Chapter Fourteen: What Made Me Try?

Months pass. My health getting worse. Marco still on his hiatus for what he's done.

I brought myself to tell everyone about my…"condition" shortly after I told Marco. I regretted it, instantly finding myself being treated like a fragile piece of glass. I also felt good though, realizing that I didn't have to be careful about what I say or how I go about saying it.

I do, however, have to take precautions about a lot of things. My social life's pretty much gone, what with all the I.Vs I have to go through just to keep me alive longer; not like it helps, I don't find any use in prolonging what's going to happen.

I'm eighteen now, but not enjoying it. I don't get any freedom nor do I await the letters from all the colleges I've applied to because I haven't done such a thing. What am I going to do? Got to college for a year or two then drop dead? My dreams all shattered years go. I never found a point in striving for something I will never have.

Dana frowns, tapping the I.V and realizing that it doesn't want to work.

"Maybe it's clogged. Try washing it out," I suggest, skimming over a magazine article.

Shaking her head Dana stares at my arm where the needle has gone into my skin. "I think the vein could have collapsed. Let's take it out and find another one."

"No," I say flatly, shutting Revolver with my right hand. "It's my arm. I say we just skip a treatment, all it does is make me feel like I'm walking through pudding."

"Cyril, this stuff is—"

"Save the speech, I already know what this stuff is doing," I say as kindly as I can.

I adjust my trucker hat, pulling the bill down to block my eyes. "Too bad I don't look like Fred Durst, I'd be able to pull this look off," I joke. "Maybe I need to fatten up and get tattoos."

Ellie chuckles. "Grow a go-tee and shrink a couple of feet." She stabs her green beans with her fork, casting her gaze out the lunch room window. "Marco comes back later today," she throws out.

Ashley and I shrug simultaneously. "It's been five months already?" I say emotionless.

"He's paid his dues," Ellie says after swallowing her food. "It's bad enough he has to take half of grade eleven again, he's even missed a lot of grade twelve things…."

Again, I shrug. "I bet he's glad that he missed a few things," I reply in monotone. "Who'd want to go to the first grade twelve only dance of the year?" I look down at my own food.

I never wanted today to rear its ugly head. I just thought of how good it would be to not have Marco around at all. He turned his back on me, that's worse than any slap in the face or knife in the spine.

"You're going to talk to him, aren't you?" Ashley asks, probably just for the sake of hearing her own voice.

I shake my head. "Why should I?"

Ellie slams her fork down, causing me to jump. "Because you still like him, and he you."

Pushing my tray forward, I rise to my feet and listen to the chair screech out behind me. "You know he screwed me over Ellie or haven't you gotten the memo?" Without another word I stalk out of the cafeteria and make my way to the main doors.

Too bad the school doesn't believe in letting students go off school grounds to eat…I'd be in the country side or somewhere by now. I walk through the foyer and make my way outside, jogging oddly down the stone steps.

I stuff my hands into my sweatshirt pockets, lowering my head, and thirty seconds later I bump into someone. I raise my head to see Marco, feet planted to the grass and eyes fixed on me. He opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.

"Watch where you're going, would you?" I hiss, not nearly as pissed off as I want to come off as.

He starts to form a word again, only to be interrupted by me another time.

"Welcome back. I missed you," I say sarcastically, continuing to my car. I hear Marco sigh, whether it's fake or not I'm not sure.

The time in which Marco was suspended was bliss. I didn't have to worry about a fight or what act I'd be putting on that day. I did miss him in a way, though, I'll admit that.

Even if he got me mad enough to burst at the seams Marco always seemed to smile or do something that made everything…stop. There could be a twinkle in his eyes, his voice could squeak if he was nervous; something small, but at the same time huge and beautiful. Somewhere along the line that ended abruptly, probably around the time he...

I just tried to block him out which still hasn't been working.

Oh great, it's happening again.

I'm trying to be mean and heartless to Marco, just as he was to me, but I'm melting faster than an ice cream cone on a hot summer day in the outback.

What made me try to change the inevitable? What made me try to be something that I'm not? What made me…feel?