Perfectly Wrong

33. Death

Camila is already on her usual seat when Shawn walks into the classroom carrying a small projector, setting it on the desk before hooking it up to his laptop.

 “ What are we doing today, Mr. Mendes?” Connor asks.

 “ I want to show you why you should write songs.” Shawn says, still preparing the projector.

 “ I know why people write songs.” Jake says. “ Because they’re a bunch of emotional saps with nothing better to do than whine about ex girlfriends and dead dogs.”

 “ You’re wrong, Jake.” Shawn says. “ That’s just country music.”

 Everyone in class laughs and so does Shawn before sitting down at his desk.

 “ So what? If it makes someone feel better to write about their dead dog, then great. Let them.” Shawn says. “What if some girl broke your heart Jake, and you decided to vent with pen and paper? That’s your business.”

 “ That’s fair.” Jake says. “ People are free to write what they want, but the thing that bothers me is, what if the person who writes it doesn’t want to relive it? What if a dude writes this song about a bad breakup, but then he gets over it and moves on? He falls in love with some other chick, but now his song is all over the radio or something and people are all sad talking about his broken heart. That sucks. If you write it or perform it, someday you’ll have to relive it.”

 “ Think about it this way.” Shawn says. “ What if the heartache you wrote last year is not what you’re feeling today, but it is exactly what the person in front of you is feeling? What you’re feeling now and the person you may reach with your words five years from now, that’s why you write.”

 Shawn flips the projector on and words are projected on the wall, most likely lyrics to a song.

 “ See this? I wrote these lyrics two years ago, after my parents died. I was angry. I was hurt. I wrote down exactly what I was feeling. When I read it now, I don’t share those same feelings.” Shawn says, looking at his words on the wall. “ Do I regret writing them? No. Because there’s a chance that someone in this very room may relate to this. It might mean something to them.”

 He zooms in and highlights three lines of his lyrics.

People don’t like
to talk about death,
it makes them sad

 “ You never know, someone in this very room might relate to this. Does talking about death make you sad? Of course it does. Death sucks. It’s not a fun thing to talk about, but sometimes, you need to talk about it.”

 Camila knows exactly what he’s doing. She folds her arms across her chest and glares at him as he looks right into her eyes, then he looks back to his laptop and highlights other lines.

If we only would have been prepared,
accepted the inevitable,
laid out their plans

 “ What about this one? My parents weren’t prepared to die. I was angry at them for this. I was left with bills, debt, and a child. But what if they would have had warning? A chance to discuss it, to lay out their plans? If talking about death wasn’t so easy to avoid while they were alive, then maybe I wouldn’t have had such a hard time dealing with it after they died.”

 Shawn is looking directly at Camila as he zooms into two other lines.

understood that it wasn’t just
their lives at hand

 “ Everyone assumes they have at least one more day. If my parents had any clue what was about to happen to them before it happened, they would have done everything in their power to prepare us. It’s not that they weren't thinking about us, it’s that they weren’t thinking about death.” Shawn says before highlighting the last two lines of his lyrics.

Death
The only thing inevitable in life

Camila looks at those lines, reading it. She reads it again and again, until the bell rings and everyone leaves the classroom. Everyone but her and Shawn. He’s sitting at his desk, watching her and waiting for her to understand.

 “ I get it, Shawn.” Camila whispers. “ I get it. In the first line, when you said death was the only thing inevitable in life, you emphasized the word ‘death’. But when you said it again at the end, you didn’t emphasize the word ‘death’, you emphasized the word ‘life’. You put emphasis on ‘life’ at the end. I get it, Shawn. You’re right, She’s not trying to prepare us for her death. She’s trying to prepare us for her life. For what she has left of it.”

••••

 Camila sits down at the edge of her mother’s bed, who’s asleep in the middle of the mattress. She still has her scrubs on and Camila knows that when she wakes up and takes them off, it will be the last time she does it. Camila wonders if she’s still wearing them because she realizes that too.

 She watches as her mother breathes, seeing the struggle of her lungs in her chest. She reaches over and strokes her mother’s hair, and when she does it, a few strands fall off into her hand. Camila slowly wraps them around her finger and walks back to her bedroom, picking up her purple hair clip off the floor. She opens the clip and places the strand of hair inside, shutting it again. Before walking back to her mother’s room, Camila places the clip under her pillow, then she lies down besides her mother and wraps her arms around her. Their hands find one another and they talk without saying a word.