(If beauty is only in the eye of the beholder... I wish I were blind)
I looked like hell. No, that didn't give justice to the situation. I looked like death himself.
She had kept us up all night, her coughs erupting through the darken rooms of our house. My mother had stayed in her room. I know because the sobbing never came, mother would never cry in the presence of her eldest daughter.
I hadn't felt tired last night. I had been reading, or drawing, or writing, I wasn't too sure.
I walked into the hallways of school, dripping wet. I stared ahead, ignoring whatever looks were following me down the hall. My hair was matted to my neck. I could feel the icy waters still rolling down my back.
"Helga?" I looked at Phoebe who was waiting at my locker. Her mouth was open, staring at me. "Why would you walk in the rain?"
"I missed the bus." I said. I was cold, very cold. I wasn't sure why though; I had been so numb for so long.
"You should have called my cell!" Phoebe began scolding me.
Opening my locker I looked at the mirror that she had put in a few months ago. Phoebe sometimes used my locker. After she began going out with Gerald she put a mirror in my locker, it seemed illogical at the time.
I stared at my reflection. I was looking pale, sickly even. My hair was curling from the excessive water. I was never one to care about appearances, but for some reason, I felt so ugly. The only thing I could comment on was that my trademark uni-brow, was no longer trademark. She had slept over in fifth grade, a girl's night out. It had been the most painful night of my life.
What I wouldn't give to have another "girl's night out" with her.
I felt something drape over my shoulders. I looked from the mirror to the boy with the cornflower hair, the obsession. He was smiling softly, his lettermen jacket hanging around my thin frame. I was too tired to say a snide remark or even to shrug off the very warm coat.
"Thanks." I mumbled. He had been apart of my life since I was four; it was hard to believe he hadn't given up yet. I would have given up.
"What happened?" He asked.
As if it isn't obvious, I heard in the back of my mind. I turned and looked into my locker again staring into my ghostly reflection.
"I missed the bus." I repeated.
"Couldn't your mom or dad drive you?" I heard his words half-heartedly. I sighed trying to pry my eyes from the girl in the mirror. I was trying to convince myself it wasn't really me.
"They were busy." I heard my voice answer. For four years I had an answer for almost any question ready to be said. Sometimes without even knowing what I was saying the words were already falling from my lips.
"With what?" He asked slowly, tempting my temper.
I grabbed one of my books and shut the locker; secretly hoping the mirror would break.
Seven years didn't seem to really bother me at this point.
I looked at him, I wanted to scream or cry. I wanted to fall apart in his arms. But I wouldn't.
"Things, I don't know. It's my own fault for not bringing an umbrella." My voice was leveled. Something that had never been my strong suite.
In sixth grade I had begun opening up. I was being friendly and civil to everyone. That all changed after that night.
In my mind, who would know what to do? Who would know what to say? Who would understand?
"I have to get to class." I said before either he or Phoebe could say something.
They didn't know what was going on with me or even my family. Not about the divorce, not about Bob's new wife and son, not about Miriam's nightly breakdowns, and most certainly not about Olga's "sickness". Phoebe knew something was wrong. But she had no idea how wrong.
In my mind it was none of their damn business. That was logical, that made sense. It was my life.
Reality has a funny way of screwing you over. Every time.
Before I could reach my class a warm hand wrapped around my arm. This caused the very warm, the very safe jacket to fall from my shoulders. I was still wet and my sweater just made the cold atmosphere, colder.
I turned and stared into two large orbs of green. They held patience and caring and yet I was more scared of these green eyes then that of the dark blue of my dying sister's. Her eyes held death and pain.
"What?" I said. I felt a tiny shiver move it's self up and down my spine.
He looked at me, sighed, and then picked up the jacket. For the second time that day he wrapped the overly large jacket around my thin frame. I felt I must have looked weak in front of him because I took a step back.
"What?" I asked again, I didn't want his pity. I didn't want anyone's. I don't need pity.
"I hate seeing you like this." He said. I could tell he had been bouncing the words in his head for some time. "You look like you haven't eaten in days. You always look tired and ready to fall apart. You don't look..." He paused and stared at me. I averted my eyes and concentrated on a spot on the floor. "Healthy."
I closed my eyes tightly. Of course I don't look healthy I mused. I'm not.
"I'm fine." I heard some higher power talking through me. "It's just been a hard week." More like a hard life. "I'll be fine before you know it."
I forced myself to smile. I'm sure I looked like some deranged clown. Soaking wet, dull eyes, pale features, crying on the inside, insane to the world, but I was smiling.
He didn't seem to buy this smile. On some level I couldn't blame him. I saw his hand move towards my face. I froze, curious to know what the hell he was doing. He pushed back some strands of wet hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear.
"I want you to know that I'm here for you." He said, looking at me. "Ok?"
"Ok." Again some higher power was talking through me.
His hand dropped and he gave me a half smile. I felt a full one would have meant that we had bonded. A half smile gave me some form of comfort. Nothing had changed.
Yet.
(Everything and everyone changes, it's a fact of life. Admitting to the change is the only power you got, sweetheart.)
I walked into my house around three thirty. It was Friday, so that meant no work and no school meetings of any sort.
Making my way to the kitchen I noticed briefly that there was a familiar-ish type of coat sitting on the couch. I turned around immediately.
I made my way upstairs and saw my mother standing in front of Olga's door.
"What's going on?" I asked. I wondered if she could here the anger in my voice, and if she was ignoring it.
"He's been in there all morning. I don't know quite what he is doing." She said.
My father, Big Bob Pataki, king of the Beeper Empire, was a jackass.
At least if you were his first wife and his youngest daughter.
If by chance you were Olga, his new wife Cynthia, his new son Robert, or hell, a man off the street, Bob might not have been such a bad guy in your eyes.
Everyday, while I was in school and mom was at her job, Bob came to spend an hour or so with Olga. He would talk to her, read to her, he bought her a blue Gucci dress for her birthday last year. (I think he wants her to be buried in it.) He did all this without having to see Miriam or myself. He thought himself sly.
It took all my self control not to throw open the door and berate him in front of Olga. That and the comforting hand of my mother's on my shoulder helped.
About ten minutes, both of us standing in front of her door, waiting, Bob emerged. His eyes were dry, but one could tell he had been crying, one who had cried every night before falling asleep. He barely acknowledged Miriam or me.
"What the hell were you doing in there?" I heard someone ask. It gave me a little strength when I realized it had been my mother's voice.
"Seeing my daughter." Bob had to pay the medical bills. He felt that this gave him legal and honorable right to come and go from our house whenever he wanted.
"You are suppose to leave before me or my daughter gets home." She said, fury in her voice.
I found this meaningful. My mother had never been that strong, not until our lives began slowly crumbling. Somewhere along the line she had indeed become a real mother. At least to me.
Bob stayed with calm eyes and looked at her and then at me.
"I'm sorry." He said, his voice unwavering. "I guess I lost track of time."
My mother glared at him, her arm still safely around my shoulders. I had to be about the same height as her. Give or take. But I still felt somewhat safe. No, not safe, more like salvaged.
"You should do something about her." He said looking at me. "She looks sick."
He turned around and headed down the stairs. I listened to him move from the hall to the living room back to the hall and out the front door.
Miriam turned and looked at me, as if she hadn't seen me in days. Maybe she hadn't. I saw her eyes clouding over somewhat.
I knew I wasn't sick, but I wasn't healthy either. My appearance would at least show that.
"You look so tired, why don't you go to sleep. I'll call your boss tomorrow. Maybe you should go stay with your grandmother for the weekend." She was trying to be motherly.
"What about you and Olga?" I heard myself say.
I could hear the sound of Bob's car zooming out of the street.
"We'll be fine... worry about you." She said.
I looked at her. I couldn't win.
I really didn't want too.
She smiled as she sent me to my bedroom. I heard her go into Olga's room and close the door behind her.
I wandered what she was saying to Olga. Was she asking what he had wanted? What had he talked about?
Shaking my head I took out the small suite case from my closet. I began putting clothes and other items into it.
I don't think I finished packing when I hit the bed and fell off into a morbid sleep. One never remembers such things as this.
(Just think of happy things and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land.)
I never made it to my grandmother's. She called Saturday to tell my mother she would be coming down on Sunday and to get the guestroom ready.
She was all smiles when she walked into our house. She gave me a large hug, a box of caramel turtles, and a book called The youngest of 52. She hugged my mother and whispered comforting words to her and then flew up the stairs to see Olga.
She spent all of Sunday reading Jane Austin to Olga. She seemed to have some magical power that made everything seem as if it would all be all right.
I slept the majority of Sunday afternoon. I had only gotten up to eat some dinner. Grandmother made me eat four helpings. I then fell back off to sleep around six.
Around three in the morning Olga's coughing started again. I calculated I had gotten at least fourteen hours of sleep. I didn't need anymore.
I could hear my mother and grandmother rushing around the house and then tending to Olga.
I found this amusing, three generations standing in a room together.
Reality then shot an arrow through the air.
One was old, preparing her journey towards death. One had a breakdown every night; it wasn't long till she fell apart. And the third, the youngest of the three was the closest to death's towering door.
It was no longer amusing.
Before I knew it Wednesday had rolled itself around. Grandmother had called my job and told them I would not be in all week, and told me to get out of whatever school activities I had. The school knows of my predicament, the principal and the nurse at least. It's not hard to "skip" a few things; they actually encourage it.
I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep, but much more then I usual got.
I got home from school and smiled as I saw my mother drinking a cup of tea and looking at the newspaper.
It looked like an image out of a magazine; I was waiting for the dashing husband to walk in, a large smile on his face, and the two younger children running into the living room to greet their parents. They would eat a hearty dinner and then watch ABC until nine when the two children would be ushered to bed. Mother and father would reside in each other's arms watching Law &Order, agreeing how they were happy to have such perfect lives.
"How are you feeling?" I was snapped out of my revenue by my mother's voice.
"Huh?" I mumbled, the picture perfect family rushing from my mind.
"Are you feeling better?"
"Yes, yes I am." I wasn't as tired if that's what she was asking.
"You look much better then you did Friday." She smiled. Did I?
"Is grandma still here?" I asked.
"She just left sweetie. She said she loved you and she would write you soon." My mother had a pretty smile I decided. It was sweet and sincere. You could trust a person with a smile like that, even if you didn't want too.
"I guess I'll call her later this weekend." I nodded. I then turned and made my way to my bedroom.
As I placed my hand on the knob I looked over to my sister's room. I let my hand drop as I walked over, gently opening the door.
"Mama?" I heard her whisper.
"It's Helga." I said, shutting the door quietly behind me. "I wanted to make sure you were ok. Do you need anything?"
"No, no I'm fine dear baby sister." I knew she had to cough, but she stopped herself. If she began coughing I would have to leave the room, immediately. I wouldn't be able to go back in for ten minutes that's how long it took the sanitizer to sanitize.
This seemed almost useful.
"Are you sure?" I could hear my voice but something else was making me say these words, ask these question. Compassion, I thought I never had, was using its hand to win the game.
"I'm perfectly fine." She smiled. Her eyes were so clear. You could see yourself perfectly in them. One would never imagine pain to grace eyes like hers.
Her smile was somewhat haunting. It was her smile. But now it was almost like a cruel joke. It no longer lit up her face in that annoying way that made her Olga.
I tried to smile back, but as I looked at her, pale and thin. (Much more so then my own unhealthy being.) I felt the need to suddenly cry. I not only wanted to cry I wanted to suffocate myself so that even through death I would still be crying.
"Baby sister, you look so unfit. Have you been feeling alright?" What the hell was with everyone and me being the sick one? She was the one dying.
"I'm fine." I said, harshness coating such simple words. I instantly regretted it. She didn't seem to notice it though.
"I'm glad." She smiled her haunting smile once again. "I don't want you getting sick. You don't deserve to be sick."
That was it, I was going in the bathroom to cut my wrists right now.
"You don't either." That damn higher power would be taken me over soon. I sighed and looked around her room.
There was a bookshelf and her desk. Books littered the floor around her bed. The walls were still floral and colorful. It almost didn't seem like she was lying in bed waiting the hands of her maker. It almost seemed like she was home from college, for the weekend, trying to relax.
"No one deserves to be sick my dear baby sister. It just happens." I wanted to shoot any person who ever said a bad word about Olga. I decided that suicide, then, would have to take a backseat.
"Aren't you upset?" I asked. I heard her sigh. A very shaky sigh. I knew I was causing her pain. Just by making her talk so much and think. One should not have to think when in a bed dying.
"No." She said after a few seconds. "Should I be?"
"You're dying." I said quickly.
I stared at her as I realized what I had said. I knew she knew she was dying. But I acted as if I had just revealed the end of the movie. I think on some level, I had.
I believe it might have been the medication, or her own mind dwindling down. By some power, much more in control then either of us, she began to laugh. It was nothing but haggard breaths with a tone of laughter, but it was her laughter none-the-less.
"You are the first one, baby sister, to let reality take a precedence."
"Excuse me?" I asked, in a state of alignment my sister could still confuse me.
"You didn't feed me bullshit." She "laughed" again.
Oh, so I was the moron in the movie theatre, I thought. I'm positive mother would never use the word death in Olga's presence. Bob wouldn't even think it. I've been in here for five minutes and just completely made her day.
Sarcasm is my one and only true friend. It can never leave me.
"Oh baby sister." She said, I suppose just to say. Suddenly, though, her "laughter died down. Her chest began moving rapidly.
She began coughing. She looked over at me, holding her mouth. She motioned to get out of her room.
I slid out the door and went to the stairs.
"Mom!" I didn't have to scream I knew Miriam could hear the coughs a block away.
Mother was soon hurrying up the stairs with Olga's medicine and a glass of water.
"Why don't you go lay down?" She said as she passed me.
I watched as she slid into Olga's room and shut the door with a slam.
I entered my own bedroom and suddenly felt the effects of guilt wash over my body. I sat on the bed and looked around. It was already getting dark outside. My room was practically pitch black. I didn't want to turn on the light. Light meant something good. What the hell was so good?
I looked at my pillow and soon the sobs came.
For once it wasn't my mother's.
It certainly did not mean the end of the ritual.
It meant the beginning.
(An example they give is him jumping off a building and then figuring out how not to die on the way down.)
I sat in my sixth period class. I felt the affects of last night slowly taking over my body. I was happy to have the day off.
My teacher was closing the class with a passage from the book we were suppose to be reading. Like most of the other students I nodded my head and agreed it was a wonderful ending.
I tenderly took my books and began walking out with the rest of the class. I suppose the bell had rung.
"Hey." I turned, confused. This washed away as two familiar green eyes, cat like eyes, stared at me.
"Hi." I said, looking back towards the hallway.
"How are you feeling? You're looking better." I heard the awkwardness in his voice. I wanted to stop and hold my hand up infront of his face and just tell him to give up, to get over it.
Part of me was dying too do just that. The other part would do no such thing.
"I'm actually feeling a lot better. My grandmother came for the weekend, I always sleep better when she's visiting." I watched his reaction. I could tell he was storing this information away. Ammo, I thought immediately.
"Wow."
"What?"
"I think that's the longest explanation you've ever given me." Some would think this obnoxious and almost sarcastic. But I knew the truth in which he spoke. I never told him anything. To him, that little fact about my life was like a book of secrets. It's sad.
"I'm glad to have made your day." I said. My class was so close. Maybe fifteen more steps or so.
"Helga." He said it with such emotion, I had to stop. I simply turned and looked at him. I felt whatever little composure I had left, slipping away from me. I looked at his muscular arms and chest, his warm embrace; I wanted so much just to seek comfort. But that just would not do. "My family is having this like, big dinner, sort of thing... I was wondering... hoping... maybe... you want to come?" He said last part somewhat quickly. His words weren't lost to me though.
This wasn't the first time he had invited me to his house; it wouldn't be the last. I guess he figured if I was on his territory, with his terms, he might win the battle.
I knew I'd win the war.
He was pleading with me. Soft green eyes staring into my, I could only imagine, dull blue eyes.
I thought about home. Miriam rushing around to make sure everything was comfortable and warm enough. Olga coughing or sleeping, medicine working in one way or the other. I wanted to go.
I wanted to escape what had become my personal prison.
A few hours would not kill anyone.
That was a bad choice of words. I am a moron.
I looked at him and nodded slowly. "Ok."
He lit up. I was waiting for the sun to come blasting from his head.
"Great! I'll tell my mom to expect another person!" He looked like he was about to explode. He gave me an award winning smiled and then hugged me tightly.
This caught me off guard. I suddenly felt breathless and even faint.
"Saturday, six o'clock!" He said, hurrying into the other direction. I turned and looked at my class. It suddenly seemed farther away.
I also noticed the hallways were empty. The bell had once again rung, and I had not heard it.
As I began walking towards my class, I suddenly felt very weird. I quickly reached out my arm and grabbed on to the lockers for support. I felt myself grasping for air.
As suddenly as it came, it went. The feelings, though, lingered on my mind and my body. I looked around, there wasn't a soul walking through the hallway.
I took a deep breath and straightened my blouse.
I was not sick. She was the one dying, not me.
It was a simple panic attack; I've been getting them since I was little. Nothing to worry about.
I paused as I touched the handle to my classroom. Tears stung at the back of my eyes. Two more periods to go, I thought.
This however made the sting harsher.
Maybe I was sick.
No one deserves to be sick.
So, maybe I was dying.