Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

I woke up in a strange place. Well, 'woke up' isn't exactly the correct terminology. I looked around, hoping to figure out where exactly I was. It was the most terrible place ever. It smelled of rotting flesh, it was dark, and it was cold. Well, I assumed it was cold. I couldn't really tell. For all I knew it could have been burning up.

As I crouched, ready to run if something attacked, I realized that I felt strange. So very, very strange. I mean, yeah, not being able to feel temperature was pretty fucked up, but there was something else... For some reason, I had the urged to put my hand to my chest, so I did. That's when it hit me.

I had no heartbeat.

This didn't scare me though. It didn't even faze me to be honest. I didn't feel anything. I couldn't feel anything. I was empty.

"Where am I?" I muttered under my breath.

I really wasn't expecting anybody to answer me, so I jumped when a deep, booming voice replied, "You're in Hell."

Suddenly, a wave of remembrance came crashing into my head, flooding my brain with memories of my entire life

...and death.

*****

My fiance and I were madly in love. Nothing could keep us apart. Her name was Helena, Helena Simmons. She was so amazing and beautiful. Her hair was jet black and went to the middle of her back and her eyes were icy blue. She had the skin of a porcelin doll, pale and flawless. She was perfect in every way. I always thought it was cute how she would constantly ask me if I loved her when she knew that my love for her was undying. I would always tell her, in complete honesty, that I would die for her.

That turned out to be a promise.

Helena and I did everything together. We always had, ever since the day we met. As I sat there in the dark, memories of how I had met her flooded into my mind.

**

I was in the hospital. I had cancer. My lips were chapped and faded and my dark hair was falling out. I was always wet and soggy due to the chemo. At this time, I had two weeks to live. I was twenty at the time and my mother was visiting me. She had thought that I was asleep as she held my hand.

"You're going to Hell," she muttered. "You're going to die and go to Hell. You're damned." She sat there for while I pondered this. What the fuck did she mean? "You could have been... You SHOULD have been a better son. Why did I pick you? I should have raised a baby girl."

Seriously. What the hell was she talking about?

"I'm leaving, Gerard. You aren't any son of mine..."

I felt tears fall onto my cold, weak, sweaty hand. My mama's voice was so full of emotion as she spoke. "It's better off this way... So much better off this way. Gerard, honey... For what you've done, they're going to find a place for you. And just you mind your manner's when you go. And Gerard, when you go, don't you return to me, my love." With that, she let go of my hand. I listened as her heels clunked across the room. I heard her stop so I opened my eyes. There she was, standing in the doorway, her curly, blonde hair framing her slightly wizened face.

"Gerard..." she said quietly.

"When you go," I whispered. She couldn't hear me too well from where she was so she stepped closer, looking reluctant to do so. "Would you even turn to say... or have the guts to say that you don't love me like... you loved me?"

My mother just stared at me. For a second, I thought that she was going to cry some more and run off, but she took me by surprise. Slowly and rather seductively, my mother walked back to my bed. "Gerard, honey," she said, her voice cold and harsh as she wore a smirk on her face. Here I was on my fucking death bed and my own mother was SMIRKING at me! "I'm not your mother. Your real mother was murdered."

Didn't see that one coming.

"But... my dad," I whispered.

At this, the woman I had called "mama" my whole life actually laughed. How could she laugh at that? He was dead! He had died only two months and she was laughing about it?! What kind of sick monster was she?! Maybe I was being delusional. Maybe it was my medication playing tricks on me. "What about him, Gerard?"

"He--"

"Was your real father, yes. He just didn't want you to know that your mother was murdered," she whispered, that stupid smirk still on her face. I was so confused. Here I was, her son, biological or not, two weeks from dying and she was feeding me this shit. It couldn't be real. I was delusional. The medication was making me imagine shit. "But even he didn't know that it was ME. I was the one who killed dear, sweet Donna. And now that her son will be gone, I can tell you that I killed her because, well, your father's money. And nineteen years later, I killed him in the same fashion. Money, my darling, has always been my one true love."

With that, she straightened up, spun on her heel, and walked to the door again. This time before she left, she turned and looked at me, that smirk still on her face. "I don't love you like I--" She stopped abruptly, the smirk turning into a grin. "Oh, wait. That's right. I NEVER loved you. Who could ever love a wretch like you? You're going to Hell, Gerard. You aren't any son of mine. You never will be and you never were." And with that, she turned the corner and I never saw her again for the remainder of my hospital stay.

Not ten minutes after she left, doctors and nurses came rushing into my room, but they didn't come to me, they went to the empty bed next to me.

"She needs her stomach pumped!" one of my doctors, Dr. Goodman, yelled. I watched as two paramedics lifted a scrawny girl off of a stretcher and onto the empty bed. I watched as the deathly looking girl had a tubed shoved down her throat and charcoal poured down it. Quickly the tube was removed and a plastic mask was put over the girl's mouth. Within seconds, she was throwing up black stuff into the mask.

"She's going to choke!" A nurse shouted.

Quickly, the girl was rolled onto her side and I caught a glimpse of a heavily bandaged wrist. The bandages were stained red. My eyes went huge. I had never had this happen in the whole three months of being in this stupid room. This was the cancer ward. I had had this room all to myself until now and this girl didn't seem like it was cancer she was suffering from.

"Oh Gerard!" One of my nurses, Corey, said, taking notice of me staring at the scene. "Honey." She rushed to my side of the room. As soon as she was able, she shut herself with me behind the blue curtains that surrounded my bed. Corey was my favorite nurse. She was like a sister to me. She had shoulder length blonde hair that was pulled back in a loose ponytail. She was extremely pretty and had a great personality. I loved the fact that her eyes were a rich chocolate brown because not many blondes had brown eyes. Corey was twenty six and pretty much adored me in a patient-nurse sort of way. Then again, all the doctors and nurses seemed to adore me which was really quite alarming since I had made such an awful first impression on them. When I had first come to Our Lady of Peace Hospital in Belleville, New Jersey, I was such an awful fuck. I was so rude, but they ignored that rudeness and I grew fond of them just as they did me.

"Oh wow, Gee," Corey said, smiling at me as I listened as the girl continued to throw up the black stuff. "Today's your day for a shower. How about we go do that now?"

Oh how fun. Not really. Though when Corey took me for showers, she made me feel more dignified than some of the other nurses. I took baths when I went with her and she used the plastic cover to cover up certain areas of my body. She also let me wash myself unlike some of my other nurses. The only thing Corey helped me wash was my hair.

"Corey--" I was going to ask her about the girl, but she cut me off.

"Not now, Gerard," she muttered, opening my wheelchair and letting down one side of my bed. I nodded, wrapping my arm behind her neck as she helped me into my chair.

"Oh wow, hun," she said. She put her hands in my hair and I felt a gentle tug. In her hand, she held a glob of jet black hair. "I"m going to have to cut your hair. I'm sorry. I know you don't want that, but you look a bit lopsided."

"It's okay, Corey," I replied glumly. I loved my once shoulder-length hair but I knew with clumps missing it looked horrible.

As Corey wheeled me out of the room, I caught a glimpse of the young girl. Her eyes were closed and the skin around her mouth was stained black from the charcoal. She had a tube down her throat again and IVs were being put into her arms. Shoulder length black hair lay tangled around her and her bangs hung over her forehead and into her closed eyes. Her facial features were perfect and under different circumstances, she was probably incredibly gorgeous. Both her wrists were wrapped up and there was blood and charcoal on her light gray skeleton tank top. She looked very bruised and battered.

"Hi, Gerard," Dr. Goodman said as Corey and I wheeled past.

"Hello," I replied, not taking my eyes away from the girl.

"You're looking good today. And now you have your very first roommate. Once she wakes up, you'll have someone new to talk to."

"I noticed," I responded, smiling. It was a nice thought, having someone else to talk to besides the same people day in and day out, someone who wasn't a doctor or a nurse.

*****

When I was finished with my bath and in a new dressing gown, I decided to ask Corey about the girl in my room. I had almost expected her to tell me, but all she said was that she would be there for a long time and that when she felt up to it, she could tell me her story herself. I sighed heavily, causing Corey to laugh. And then I told her about my mother... well, the woman I thought was my mother. This news, needless to say, shocked her.

"What a BITCH!" she exclaimed as she checked my IV. I had to go everywhere with that stupid thing in my arm. "How could anybody ever do that to a precious thing like you?" In the mirror across from me, I saw myself blush. "I"m going to cut your hair myself, Gee. It'll be faster than getting you into the salon," she said, changing the uncomfortable subject from my 'mother'. "That is... if you trust me," she added as she gently combed my wet hair.

"I trust you. If you keep brushing my hair though, I'm not gonna have any left to cut," I reminded her.

She laughed again, this time sounding more sad. "I think you have longer than two weeks, kid," she said. "Most cancer patients with only two weeks left can't do everything as strongly as you do. Most of them can't even walk and most of them are delusional." She spoke with a sadness in her voice as she began to cut my hair shorter. I knew she had seen many patients die.

Her words made me happy, but then I remembered something. "I thought I was being delusional when my mama... when that lady did what she did," I muttered.

"Oh, of course you did, Gerard!" Corey exclaimed, staring at me in the mirror with this 'duh!' look on her face. "If someone did that to me, that's what I would think too. But don't let her get you down. Besides, people who really are delusional don't think that they are. Trust me, buddy. You're going to live forever."