It started in Biology Class. One moment I was upright in my chair and the next I found myself on the ground, blood spurting from a tiny cut above my right eye while everyone in the class crowded around me. My teacher brought me to the nurse who patched me up and told me that should I ever feel faint again to come see her. Over the next few weeks I became a regular and Nancy and I became good friends.
But as the end of the school year grew closer and Nancy began to get worried about me, I started to worry as well. Two days into the summer vacation I fainted on my way to the market and my mother finally brought me to the doctor. Now, two weeks later, I'm standing on the balcony from my room, staring up at the stars, an unlit Marlboro between my index and middle finger.
Hurlington Family Status:
Lisa – crying in bedroom
Frank – watching Arsenal play to try and drown out the screams in his head
Amanda – dying
They call it T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia. They say I've got about six more months to live. They ask if I want treatments that will only prolong my life expectancy by a few months at most; but at what cost? They explain that I'll be bed-ridden, that the experience is much worse than the disease itself. They tell me that it's my choice.
I light the cigarette as my mother's muted wails thread their way onto the balcony and sigh as the wind softly brushes against my face, whispering against the hoops in my ears and tousling the chin-length brown bob I'd had to get after one fainting episode left so much matted blood it was easier to chop the damn hair off than clean it out.
It's been three hours since I told the doctors to stick it where the sun don't shine. Three hours since I broke my parents' hearts. Three hours since I realized that without a doubt, I was a dead girl walking.
Breathing in deeply I feel the smoke, so scratchy and lovely, quickly filling every space it can in my lungs, and I begin to wish that I could live in this moment until the end of time, without the cells in my body killing me from the inside out. Standing on a balcony, cigarette in hand, staring up at the stars – that's how I want to be remembered. Not as the girl whose body is betraying her with every breath, every step, every moment she lives. I want to burn out like a flare or a sparkler; I want to be heard like a fire alarm; I want people to notice me while they still can. I take another drag from the cigarette, my gaze unwavering from the absolute unknown of the sky above. I don't want to be a black hole, sucking the happiness and joy from those I love.
I want to be a supernova.