The Story of a Dying Girl Chapter 17, a skins fanfic

The Story of a Dying Girl

So we got a short chapter, and not a very good one either. I wrote this kinda fast, so please bear with me here. I know it's not very good.

Also, Happy Birthday to LilyCanBeMyPyjamas! I know this is a bit late, but I hope you had a great day.

Thanks again to everyone, really, it makes me so incredibly happy and I feel so amazingly fortunate.

Are you ready?

I'm just gonna say sorry in advance.

Chapter 17:

"I don't want to take them. They taste like utter shit, Naoms."

There is an assortment of pills, varying in colors, shapes, sizes, and jobs.

"They're not that bad, I mean, god knows how many pills Cook and I have taken in our lifetimes."

"Not funny."

She doesn't want to take them, and who can blame her? There's one that looks like the color of cat piss, and trust me, that's not a good color.

They're for her cancer.

Ever since that day, you know the one, she's been taking a series of pills, and she's due to start staying at the hospital if things don't improve.

And they haven't been.

I would love to lie and say that everything has gotten better, and that the cancer is going away, but I won't do that to you. You deserve to know the truth, even if it hurts.

To hear that she wasn't getting better, it was like, well it was like this one time when I was little.

I was probably seven, almost eight, and I was walking to school with Cook, and we were a little scrappy looking.

Our pants were a little short, and our t-shirts had small holes forming near the collars.

But I remember we were walking home from school one day, and I remember this one kid, large and mean and with jagged teeth jutting out in different directions, and he just looked like a bully.

And he was.

He was probably 11 or 12, and we were just walking, but I remember one day he wasn't there, and then the next he was, standing there, hands balled in fists, and then I remember being scared.

I just saw him, and I was scared.

And my fear was confirmed when he began shouting at us, insults about out clothes and such, things about our mothers and out houses, and things about ourselves.

Things that hurt.

And then I remember him chasing us, chasing us down the streets, as we ran and ran.

Sometimes we were faster.

Sometimes we weren't.

And those times when we weren't, we were hit until our noses trickled with blood and our eyes were rimmed with black eyes.

And when my mum or Tina would ask what happened I gave some excuse, I fell, I tripped, I ran into a poll.

Why?

Because mum cried herself to sleep, and Tina had stopped being able to zip up my sweatshirt because she didn't have control of her hands anymore. Mum hid a picture of dad underneath her bed, and asked for him to come back, even though she knew he wouldn't, and Tina put the wrong food on my sandwiches because she stopped remembering what I liked, and she couldn't make out the jars anyways.

I didn't think they needed anything more.

They didn't need another problem.

And so I came home either panting and out of breath, or beaten up.

And I felt helpless. My dad was gone. My mum's smiles were watery or plastered on. Tina was slowly dying and I knew it.

I felt like everything in my life was just shit, and I had no control, and I had no way of making it better.

I couldn't make dad come back, and I couldn't make my mum happy, and I couldn't stop Tina from dying.

And so now I'm 18, and I feel like I did all those years ago.

Because the world around me is slowly crumbling as Emily continues to get sicker and sicker, and I have absolutely no control over this.

I can't do anything, and I feel awful.

All I can do is watch it happen before my very eyes.

So now her skin is paler, and she sometimes she coughs when I make her laugh, and she asks me to hold her after a new strand of hair falls out, and sometimes she gets sick, and I always pick her up and carry her to bed when she does.

Emily picks up the pills and downs them like shots, twisting her face up when she's done, and knitting her eyebrows together.

"I bet they tasted like strawberries and rainbows," I say, a sickly sweet smile plastered on my face, teasing her.

"More like old milk and bad morning breath."

"Fun," I say dryly.

She laughs.

Want another short little story?

No?

Well, here it is anyways.

Sorry to force them on you.

I was nine when I first heard her laugh.

Cook, yes, Cook is in my story again, because Cook is like family, one of the only people to have never left me.

But like I was saying, Cook was sitting next to me in our little third grader desks, the ones we sat at with pride because we thought we were so big and cool and old and superior.

I mean, we were none of those things, but we felt like we were.

I turned to Cook, and I said something, I don't even remember what because that wasn't the important part of the story.

But what is is that I heard a little laugh behind me, soft and melodious.

It was hers.

Her hair kept neat with a cute little bow propped on top, and she laughed at my overheard joke, and when I turned around, she was blushing.

And I felt like I had just gotten stamps on all my papers, and star stickers on all my drawings.

I felt like I had done something truly incredibly by making her laugh.

So I made another joke.

Just loud enough for her to hear. And then I made another and another as her gentle laughter grew louder and she was clutching at her stomach.

I was addicted.

But I've come to realize that I am addicted to every aspect of Emily Fitch.

Kissing her, holding her hand, looking into her eyes, talking to her about some old story…

I was addicted.

I am addicted.

She grabbed my hand and we walked down her stairs, and I noticed all the small changes.

The pictures in the hallway were rearranged a bit, pictures of Emily seeming more prominent than before.

There were more flowers on the mantle, cards too, and I hoped it was someone's birthday, and not a way of showing condolence.

Her red door's paint was peeling more and more, cracks a bit more prominent and deep.

She pulled out her yard and onto her sidewalk, her hand still clutched in mine.

"Where are we going?" I ask, as she swings out intertwined fingers back and forth.

"I want ice cream," she says.

Well, then who am I to deny her ice cream?

"Let's got then!" I shout, yanking her forward, running, sprinting, dragging her along with me.

"Naomi!" She laughs, starting to run a bit.

"Come on slowpoke!"

Naomi!" She isn't laughing.

"Come on!"

"Naomi!" She lets go of my hand.

I turn behind me almost immediately.

"Are you okay?" I run back and I'm instantly all over her, panting her back as she coughs.

"Yeah, just… just… not… so… fast," she gasps out, and I realize she can't just run like she could before.

"Oh god, I'm such a fucking moron!" I hit my own head a few times, wishing someone would just do it for me.

"Naoms… it's fine," she says, reassuring me with one of her beautiful smiles, but something is really bothering me, and I'm not sure what it is.

I bend down.

"Come on, I got you," I say as she jumps on my back, and I give her a piggyback.

I walk slowly, knowing I could run, but too scared to do anything like that.

I feel like it'll hurt her somehow.

And it's as we are sitting on a park bench, and she's just stolen my ice cream after distracting me with a few kisses- it's easy for her to distract me with those lips of hers- that I realize why it bothered me so much.

It bothers me because that's exactly what would happen when Tina chased after me when I was a kid.

Mrs. Incart is happier looking.

That's not saying much.

That's like saying a broken arm is seemingly less broken.

It's still broken.

She's still broken.

But I've also noticed her necklace is new.

So maybe her husband had bought her some kinda way of apologizing.

I wonder how she looked when she was actually happy, and not this kinda sad, fake happy that she pretends to be, the one who lies about her husband and their relationship when the other teachers question it, malice lacing their voices.

Does she only look happy in old photographs, old memories?

Was she ever really that happy?

I would hope so.

Because right now all she does is give us those smiles that my mum gave after dad left, fake and sad, fond of older times.

I wish she would take off her wedding ring, and I wish she would stop forgiving him, and I wish she would give me a smile, a real one sometime.

But she won't because she probably feels as though she can't.

And in the end I know I will learn absolutely nothing about science, but I will learn far too much about Mrs. Incart, and how it looks to be stuck and sad and broken and messy.

But I push that thought out of my mind.

And instead I think back to Emily.

And are you really that surprised?

Are you really surprised to find that she is consuming my thoughts?

March has just begun and I can hear the rain slapping against the roof.

I think about that time Emily and I were just sat in a park sharing headphones, and all I wanted to do was hold her for all of eternity.

I think I just want to be with her for eternity.

I want my life to be with her.

And yes, I know I've mentioned it god knows how many times, but I really do mean it when I say that I will marry her.

I will.

That is a promise.

The doctor tells us that she should think about moving into the hospital.

He says with a face of stone, serious and obviously used to saying these things, but the way he casts his eyes down makes me think it still pains him every time.

It hurts him to say that she is not getting better.

No, she is not improving.

Those pills and the chemo are not working like he thought they would.

Nothing is like they thought it would be.

Emily cries into my shoulder again, and once again it feels as though I've been stabbed and like I'm helpless, watching a storm happen, ruining houses and lived and leaving wreckage in their wake,

I hold her to my shaking body, tears streaming down my own face.

And my mind is repeating the same things over and over.

She is not getting better.

I need her.

I love her.

Her mum is quiet when we drive back to her house, and Emily is asleep into my shoulder, cried out for the moment, and I know another burst of tears will come soon, and I know that I will be there to hold her when it happens, because I will always be there to hold her.

"Naomi."

My head snaps up to meet her mother's eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Yes Mrs. Fitch?"

"We need to talk about Emily."

I swallow heavily. Why do we need to tall about her?

"She's very sick."

That's why we need to talk about her.

"I know," I say, and that's all I say because that's all I can say. That's all there is to say.

"I just need you to… well, just think about what happens now."

What happens now?

She gets better.

She has to.

I can't fathom any other way of life.

Because it just can't be like that.

And so we don't discuss it for the rest of the ride, and maybe we should have, and maybe we shouldn't have, but we didn't, and instead I held her in my arms as she leaned further into me, and I smelled her sweet smell.

Yes, I am aware how creepy that sounds.

I swear, it's not creepy like that.

I just like how she smells.

Well, that does sound strange.

Maybe there isn't a way to write that that isn't strange. I think that's because love is strange.

It really is.

Because it makes you feel all kinds of funny, and it makes you smile when you see them, and it makes your stomach become a habitat to butterflies, and your heart starts thumping like it's part of some fast paced dance song at some gross club.

It's like some drug, and yes, I am aware that that is overused.

Sorry, but it's true.

So I'm smelling her hair, which I would have found to be creepy and stalkerish, like someone going through your trash.

But now I find it to be normal in this case.

When we arrive at her home, I nudge her softly, her mascara stained face starting to twitch awake, eyes reluctantly opening.

And it's so beautiful and adorable and I peck her lips with a chaste kiss, taking note of her mother in the front seat, remembering my great escape from Rob Fitch just a few days ago, and how I would rather not have a repeat if given a chance.

Although, I am glad I did run, because I have a feeling that Mr. Fitch would have been none too pleased to find me between his daughter's legs.

I could just ask Scotty Renold.

I know I mention him a lot, but really, you should have seen him. If there was ever a way to permanently remind me of the dangers of being caught doing anything of that sort with Emily, it would him.

I mean, Jesus, it was bad.

But like I was saying.

I plant a gentle kiss on her lips, and she slowly wakes up more and more, and I think to myself that kissing her feels like it did when she wasn't this ill.

Holding her hand doesn't feel different, except that her hand is a tad bit thinner now.

Making love to her isn't any different.

Being with her isn't different.

But, it feels like it should be.

The sky should never look beautiful, and all my days should be awful, but they aren't.

And it feels strange.

It really feels odd to think that all the people at school carry on with their lives like this awful thing isn't happening.

I mean, Emily Fitch has cancer, and it seems like no one cares, besides the ones she knows.

The girl who sits next to her in math, and the little boy who lives on her block.

Everyone should feel awful and sad, and life shouldn't be the same when this awful thing is happening.

It just doesn't make sense that this doesn't drastically affect everyone else's life.

Because it should.

Emily is one of my favorite people in this world, and she's one of the most important people too, and what, the boy who sits ahead of me in science can still sleep during class, and the girl who spends most of her time looking in the mirror in her locker doesn't change her routine?

Everything should change.

It just should.

Everyone should be worried about this, and everyone should care, like actually care, not pretend to when everyone else does, just so you don't seem heartless.

I help Emily up the stairs and peel back the covers, listening to the way the rain still comes down forcefully and painfully.

She climbs in and I crawl in after her, making sure my clothes are visible for Mr. Fitch's sake and mine.

I kiss a spot on the back of her head where there used to be more of this beautiful vibrant red.

She mumbles something appreciative, and "I love you."

And despite hearing it for the millionth time it still makes me smile, thinking that a girl like this could love me, that she does love me.

Most words lose their meaning when you say them enough, apologies and other things becoming hollow words, but like I said, love is strange, and it never loses its meaning when she says it to me.

It still feels amazing, and like I've accomplished some incredible feat, like that day when I was nine and I made her laugh for the first time, and I realized that I never wanted to stop doing that, even if I didn't realize that I liked her back then.

So I feel like some kinda superhero, the ones you read in old crinkled comics, found in the back of someone's drawers, scrunched up and read multiple times, age prominent on it.

But I feel like I can do anything, like I have some kinda power made from Emily's love.

I can fly, and I can fight crime, and I can climb the tallest tree in existence because I have her love, and I feel like I can do anything.

Too cheesy?

It's true though.

I kiss her head one last time, draping my jacket around her, before I fall asleep.

"I love you too."

So?

Not very good I know.

I hope you don't think this is my attempt at fishing for compliments, I really do think it's not very good. But thank you for constantly reassuring me, I know it's probably very annoying to you, but really it means a lot that you guys are reading this and are so kind.

Next chapter will be up either Saturday or Sunday, probably Sunday.

Sorry that I make you guys wait a week, maybe I'll be able to write more this week and weekend so you guys will get the chapters faster.

Anyways, let me know what you thought!