Because I Promised

Four | For me?

Time passes slowly when you're doing a whole lot of nothing. Days seem like months. Hours seem like weeks. Minutes feel like days. Seconds feel like hours. It's all a matter of perception of time.

I'm lying in bed, tracing patterns on my ceiling at some ungodly hour of the night, as I have been doing every single night this week. Last night I thought I saw pyramids. Tonight I see stars. I try counting how many I see but my head starts screaming in protest around the twentieth one.

"Have you thought about going back to school?" My mother asked me tonight at dinner. I just shook my head no, that I have not thought about it. The truth it, I have thought about it. I've missed 9 days, not that I'm really counting. Mom says I can go back whenever I want to. I don't want to. Not now; not ever.

Ali would tell me I'm being stupid. She tells me that a lot. I'm being stupid when I go to James' concerts on school nights. I'm being stupid when I pull an all-nighter just to see her before she gets her tonsils out. I'm being stupid when I wait until the last minute to do my essays. Now I'm being stupid for not going to school.

In my restlessness, I put her journal from the top shelf of my closet and turn to the next entry. It starts just like the first two.

Dear Jordan,

Day three. I'm not sure whether my original intention was to make this journal about the bad days but as I write, I'm realizing that not all of our days are rainy. You have to trust me and do as I say, okay? I know it's hard to take direction from me but just put your jacket on and follow my lead. Please? For me?

I sit for a whole ten minutes until my clock changes to read 2:34. I just stare at the pages with her handwriting scrawled in pink. Against my gut feeling, I put on my jacket and continue reading.

Once you have a jacket on, leave your room. Turn left and go all the way down the hall. Go down the steps and when they split, go straight.

I find myself smiling at her step-by-step instructions.

Make a left once you've reached your kitchen and continue straight until you meet the screen door leading to your deck. Unlock it and step outside.

The minute I shut the door behind me, I'm shivering. Of course Ali knew it would be cold without a jacket. Ali is always right, even when I won't admit it.

Make another left down the steps and go straight up the hill, passing all the trees until you reach the one that James tried to burn his name into on my birthday.

I run my fingers over the charred wood, smiling at the memory of James drunkenly holding his lighter to the thick trunk. It was the first time I let him drink at my house.

Make a sharp right and immediate left onto the small trail that you made when you were eleven.

I remember telling her the story of how I made the trail in my backyard. She remembered. The fallen trees crunch under the pressure of my footsteps.

Keep walking until you reach the clearing.

It's becoming more difficult to see the words on the page.

Can you hear the river now?

I can.

In the clearing, straight ahead, there is a bridge that crosses over the river. You took me there tonight. We looked at the stars until I had to drive home because I was too tired to stay. I want you to lie down on it. Look at how the stars shine.

I do as she says, tears once more smothering my flushed cheeks. I remember the night she has written about. It was the night I almost told her I love her, before chickening out. There are too many stars to count tonight.

If you're reading this, then I am not watching the stars with you. Pick one. Keep your eye on it.

I do. I pick a small one to the right of the North Star.

Maybe that's me now.

With wholehearted love, Alison.

With tearstained cheeks and a weight in my chest, I walk back through the woods and up the steps to my deck. I have to hold the railing to steady myself. I didn't tell her I love her that night. I should have. I should have never missed an opportunity to give her my love. I should have never made her feel unwanted. I should have given her the world because it's what she deserves. She deserves the world and so much more.

I don't know how I get to my room, or when I even leave the deck. Somehow, I'm back in my room. There's still a heavy pain in my chest that is too stubborn to leave.

I fall back onto my bed, clutching my now-bare chest, just trying to calm it down. It's so warm underneath my hand that I want to pull it away. I hear my ragged breaths and mangled sobs.

All I can see on the back of my eyelids is Alison. I see her soft brown hair spread around her head like a crown as she lies on her back, just staring up at me like I'm the greatest thing she's ever laid her eyes on.

I see her green eyes reflecting the light from my lamp when she helps me with my government homework.

I see the bruises on her arms that weren't there a year ago. I see that her skin has paled tremendously. I see her arm rise in a weak wave.

Then I see myself. I see myself walking past her. I say nothing to her as I pass. I don't even look at her. I see Chris talking to her in class, and I stare. I want to know why he's talking to her. Since when is he good friends with her? Has he always been talking to her, and I've just not noticed?

I see her biting on her lip and see that she's drawn blood because her skin is as thin as a 1-ply tissue. I see her veins in her arms. I imagine her cancerous blood running through them and I'm clenching my fists.

Why is this happening to her? Why not someone else?

I curse myself for thinking that. I'm so selfish.

She isn't even yours, I remind myself. But she should be.

I see myself going up to her after class and carrying her books to lunch. We exchange no words. Then I'm back to being Jordan Matthews, the boy who dated the girl with leukemia. And Alison is back to being the 'cancer girl'. We are no longer considered one person. We are independent of each other.

One minute, I'm seeing all of these things. The next, I'm seeing all black, with my hand still clutching my chest.