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The irony of the situation wasn't lost on anyone in the room. The fact that the man on the tv selling some overpriced hair regrowth product was bald as an egg would have been pretty hard to miss. Even harder to miss was the reason they were all there. They were dying and they all knew it. They were just doing it at different paces.
Layla looked around the waiting room. Anger cuffed her wrists, her fists balled into two tight clumps of marble atop the arms of the chair. It didn't seem fair that she was the youngest one here. The others were old, their faces lined with life. She hadn't even had her first kiss yet. She hadn't had much of anything, looking back.
Everything in the room was familiar to Layla. She was no stranger to the smells, the sounds, the pain that ventilated through the air of the terminal illness wing of the Lawton County Hospital. Even the chair she sat in was familiar enough to be hers. Her hard fists pounded the smooth, grainy wood of the old chair arms as she looked down at her lap. If she had to see that egghead lie about his worthless hair serum one more time she didn't know what she might do. If it didn't work for him, how were they supposed to believe it'd work for any of them? Besides, she'd tried the stuff. Like everything else, it didn't work.
She hated how looking at him, how looking at most everyone there, felt like looking in a mirror, reminding her of her own smooth, hairless scalp.
Of course she hadn't had her first kiss, she thought bitterly. Not a lot of boys' ideal types were bald girls with terminal brain cancer. Not that she'd blame them. She wouldn't want to kiss any of the other sorry suckers in this room either.
The door clicked open and someone hurried inside. Layla wondered who could possibly be so eager to be here. She usually walked in as lifelessly as a squashed slug. Minus the trail of slime, she hoped.
Her eyes followed her ears, drawn in by the sound of a foot tapping repetitiously against the dull gray floor. Layla found herself perking up in her chair.
He was new.
His back was turned to her as he stood up at the reception desk. She took in the thick, soft brown curls atop his head as he stood there, waiting to check in, to sign his name on a list that no sane person would ever want to autograph. She watched as the young receptionist - who sparked with more life than the rest of them combined - handed over the dreaded clipboard. It made her eyes somehow look rounder, all that pity they were filled with. The new addition was young too, yet he signed his name on that death warrant just like they all had.
"Go ahead and take your seat, Jerome," the blonde's voice practically swam out of her; it was so wet with sorrow.
Jerome?
It couldn't be.
But he turned around. And it was.
Jerome.
"Layla?"
~
10 Years Prior
"Promise you'll be here when I wake up?"
Jerome let out a cricket's chirp of a laugh. "No, dum-dum," he said. "You'll be in your room and me..." He paused, stroking the chin of his babyface as a smile toyed with each and every one of his features. Something burned bright within Jerome and Layla knew that even if the operation didn't get rid of her own cancer, Jerome would be okay. He just had to be. He was her pillar.
"I'll be recovering in a room full of sexy ladies in red bikinis."
"Jerome!" Even the pillow chastised him as it slammed against his face. It wasn't enough to break his humor though.
"Be serious," Layla said, arms crossed across her still-flat chest. "I'm really scared."
The shaking quality to her tiny voice was enough to brush off any last bits of kidding that Jerome had in him. He picked up her pillow and handed it to her gently before sinking down next to her in her hospital bed.
"Layla," he began, eyes pleading with her to pretend she wasn't afraid. At least pretend. Like all of the games they played in the hospital halls to keep themselves occupied day after day. "It's like I told you, Lay. This is a good day. Think about it. We both get to wear these fabulous gowns."
Here he stood and, grabbing an edge of his thin blue, papery gown, gave her a quick twirl, briefly flashing her two milky brown cheeks that managed to say peek-a-boo from the slit in the back of the thing. He sat back down to the sweet tune of her crystalline laughter. He held up two fingers on his left hand. "Second of all we get to take a nice long nap right in the middle of the day. It's like Kindergarten. Bet they'll even give us juice after. You'll see."
"And you'll come to my room? Soon as you can, Romi?" Layla's voice threatened tears. Jerome grabbed her cheeks, squeezing a few of them out. They collected at his thumbs and he flicked them away before she had to admit she was crying.
"Soon as I can, Lay Lay."
"Promise?"
Jerome pulled his hands away from Layla's face and gripped the wrist of her right hand. He held up his pinky, then used it to pry hers gently upwards toward the ceiling.
"Promise," he said.
He hooked his pinky with hers, making a promise that he had no idea he was hours away from breaking.
~
Present day.
"Why are you here?" Layla knew that came out roughly but his laughter returned to her after ten long years and neither one of them cared.
Imma stop there even tho I could keep going and going and going cuz I wanna keep these at around 1000 words. But honestly, I had enough idea here going forward for a whole ass novel lol.
So the plan was to make this an ironic tragedy.
Jerome disappeared ten years ago after his surgery didn't go as planned. His parents had him transferred to a different, better hospital in order to save his life and he never even got to say goodbye to little Layla. The two never thought they'd see each other again. He was doing a LOT better health-wise because of it, whereas Layla was slowly dying this whole time. Jerome got better... till his cancer came back with an everloving vengeance.
Obviously they were besties growing up as was hinted to there. They get to rekindle that friendship after the initial tension of "where the fuck did u go asshole" is resolved. That leads into MORE since they're older teens now. And then comes the tragic ending.
They're both in the terminal cancer wing of the hospital which means both of their cancers are trying to eat them out of house and home. They both gonna die. But since Layla was lamenting that she was gonna die without her first kiss, she's going to have her first kiss... then die immediately after.
