The Story of a Dying Girl

Hi!

So, here we have another chapter. It's a little bit short, and I'm sorry about that, but I hope you guys like it anyways.

Thank you once again for all of your support. It encourages me and means the world to me, and has really made me very happy and I feel very lucky.

On a serious note, I want to say something about the awful things that have happened recently. Words cannot describe how truly devastating it is to hear about Paris, Japan, Beirut, Baghdad, Lebanon, and more. I am truly sorry to hear about such tragedies, and words cannot describe my shock when I heard the terrible news about Paris, and then found out about the other awful things that happened in the world recently. To anyone in these places, or who have loved ones there, or anyone, please know that my thoughts are with you, and I am truly sorry.

Chapter 21:

The beeping never ceases.

It's panicky, and scary, and it chills my bones.

But it's even worse when it stops.

When it stops it means much more than the ceasing of the annoying beeping.

It means the last breath, and the last heart beat. It means the wailing cries of parents and other family members.

It means the ceasing of life.

The hospital always feels like a strange place where you shouldn't be, but I guess that it was never meant to become a home, or a place where you feel at ease.

I'm sitting in a chair by her bed, and if you don't know whom I mean when I say her, then you should stop and think for a second.

Here, let me give you a second to think.

You good?

Okay, so moving on, I'm sitting by her bed, and I'm holding her hand as she sleeps. I just finished school for the day, and when I got to the hospital, she was sleeping peacefully, and she looked so beautiful.

Her hand feels a bit cold in mine, but I push that thought out of my head.

And her hair is thinner, and so is her wrist, but I don't want to think about that.

And her-

I close my eyes harshly, trying to cease these thoughts.

I open them and there she is.

The girl I love.

The girl who's dying.

Her beeping monitor continues.

I watch it, like if I look away it'll stop, and then her hand will be even colder and I will break.

Her face looks so pale and thin from where I'm sitting.

And she looks so tiny, so fragile, but she looks so beautiful.

She really does.

I lower my head down, so my forehead is on her stomach and I sigh.

I sigh because what else do you do?

What do you do when the girl you love is dying and all you can do is hold her hand?

And so I sigh, loudly and sadly, and there's something very somber about this whole thing, and all I want to do is go back to when I was naïve and cancer was merely an idea.

I find myself wondering about everything.

Just everything.

And I watch her slightly parted lips, and her gentle moving, and despite it all, despite how scared I am, how sad I am, I can't help but get this feeling that in ten years, we'll still be together.

And in 20 years.

And in 30 years.

And in 60 years.

We'll still be together. It's just this feeling that's in my gut, that says fuck off to what the doctors say, and to the kids like Amanda Horite.

Also, fun fact about Amanda Horite:

Turns out, she did not appreciate me ripping down her poster.

There was a time when I was friends with everyone, or I guess, friendly with everyone, because believe me, there is a difference.

And now, maybe that's not the case.

Amanda Horite and her crew despises/feels bad for me.

The mad scientists have to put out their own damn fires.

The stoners only share a spliff on a rare occasion with me now.

And I'm okay with that.

Because I've realized that in not being surrounded by people who don't care, I've found those who do.

Cook and I have always been best friends, and he's one my favorite people on this planet, and I know that we'll still be friends when we'll 94, and we'll get in trouble for stealing some lady named Ethel's pudding at our nursing home.

But I've found Katie and Emily as well.

Katie is not like I thought she was, and while she can still be bitchy, she's turned into a friend of mine, someone I care about.

And Emily, well… this entire thing is for her.

She's unlike any human being I've ever met, and she makes me so happy, and in all the words there are in the English language (there are about 1,025,109.8, I looked it up. The .8 doesn't really make sense to me) I cannot describe my love for her.

And so yes, maybe things are different now, but given a million chances to change what has happened, I would choose this life every time.

So, yes, in 10 years, I'll be holding her hand, and she'll be just fine.

There's a quote from Winnie the Pooh, and do not mock Winnie the Pooh, or else I'll find you, and I'll force you to watch Mean Girls 2, not the one that everyone, including myself loves, I'm talking about the shitty second movie they made with all different actors.

But there's a quote from Winnie the Pooh that I really love.

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."

And so, when I'm old and dying, I hope I die first, because I never want to find myself in a world that doesn't have Emily in it.

I don't want to see that world.

There were flowers on the table and cards and stuff and it reminded me of when I first went over to her house, and found her sitting there on the bed, and there were all those flowers and cards, and I didn't know it then, but looking right at me was the love of my life.

And I wonder what my nine year old me, rolling around on the floor, clutching my arm after falling from the monkey bars would say if she knew that this girl was the one whom I would love so much my heart feels like it's bursting.

She'd probably smile and say something like, "Really? That's cool."

Yes, it is cool, very cool indeed.

I got home later that night and as I was about to walk up the stairs to my room, my mum stopped me.

"Naomi."

I stopped in my tracks and looked to where she sat on the couch.

She patted the seat next to her, so I moved and sat down.

"Yeah mum?"

"I just wanted to talk to you."

"About what?"

"Are you okay honey?"

Yes, I'm totally fine. Absolutely fine. It's not as if I just came back from watching the only girl I've ever loved lay in her hospital bed.

"Yeah."

"Oh honey."

"I'm fine mum," I said, but my voice was becoming more and more choked up and sad, and it kept catching and I chastised myself for crying again. And maybe that sounds wrong, to want to stop crying, but I really did wish I would. But I couldn't.

"Honey."

"It's… I'm… I'm…."

"Oh sweetheart," she cooed and took me in her arms.

I tried to be fine, I really did. And I tried to be the adult that I technically was, but I couldn't.

I tried to make my body rigged, tried to act stiff and fine and I tried not to cry, but then there were tears streaming down my face and my mum was gently shushing and cooing and I just cried into her shoulder.

And maybe that's it. Maybe adults still want, still need their mums.

I didn't feel like an adult. I felt like I was 6 and a half.

It was Saturday, the last days of April, when the doctor told us what I already knew to be true deep down:

Emily really wasn't improving. He had said it so many times before, and so once again he said it, and he looked guilty and maybe he was, even though it wasn't his fault, but I guess it's just something people feel guilty about, even though it was never their fault.

But he says that she is only getting sicker, and really, I don't know how to tell you how it feels to hear that.

It feels like I've been stabbed, but they leave the knife in, and then they twist it, and they push it deeper, and it's just there, impaling me and leaving me breathless and in pain.

I guess that's the best way to describe it.

But I spent the day with Emily in her bed, as the rain came down hard, and we watched movie after movie, some cheesy, some funny, some stupid, and I just held her, because that was all I could do.

I couldn't make her cancer leave her, it wasn't possible. The only thing I could do was be there, and hope that one day it would be gone.

Things felt sad, and things were ending, the school year coming to a close.

People were getting ready to go to accept that they would be done with high school, and that maybe all those friends they made, and all those teachers they complained about would become distant, untouchable memories to be told to their kids who didn't really want to hear about them.

I remember when I was little and there was a kid who lived on my block, many years older than me.

His name escapes me know, but he was maybe nine years older than me, and I remember watching him grow up.

He went from being a child, to a huffy preteen, to an even huffier teen, and eventually he was gone, and I didn't know where he went, and his parents lived without him, and they seemed sad, empty maybe, and one time mum invited them for dinner, and they just looked at me a lot. They watched me play, and they watched me do whatever stupid things I did, and they were smiling softly, and at the time I didn't realize they were sad.

And I didn't realize that they were just two parents who missed their son.

So everything is coming to a close, and it's peaceful, and it's also kinda unnerving, the thought that I will be like the one boy who lived on my street, and so will Cook, and so will Katie, and eventually Paddy too, even Holly Deranter, the girl who has striped underwear according to Paddy.

And hopefully Emily will too.

"You think too much Naoms," she said softly on a Tuesday, the first one of May. She was on her bed, and still dressed in her hospital gown, and I was lying down next to her.

"What do you think about?" She asked me.

"Everything, mostly you," I said, closing my eyes for a bit.

Things were quiet, well, sort of. There was still the beeping and there were still various sounds throughout this building.

"Will you read to me Naoms?" She asked, grabbing my hand, and I opened my eyes.

"Of course," I said and got out of the bed, and grabbed the book that was on top of the pile.

"Okay, chapter seven ," I began, and I read page after page as her eyelids fluttered shut and then open, fighting a hopeless battle against the inevitability that was sleep.

And eventually her eyelids were closed, and the sky was dark, and so I kissed her forehead, and I walked home, hands in my pockets, and making the long journey back, chastising myself for not borrowing my mum's car.

It was cold and raining, and so very dark, but there was a light on and then I saw the sign, and I mean that literally, not in some metaphorical sense.

The shopkeeper was just about to close the door, but then I stopped him.

It was an old movie place.

He looked at me, and maybe if I wasn't soaked from the rain, and maybe if it wasn't so dark out, and maybe it I didn't look so goddamn desperate, he would have closed the door, locked it, and left, but instead, he sighed softly, opened it, and held it out for me as he switched on all the lights.

He sat in a chair near the door as I walked to some of the bins, and scanned through them, scrolling past movie after movie, when he finally stopped me.

"Listen, kid, can you come back later maybe? Or is there something you need specifically? Believe it or not, I do want to go home."

And so I told him, and he frowned a bit, tilting his head in confusion before he rushed into the back of the door, snapping his fingers.

"I know just the movies you're talking about!"

And I smiled, getting all excited and worked up and ready for him to pull them out.

And there they were, Eying the Stranger and Lighting the Sky, in all their glory, the cases looking so wonderful.

"Couldn't find Night of Love anywhere, sorry kid," he shrugged, and the man really did look sorry.

And as much as I wish he had found them, I couldn't help but be excited at the movies he held in his hands.

And so I paid him, giving him a very generous tip and tucking them underneath my jacket, walking back into the rain, and I felt sort of like singing, but then I said:

"Fuck that, it's fucking cold."

And I walked home.

And when I got home I found the box in my room where I had put all the rest, and had put the list, and I crossed off these two and out them in the box carefully, like they would disappear if I wasn't cautious enough.

I went to bed smiling that night, listening to the gentle rain, hoping the Emily was smiling too.

The next day when I got to school, things were like they had always been, which I guess really wasn't a surprise.

Mrs. Incart was still sad, and Mr. Dirken still bored me to the point where I wondered if I should jump out the window and try to make a run for it.

I decided to stay in my seat instead.

I only semi regretted it.

I sat at the library table with Cook at lunch, and Katie joined us halfway through.

"I told my friends I'm in the bathroom," she laughed. "Violet wouldn't shut the fuck up about her boyfriend Tommy."

I laughed and things were kinda nice, even if she did tell me that my fashion sense made all of the country weep.

I told her to fuck off.

And Cook just sat there smiling like a loon, obviously happy that he was there with his best friend and his girlfriend.

And I was happy too.

And after school I went back to see Emily, and there she was, laying down in her bed, but really, did you expect me to tell you she was there, doing flips and singing jazz?

I mean, really?

She was reading, and looked up at me smiling.

"'Ello lover," I said in a thick, slightly offensive, most definitely incorrect accent.

"'Ello governah."

Yep, it was most definitely offensive and incorrect.

"How was your day?" I asked, setting my back down.

"Great, I ran a marathon, walked on the moon, and then I…"

"Alright, Ms. Sarcasm."

"I learned from the best."

I laughed and kissed her.

The beeping continued, and I kissed her again.

Okay, so the ending was kinda abrupt, but I hope you guys liked it.

To answer a question from a guest, this story still has a ways to go, and yes, I have written other things as well, before I wrote this, but they are not very good. I will be writing more after this story ends, but hey, we aren't done with this story yet, and I can't wait for you guys to read what I have planned.

Next chapter will be posted on Sunday.

I hope you guys enjoyed this! Let me know what you thought!