack of rejection letters that Lolita had gone through while sneaking around in her father's bedroom. There were so many of them. They filled the whole drawer. He struggled to get where he was, and Lolita looked up to him for that. Even if she did annoy him on purpose from time to time for the sake of entertainment, her father's struggles were one's that gave her hope and made her father that much more special to her.

Lolita followed the typing to the dining room. Her father was seated at the table, fingers flying over the keys of the laptop in front of him at an alarming pace. He looked away from the screen for a moment, fingers stopping when he realized his daughter was standing in the doorway.

"Honey, are you okay?" he asked.

"I just need my medicine," Lolita answered.

She wasn't going to tell him she was distraught over feeling pretty. He was her father, he wouldn't understand. It wasn't a lie either. Her body hurt and it was time for her nightly serving of pills.

His emerald eyes cut into her, "That's not the full truth, is it? You look upset."

"My math final spontaneously combusted."

"Though I don't doubt that you set your final on fire and pretended to roast marshmallows over it, that's not why you look so depressed."

"It's nothing."

"Lolita, tell me what's wrong. You know being upset causes you to stress, and stress causes you to be even more sensitive to illness. I don't want you to end up in the hospital the night before I leave because I'll prolong my leave till you get better. We can avoid this situation if you tell me what is bothering you."

She knew her father's reasoning was legitimate. She didn't want to get sick or keep her father from going on his book tour. Talking about this, however, wasn't what she wanted to do.

But she would do it anyway.

Lolita looked at her bare feet, the hem of her pajama pants nearly covering each foot. Her mind debated the best way to compose her thoughts. She looked back at her father, one question capable of summing up her thought process.

"Do you think I'm pretty?"

Without missing a beat, her father replied, "Of course I think you're pretty."

"So I don't look terrible even though I feel terrible?"

"What are you going on about?"

"I never feel pretty. I feel sick a lot of the time. Doesn't that mean I should look sick, not pretty? I mean, I like the way I look, but do I come off as sick to other people if I feel sick?"

"Feeling pretty doesn't make you pretty. It doesn't affect how you look at all. Feeling pretty is feeling confident in yourself for whatever reason. Maybe you have a new dress on or you've done your hair a specific way that makes you feel good, or maybe you woke up feeling good about yourself. Feeling pretty is just a way to express that confidence."

"But it is feeling confident about something physical?"

"Sometimes."

"I don't understand."

Her headache was beginning to take over all of her comprehending skills. It felt like her father was speaking in riddles. He used to do that to entertain her when she was younger, but she was sure he wasn't doing it on purpose now. Every word was being muddled in her brain.

"It's about confidence, which I know you have a great deal of. Don't worry about not 'feeling pretty.' You can feel sick and still look pretty."

"Oh."

"Anymore questions?"

She only had one that was pushing past her throbbing head.

"Can I have my drug cocktail now?"

A sad smile spread on her father's face, "Of course."

He wished she didn't need the mass amounts of medications. He would gladly take her illness from her if it meant her living without health complications for the rest of her life.

Parents weren't supposed to bury their children.