It had started out with a few blots on my vision. The little spots in the corners of my eyes were the size of a full stop. I didn't pay any attention at first. I just assumed it was because I was tired. I was wrong.
After about a week of me flinching at nothing, which turned out to be just another speck, my mum booked me an appointment at the opticians. He looked into my eye, shining a light bright enough to make me go blind, and frowned.
"I think she just needs glasses, and a few good nights sleep. Try and stay away from TVs and computers, and limit the time spent on your phone. I think your eyes are straining from constant exposure to lights, specifically screens." I was dismissed with a pair of nerd glasses and a ban from TV. The optician thought it was lights. He said I would get better from a nights sleep. He was wrong.
It was 3 days after the glasses were issued that I got the headaches. They were horrible. I spent most of those three days at school with my head on the table, fingers in my ears. I was so sensitive to sound that I cried when my friends spoke in more than a whisper. Dad decided it was time to go to the doctors. He took me down on the Thursday morning, straight after Maths. The doctor had scratched his head, looking at me.
"Stay out of school for a bit, at least until Monday. Try and sleep as much as you can and drink a lot of water. This should keep your brain nice and refreshed." The doctor had thought the headaches where caused by stress. He thought they would be gone by Monday. He was, again, wrong.
It was on Saturday morning when it became clear what was happening to me. I collapsed, falling forward straight onto the wooden floor in the dining room. There was nothing to prevent my fall and my head had a nasty lump. I was very dizzy and was throwing up everywhere.
The doctor I had never had before knew first. He was the first to see the result of the scan on my brain to see if I had a concussion. He came in to my room in the hospital, looking as somber as a grave. He motioned to my mum and dad to step outside to have a word with him. When they entered the room after five long minutes, I sat up on my pillows, due to the fact that my parents were both white as sheets and tears were forming in their eyes.
"I'm afraid you have quite a serious problem, Evelyn, your brain has a clot, quite near the centre which is causing the headaches. Good news is that our medication will stop the headaches and the eye problems. The bad news is that we cannot stop it indefinitely and it will probably get more serious. Due to this fact, you cannot leave the hospital until we can diagnose what it is. There will be a lovely room prepared for you in the youth ward." He smile and left me with my parents, all of us shocked and confused about what would happen to me in the end.
2 weeks later, I was hooked up to a complicated machine, being fed a wide array of drugs. I had seen nearly every single one of my friends from school, clubs and the village, my family had all come, all 47 of them. There was one person who I hadn't seen come. And I doubted I ever would. They were the first person I told, and they said they would be the last to see me in a hospital bed. It was pointless wasting what ever wishes I had left on a promise I knew they would keep. But I wanted to see their face, because I was struggling seeing now. Everything was faded grey and the tunnel I saw around my head was blocking the view of the pictures I had pinned around my private room I got last week. My arm skimmed lightly across the sheet until my thin fingers made contact with the object I was searching for.
The blank text I sent wasn't an accident, I was a signal. The recipient knew what it meant as much as I did. The smiling faces of me and my friends one beautiful April shone threw the web of tears. Nothing I did now could make them smile as much as then. It had been the rest of my life back then. Now the rest of my life was this, medicine and white rooms. Ill never see that beautiful British sky in the summer. Why had I complained on all those rainy days? It had been only a month ago I had been sitting at home waiting for a holiday from the daily routine of school, now it all felt like a dream.
My eyes were playing with the contrast, making photos blurry so I couldn't make out faces. The white was burningly bright, making me blink. A figure ran in from the corridor as I slipped away. I could only just make out the colour of their blue eyes as they hovered over me. I had always loved those eyes.
"I loved your eyes too, sweetie. Now come on, there's no way your leaving this hospital in a coffin. That's so mainstream darling. Hang on. For me? Please?" I hadn't realise the comment had been said out loud. My sense where failing, I couldn't smell the disinfectant of the hospital anymore. My fingers had gone numb, so the only way I knew that my hand was being held was because I just managed to see it. I never wanted to hurt them, all of them. My family. My friends. And especially not the person frantically saying my name until their voice cracked, panic filling there movements much more than it should. If anyone should be panicking surely it should be me? Poor little Evelyn, always lost and then in her final moments, not even bothering to mutter some wise words to the person sobbing their heart out at her bedside. I smiled, that what they had always thought that I was lost. That my biggest wish was to join the land of the dead. It hadn't been my wish, but it was happening anyway. Wasn't I lucky?
My vision slipped away, but I could still hear the sobs of the only person who had ever mattered. I wanted to put my arms round them, look at them clearly one last time, and say it would be okay. And maybe it would? Maybe there would be a sudden rush of nurses, and I would be dramatically resuscitated. I didn't want to die really. I want to carry on living. My mouth couldn't move, so I said it to anyone in the building who could read minds. Or maybe I was saying it to a God I had never believed in.
I don't want to die. Be this my final wish. I want to see them again. I want another chance to live. I want to be able to take their hand. I want them to tell me they love me, just once more. And I want to be able to say it back.
"Evelyn, I love you. Please come back? Please? I love you! I always have! You know I have! PLEASE!" My lips wouldn't move. I couldn't say that I had been the same, forever loving them, right up till now, my final moment. Come on brain, move those lips. Form those words.
"I-" But all there was, was silence. I tried again
"I-" Silence. I had to reply, even if it was in my mind, as my thoughts slipped.
"I love you too, always will, stay with me forever,-"
"-you're mine." It took a minute to realise that I had managed to say it out loud. Well at least the last bit.
"Excuse me, what was that my dear?" My eyelids flicked open. I was alive. I was standing up. I was, well I was in the middle of an apartment. I didn't recognise my surroundings.
There were boxes standing in many piles around the stairs that led upstairs, helping me come to the conclusion that I was on the ground floor. I looked down in my hand. I was holding a wad of pound notes. I blinked. I was dreaming surely? I rubbed my forehead, relieved that the pounding headache that had inhibited it for just under a month had disappeared. The woman standing opposite me spoke again, making me aware of her presence.
"Look, I need to catch a train, and so do you. So here's the address of your new apartment for when you arrive in London. The landlady will be expecting you around 6, so you're already cutting it a bit fine. So ill take my wages, and be off. Make sure you hand the key to the estate agent on the way out." She took the money out of my hand, and replaced it with a key, a purse and a little bit of paper. She smiled at me. Noticing the small badge on her cleaning uniform I said,
"Thank you, Belinda. Urm, should I call you when I get there?" She set off out of the room, looking back to say,
"Well why would you do that, dear? I'm not staff anymore. Call your uncle. He will make sure your alright, I'm sure, after the untimely departure of your parents?" After one more motherly smile, she was gone out of the front door, leaving me dazed and confused. What had just happened? One part of my brain was saying "Well, you were dying on a hospital bed, dumbass." but the other, louder part was saying "You just paid you maid off and your about to move to London after the premature death of your parents, remember silly?" The cheerful voice I imagined for the second part made it far more believable.
Men picked up all of my boxes and put them in the back of a van, telling me they would arrive early Wednesday morning. I smiled and waved them off. A train. That's what Belinda had said. I had to catch a train. She had also said I had an uncle. Strange, considering both of my parents were only children, like me. The first, grumpy voice (I had named him Bill) snapped at me.
"Well of cores you don't have an uncle, a great uncle, maybe. But he lives in Australia. He has since 1998. What is the matter with you?" At this point voice number two (called Sarah) joined in.
"Don't be silly, remember your uncle John? Such a nice man. He will be calling your new flat at 7, so you'd better get a move onto the train." Again, for some unknown reason, I listened to Sarah. Picking up the ticket and ID that were sitting on the work top for me, even though I didn't remember putting them there, I set off toward the train station
It had been four hours, twenty-three minutes and eleven seconds since I boarded the train, but it had gone fast. A little too fast. I had felt really sleepy through most of the journey, but something told me to not go to sleep. That it wasn't safe. But what could be dangerous about sleeping? Sleeping was peaceful. I felt my self drifting off.
The ceiling above me was white, just like the sheet covering me. I tried to turn my head to see fully the sharp implements I caught view of in the corner of my eye, but I was stuck. I tried to move my lips but they were sewn shut. Something was wrong, very wrong indeed. A face, half covered with a mint green mask, was leaning over me with a scalpel. He moved his mouth to say something,
"We have arrived at Kings Cross Station, passengers please prepared to disembark."
I woke up sharply, and looked around. There was people standing up and gathering their stuff. I blinked and rubbed my forehead once again. Grabbing a map from a leaflet centre next to me, I stood up too, collected the bag full of stuff I hadn't packed, and set off into a strange city, looking for a place I'd never heard of, haunted by a dream I couldn't fully remember.
Big Ben chimed 6 as I jogged up the steps. The house stood proudly in the centre of a terraced row. The white stone that clad the front was carved with the numbers 128. This was the address, meaning I was going to be the new kid on this very expensive block. How was I, a 17 year old girl, going to pay for this? I rang the door bell, pressing for just less than 6 seconds. After a minute or two of muffled sounds behind the door, it swung open, revealing a woman in her early-forties. She smiled warmly, making her green-blue eyes twinkle.
"You must be Evelyn; your uncle has told me so much about you. He said your moving down here to go to collage, is that correct? My son is starting collage this year too, so I'm expecting you'll get on fine with him."
She opened the door wider, permitting me and my bag to enter through with out causing that much damage to the surrounding ordainments. As I came into the hall an older man took the suitcase I had rested against the banister threw a door, probably taking it to my new room. My new landlady smiled again and offered her hand.
"I'm Wanda. And this," she said motioning behind my head "is my son, Ben." A man-boy of about 17 wandered in. His auburn hair was flicked upwards, like he brushed it out of his eyes a lot. He looked awfully familiar to me. Smiling, he waved and then headed up the ornate stair case at the other end of the hall. Wanda sighed.
"If he ignores you, I'm sorry. Teenage boys!" I giggled. She led me threw the door that my suitcase had disappeared behind. There was another set of stairs, furnished in dark blue carpet, leading upwards. We climbed for maybe two stories before arriving at a large landing.
"This will be your floor. You've got a toilet and a shower, kitchenette but don't worry we'll feed you if you put a little bit towards the weekly shop, a bedroom and a small study. I expect you'll need a lot of room for all the coursework you're bound to be getting at collage. I'll leave you to have a look around and settle on, please come down stairs when you're finished." And with that she went back down the stairs, leaving me in awe of my new lodgings.