Cancer

I wasn't crying enough. I should have been crying more. Why wasn't I crying?

I was currently crouched in the drafty stairwell of the hotel I was staying at with my mom, my back pressed up against the wall, my socks slipping against the worn carpet. The lights installed in the ceiling cast a harsh, too-yellow glow over the stairs and made my face look even more tired and drained in my reflection in the window. I caught a glimpse of my lank, unwashed hair and my puffy red eyes, and the one glimpse was enough; I leaned my head back and stared at the graying ceiling tiles instead.

Why wasn't I crying? The tears had come easily enough an hour ago, had poured out of their own accord, coursing down my face endlessly in the dark. I had had another night terror again.

They weren't just nightmares, they were night terrors--at least, that's what the doctor had said, and I believed him. Nightmare just wasn't a strong enough word.

And there were no dreams involved, really. I never remembered having a dream, or a nightmare, even. I would simply wake up in the middle of the night screaming and crying; usually I would kick off the blankets and scramble out of bed and run halfway across the room before I came to my senses.

I always ran. I would be up and running before I was even fully awake yet. Once I almost made it out of my apartment before I caught myself.

The "night terrors" didn't make sense, and they were so intense and so persistant that I finally saw a psychologist about them. He asked me if I had suffered any great loss or traumatic experience lately, and out of habit, I said no, of course; and then I was too chicken to change my answer. In that case, then, he said there was nothing that could be done. He said it was meaningless and unavoidable for some people--like sleepwalking or -talking.

But I never understood the "night terrors." I never knew what was so terrifying, because I never remembered dreaming. I never knew what had made me scream and cry. I never knew what I was running from.

-----

Luckily, this particular night terror hadn't woken Mom up--I don't know how, but I was grateful. I woke up some time after 2 AM, and I was flailing around senselessly, entangling myself in my sheets, screaming and crying hysterically, as per usual. As soon as I calmed down, I slid out of the sweat-soaked sheets and slipped out of the room as quietly as possible.

And I wasn't crying anymore. I couldn't cry. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

And that just made it so much worse.

I knew I should cry. My father was dead. I had come from his genes, and the man had treated me better than anyone else ever had; the very least I could give him, now, when I could give nothing else, was a few well-deserved tears.

But somehow that was part of it. Tears felt fake to me--like I was short-changing him somehow. Crying was not enough.

A black ocean of grief was swelling and approaching. Sitting there alone in the stairwell, I could see it on the horizon, a tidal wave I couldn't even run from--I had no chance. It was going to take me under. It was going to swallow me whole.

Compared to all that cold, dark water, a few tears seemed like a mockery.

And it didn't help that I had trained myself all my life not to show emotion, not to open up, not to allow vulnerability. I had made myself vulnerable once and I had been destroyed for it; I had opened up to him and he just tore the heart from my chest. I wasn't going to do that again.

It would still hurt, but I would keep the pain locked away inside of me, where no one could see me bleeding--where no one could take advantage of my soft spots. I would keep those to myself. From now on, my pain, my joy, my sorrow, would be my secret and no one else's.

There was hardly any distinction at this point, though. My emotions were all one big smear of hurt.

Yes, of course it would hurt--it would always hurt. He was my father and I loved him, and he was gone now. I would never forget him. I would never forget even his absence. There would always be a whole in my life there, an empty space, lying in wait for the day when we would be reunited in perfection and he could fill it again.

But Brendon didn't believe in God. Brendon didn't believe that that day would ever come.

And I had to admit that, in that moment, it seemed impossible to me that it ever would.

Because the tidal wave was taking me under now. It had been close before, and all it took was that one stray thought of Brendon, that one reminder, to send it crashing over me.

In the length of a heartbeat, I saw my fate coming. The dread churned in my stomach, but only briefly; because, honestly, could it be much worse?

Maybe it would be easy. Maybe it would be like drifting. Like floating in the ocean back when we still lived in California, when we'd go to the beach for the weekend, just my Mom and I...back when I was still happy and healthy and whole...

I remembered.

Brendon, Vegas, Brendon, high school, Brendon, apartment, tour bus, Brendon, Pete Wentz, Brendon, concert, Brendon, email, Brendon, phone call, Brendon, MTV, Brendon, fangirls, Brendon, scene queens, Brendon, tabloids, Brendon, Pete Wentz, Brendon, email?, Brendon, fangirls!, Brendon, more MTV, more concerts, more tour buses, more damn scene queens, Brendon, phone call?, Brendon, phone call?!, Brendon, phone call!, Brendon, Brendon, Brendon, phone call, phone call, phone call, PHONE CALL BRENDON PHONE CALL BRENDON, running.

I must have drowned in the ocean, because suddenly I was floating just like I'd hoped, rising above my crumpled body there on the stairs. From way up there, I watched my battered and beaten self crouching listlessly, a blank expression on her drawn face--too old for her years.

And I watched her in a flashback scene, one that took place a long long time ago, in a big house that was empty now. She stood in her room alone, standing by the window, staring through it at where he used to be. She pressed the phone to her ear and tried not to notice her distraught expression in the reflection in the window.

His voice prickled in her ear--and in my ear, too, as I looked on through the clarity of hindsight. This was my clearest memory. The pain it evoked in me was familiar, too often revisited.

I watched the climax play out.

BRENDON (haltingly): I've been thinking about what you said. Yesterday. About your birthday.
KELSEY (trying not to panic): Look, Brendon. I told you, it's not a big deal. Really. I don't even know why I said it, I guess I just missed you, and--
BRENDON: Exactly. (Stern look. Sigh.) I mean, of course you miss me. I'm never around anymore. And that's not fair to you.

KELSEY can't make sense of the words. Stares. Stupidly.

BRENDON: I... (Swallows hard, says it.) I think we should take a break.

I cut it short then. There was no need to watch the rest. I knew the ending already.

-----

With a jolt of shock, I heard footsteps on the stairs below and my wounded spirit re-entered my body.

I blinked and looked around, shocked to find that I was still sitting in the same dirty stairwell. The lights hurt my eyes. I blinked again.

A man was coming up the stairs with his hands full of something--it took a moment for my eyes to adjust enough to realize the spread-eagled shape in his arms was a child. A little girl. She was sleeping in his arms as he cradled her against his chest, her chin resting on his broad shoulder and his hands locked beneath the backs of her thighs.

He saw me sitting there and smiled in acknowledgement. I was too dazed to think of smiling back.

I watched him carry her up the stairs and wished that I would have let my father hold me when he could have. Now he never would again.

I was so stubborn, so stupid. The only person I ever let hold me hurt me.

And now I would never be held again.

-----

Eventually I resurfaced enough to function and wandered back to my room. I still didn't cry. The pain ran deeper than that. Deeper than I even realized, I think. Deeper than anyone else could see.

I was grateful for the blank emptiness that came with sleep. I would even take the night terrors for a few hours of peace.

I closed my eyes and wished that I had never even heard of Vegas. It had been the death of me.