How Can I Help You Say Goodbye?
Part Four
Disclaimer: see the first chapter.
Reader Reviews:
It doesn't seem like I've done real reader responses yet, though most reviews I don't need to. I would like to thank everyone for reviewing, and I want to thank Buff, M, Queen Boadicea, and Sarah for reviewing the last chapter.
And some answers will be brought to light in this chapter…
After most of my hair fell out, I cropped the remaining bits to short, half-inch fuzz. I started wearing a bandanna to cover my essentially bald head.
I began noticing other changes, too. My face was thin, too thin, and way too gaunt. I had huge hollows under my eyes, and I was afraid I'd never be pretty again. When I showered, I could see and count the majority of my ribs, and what little breasts I had once had were gone, thanks to my lack of eating habits.
During my week long respite, when Dawn, Willow, Giles, Xander, or even Andrew weren't visiting, they never stayed long, I found myself on the floor below mine, in the Children's Oncology wing. Souls as young as five or six stared out at me from old faces, most bald, or losing their hair.
I found myself reading to the kids on a regular basis. Many couldn't read, either because they had never learned, of they had missed those months in school. And some of the older kids would listen, though inconspicuously, maybe going back to a time when their mothers would read to them, and they weren't bald, weren't sick, weren't dying. I know I was back in a time when I wasn't the slayer, and my sister was just that, not a mystical force, and I'd read to her before bed every night, because Mom and Dad were too busy.
And then I met some of the older teens, after the younger kids went for naps, and we'd play Monopoly, and I introduced them to Anywhere But Here. They came up with some of the most gorgeous scenes; one girl dreamed of the small brook near her childhood home, with the sun filtering through the leaves and the brook babbling nonsense to her and her once best friend.
On the Saturday of my break, just two more days until I started chemo again, I came back to my room after reading Amilee to sleep, in the too big bed and too white sheets, to find the most surprising visitor. I didn't sense him, though now I understand why, and he took me by complete surprise.
He stood in the middle of my room, awkwardly holding a bouquet of tulips.
"I, uh…these are for you." He handed me the flowers. I set them on my bedside table. My roommate had been released earlier that week, sadly, to die at home, but then I almost wished to prolong her suffering, so I didn't have to be alone with him.
"Who told you?"
"I went to your apartment, and uh, Andrew told me where I could find you, but he didn't say why." I now realized my folly, telling my sister not to tell him, and Andrew not to tell my friends. I can't win, can I?
I pushed past him, nudging a chair in his direction as I climbed into bed, "I hope you don't mind," I said as I sat cross-legged, "The meds they have me on make me tired a lot."
"Buffy-"
"Angel, I'm dying." I thought that I could get through the telling without tears, I was dehydrated enough as it was, but as I told him how I had ended up here, the tears came again.
He tried to hold me, but I pushed him away, not wanting him to feel my rough, dry skin. "I don't need your pity, Angel."
"I wouldn't dream of pitying you. If anything, you are more courageous now, dealing with all this, than I have ever seen you."
"Well, you haven't seen me in a long time. I don't remember you being there for the biggest battles."
"Buffy-"
"Stop trying to make it better! Yeah, the doctors say there's an 85 chance that I'll make it to remission, and a 15 chance that I could stay in remission for the five years to be considered cured, but it'll only fail in the end. I feel my body slowly dying. The chemo that's fighting for my life, to save it, is killing me. There's even talk of putting me on prednizone after this, if the chemo doesn't work, which will eat away at my liver, or kidney, or one of those I can't remember which. They're talking about what to do next, if the chemo doesn't work, Angel!"
I sighed, "I'm really tired, I overexerted myself today."
He got the hint immediately, "I'll be back tomorrow," he promised.
"I'll be here," I said wearily, settling down as if to sleep. But after he left, sleep wouldn't come, not for a long time. But the pain of seeing him again, and not letting him hold me, having him see me at my worst, and the anguish, and the misery, foul weather friends they are. They found me there, alone in my bed, and brought along their friends, tears, for the party.
If he came by that Sunday, he swears he did, I didn't see him. I was up at first light, unable to sleep, so I went down to the playroom. Carlos, a seven and a half year old who had become enamored with me, was to start back on chemo that day, and so I held his basin for him after he got back, rubbing his back until he fell into an exhausted sleep. Then Amilee and Jake wanted me to read some more of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, one of my childhood favorites, with her strange cures. If only she could fin a cure for all these children. Then it was naptime, and Ricky and Beth and I got in a solid hour of Monopoly. Ricky won, again. Then it was craft time. I can't remember what they ended up making, but Carlos, with his basin always nearby, drew me his Teddy Bear Army. The leader wore a pink bandana like the one I wore, her sword dripping green blood.
As they drew, and cut, and glued, I watched them, and for the first time, I allowed myself to notice the things that marked them as sick. More often that not, these children were small for their age, due to the chemo. They were bald, and many carried around IV stands, careful to not get their wires tangled. They did so with a precision, I was sure they were used to it, and this wasn't their first time on the drugs. Some had red rashes on their chests, from the radiology, the second step for many on this trip we all were on. None seemed to notice the others bald heads, or the IV stands. They treated each other like normal kids, racing each other around the room, seeing who could build the biggest building.
Then it was suppertime, and I helped the nurses coax the kids into eating. Some of the healthier ones, either the ones who had just come in, or those that were getting ready to leave, ate at the table in the play room, and I joined them. Then it was clean up time, and then bed.
"The kids are going to miss you once you go back on chemo, and can't be here all day," Carla, the nurse in charge of the playroom told me. "They've all fallen in love with you, and you give them the attention us nurses can't always give them. Go on to bed now, dear. You need your rest, it's been a long day, and tomorrow will be longer."