Status: A rewrite of a rewrite.

Before I Die

Three

I make my way downstairs where my parents are waiting with warm hugs. I cherish the moment out skin touches because finally I can feel the sun on my skin, the sun in the form of my parent’s love. We sit down for the first proper meal we have had since Tuesday night, over eggs and bacon we carefully skirt around my illness politely ignoring the elephant in the room.

It is almost a game, I am watching and waiting to see who will mess up first. I have money on my father because usually he is tactless but this morning over breakfast he is trying really hard to ignore the elephant in the room. I want to stand up and shout at them both, tell them to stop treading so lightly and to stop treating me with kid gloves.

But I don’t.

I realise this must be hard on them as well, harder than I could even begin to imagine. You are not supposed to outlive your children, especially when they are so young but here my parents sit preparing to do just that. It hurts me just to think about it but I can’t get my mind off of it and all the people I will leave behind.

I want to curl up into a ball and never go outside again, I want to live out my final days in isolation so no one can get to know me and love me more than they already do. But that is not very fair to myself, I want to live love and experience what life has to offer and that includes getting to know new people and loving the people already in my life. No matter how much it stings my heart to just that.

“So Emery,” My mother says chewing thoughtfully on her bagel egg and bacon sandwich, I turn to stare at her tears in my eyes, but I refuse to cry them. My mother looks so sad almost as sad as I feel. I want to listen; I try really hard to listen to her words but they are drowned out by my sorrow. I have to ask her to repeat herself.

“What classes do you have today?” I ignore the fact that a copy of my school schedule is hanging on the fridge as we keep ignoring my diagnosis. I slip away a few minutes later to grab my bag from my bedroom.

I take a minute as I take in my familiar surroundings to feel everything, the loss, the sadness and the emptiness because I know once I get to school there will be no time to feel. I will need to put on a brave face, and face the students who already feel sorry for me for being sick.

I take in my pink bedspread that has been with me since I was twelve and decided barbie was too childish for my mature needs. I look at my lamp on the side of my desk next to my laptop and a bunch of unfinished homework and textbooks, everything looks and feels familiar and foreign at the same time, like something has changed. I realise belatedly that I am the one who has changed.

With that thought in mind I race down the stairs and to the car where my mother is waiting for me. We listen to the radio neither of us brave enough to speak our true feelings, that is until we reach the school. My mother parks in the parking lot and waits for me to leave grabbing my shoulder tightly before I slip out and pulling me back to her, hugging me and whispering ‘be good’ into my hair.

I think it might mean something more than simple words, sort of like a protection spell she is casting on me to save me from the scrutiny I receive as I walk into school. I am used to people staring, when I lost my hair it was all anyone could talk about. I am glad my hair has finally started growing back, short as it may be it is still better than being the ‘sick bald girl’ at school.

I make my way to my locker ditching my heavy backpack and grabbing some books for my first class, science. I feel anxious heading into science because Jett will be there to bombard me with questions about my visit to the doctors, questions I am not prepared to answer at this stage.

I try to physically shake away the anxiety but it is gripping my stomach tightly, refusing to dissipate. So with a heavy heart and an anxiety ridden stomach flipping up and down as I walk I make my way to science, arriving before the teacher and cursing her for being a few minutes late. It means Jett and I will have a chance to talk and that is the last thing I want. My teacher Mrs Rye would have been a perfect excuse not to talk to Jett about why I ignored his call, several of his call actually during the past few days.

I turn towards the back to the classroom looking through a familiar sea of familiar faces for a spare seat. There is only one. Mrs Rye is hot on my heels so I take the empty seat, it is one that has been saved, saved by Jett for me. I stare at him for a moment too long before I walk to my seat taking in his familiar features.

Jett is handsome there is no denying that, he is the envy of most of the boys at my school and the crush of most of the girls. I once crushed on him, hard. We went on a few dates years ago but decided we were better as friends. We have never look back, Jett has dark hair and equally dark piercing eyes.

I settle into the seat next to him as he leans over glancing at Mrs Rye to make sure she is distracted enough for us to talk, “Hey,” I greet first when he stares at me for a long while, it makes me uncomfortable like he can read my lie written on my face.

“Are you alright?” He asks suddenly,

“Dandy,”

“You look different, I thought you’d fallen off the face of the earth Em, why didn’t you answer any of my calls?” He stares at me earnestly not expecting for a second that I am preparing to tell the biggest lie of my life, that I am fine. He is not expecting me to break an age old promise we made as kids to always tell the truth. We are blood buddies and I am breaking an oath right now because I have to not because I want to, I just can’t break his heart.

I just… can’t.

“Oh that,” I laugh preparing to slip into my perfectly rehearsed lie, it feels blasphemous to lie to Jett. He is such a good friend but I know telling him to truth will just hurt him, and I really don’t want to hurt him. I just want, for a little while anyway, for things to be normal between us, for there not to be some giant elephant in the room like there was with my parents. So I lie and I barely feel bad about it because I know it is for his own good.

“My dad ordered a no technology few days, you know how he gets working with phones and then coming home to me on my phone all the time,” My father works in IT and phone repairs and in the past I have suffered through technology free weekends, so the lie isn’t that far fetched.

“I was going to call you this morning but I figured I’d just talk to you at school this morning,”
“Are you sure you are okay Emery?” Jett asks staring intently at me once more like he can almost read the death on my face, like he knows my truth. I pause for a second on the verge of telling him, his use of my full name hitting me, hard. But I don’t want to do it here or now in front of people who just don’t care, who just want my diagnosis to be used as gossip. So I swallow the words on the edge of my tongue.

“Fine,” I promise but I think we both know it is a lie.

For a second I am exhausted but the extent of my lie, the extent of my diagnosis. I am just plain exhausted, and I don’t think any amount of sleep will ever cure that, not now and not ever. It is a sort of tiredness that is not connected to getting a few more hours of sleep, it is something more… something different.

“Promise?” He asks giving me an odd look I can’t quite understand. I feel like the dirt beneath his shoes for lying to him. He is such a good friend, he genuinely cares about me and here I am lying directly to his face. But I just can’t say anything, not yet I just need a few more days at least that is what I tell myself silently, wishing those few days will never end and I will never have to face the truth of my impending death.

But I am nowhere near that lucky.

So I settle in for the remainder of my class, carefully avoiding Jett and his strange almost penetrating looks, reminding me that I am a terrible person and an even worse friend. I had thought for sure that my heart would break the moment I get the news but it didn’t. It continues to beat in perfect shape and that is infinitely worse I think.