Living through Lenses

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

My head was pounding as I opened my eyes; it was only morning yet I knew it wasn’t a good sign. My forehead felt almost numb and tight but the back of my head was in so much pain I had to cringe. I slowly got up and sat in my bed, I ran my fingers through my hair and when I brought my hand back around there was hair tangled all around my fingers. First thing I did, I panicked. Despite my terrible headache I ran to a mirror and checked if I still had any hair, luckily I had a lot of hair to begin with but you could still tell that there were bits missing. I walked out onto the balcony; it was a nice weather today, chilly with some friendly wind. I hopped into the shower and hoped that by tonight my headache would be gone.

Tonight was the big night, the night that I’ve been waiting for, for a while now. It would be the night where I explain on live television to hundreds of people, maybe even thousands, about me dying. It will be like the moment where I actually realise or accept that it’s true, that I’m going to die. It’s hard to believe, since I’m very much alive but tonight will make it all real, it will make the cancer real.

I heard a knock on my door and I realised that I was blanking out on my bed. My head felt a little better. I had showered; I just needed to get dressed.

‘One second!’ I threw on stockings, shorts, a singlet, a cardigan and some converse. I ran to the door and took a deep breath before opening it. I felt my face brighten immediately and I saw that his did too. He went into an automatic hugging position; I leant forward into the warmth of his hoodie and felt his muscular arms wrap comfortably around my waist. I was happy.

‘Hey.’ I had to stop myself drooling over his nice, low voice.

‘Hey.’ I found myself smiling and blushed a little when someone walked past in the hallway. We were hugging in the doorway. I didn’t want to but I slowly let go of him.

‘So you ready to leave?’ He asked.

‘Yeah, where we going?’ He smiled.

‘First we need to buy you a dress.’ I frowned.

‘A dress?’ He chuckled.

‘For tonight.' 

It was only the third dress I’d looked at and I was already tired, for some reason shopping just always made me tired. I smiled though, because Ethan was with me.

‘Don’t like this one?’ He whispered in my ear as I shook my head.

After a while of searching in the store we went to the next one. The insides were very neat and the clothes were placed in colour order, it went from black to white to peach to red and so on. I started to search in the black dresses section and found a really nice dress. I took the dress and hurried to the change rooms. It was short sleeved but transparent at the top until the boob area. From the chest area down it was black, it went up to around mid-thigh. It hugged my body in all the right places and despite it’s length it didn’t look slutty. I smiled.

‘Find something?’ Ethan asked from outside the door.

‘Yeah.’

Ethan took the dress from me before I looked at the price tag and when the cashier said it was $110 I decided I didn’t want it. But despite all my protesting Ethan took out his credit card and paid. I couldn’t help but smile when he took the shopping bag from the cashier and took my hand as we left.

‘Thank you.’ I whispered shyly, my eyes watching the floor. I jolted my head back as his face suddenly appeared and replaced the floor.

‘Is that a blush I see?’ He smirked as I felt myself heat up even more.