Lust

Chapter 19

I watch the light of the television flicker from picture to picture. The light irritates me exhausted eyes but I don't look away. I can't bring meself to move. I keep thinking of Kimberley. Her reaction confusing us beyond words. Why do I feel like complete shit. Why do I feel so sick with meself.

She makes things so complicated. I mean If she would just wait for us to come to her everything would be fine. She doesn't get the way things work with us. Nothing makes sense in me life. Nothing goes normally. Doesn't she understand we aren't in a normal situation? I don't need her to save us. She can't just expect us to drop everything and walk away. No matter how shity it is, this is MY life not hers. Why does she think she can save us?

*buzzzZZZzzzZZzzz*

Nicolas cell phone vibrates on me thigh. I'm sure it's Ashley. He's been calling nonstop and I've managed to keep her phone with us since I got here. I don't answer but maybe I should go back soon.

"Chez?" I hear Nicola walk into the room. Her accent always soothes us for some reason. Must be because she's the only person in me life right now that I know I can trust. She sits beside us. Her hand running up and down the blanket covering me legs.

"You wanna tell me what's going on?" I can't bring meself to reply. I want so badly to confide in her but all I can concentrate on is the deep pulsing of my heart in my chest. Each thump reminding us of my existence. This is my life and I can't do anything to change it. This is it.

She places her hand on me waist and I impulsively flinch at her touch. The fresh bruises under her hand feel oddly familiar now.

"Come on Bella, talk to me. I miss my best friend." Her voice tells me she's trying not to cry. Its a soft whisper. Her accent barely detectable. She scoots closer to us now. I close me eyes, knowing this feeling. I don't want to cry. Come on Cheryl, why are you crying.

I feel her lay down behind us, slotting herself between the couch and me back. She snakes her arms around me waist. And that's when I lose it. One tear slides down, then another, then another. They don't stop and I feel a huge knot form in me throat. I squeeze me eyes together. I have to be strong but the pain inside us is torturous.

"How many times do we have to do this? How many times until it stops Chez?" She lays with us the rest of the night knowing that I don't have the strength to reply. I know she knows I'm crying but instead of trying to get herself some answers, she scoots closer to us and holds us for the rest of the night...

....

*One Month Later*

"This is when we went to the amusement park together. And this is when you threw up after we went on that drop of doom ride. Oh, and this is when we went hiking and found that dog that followed us all the way up the mountain. This is when we had that girl's night and we tried putting those face masks on but ended up nearly burning our faces off." She starts to laugh uncontrollably "You got some up your nose and I swear you almost started crying."

Sarah is sitting next to my chair. I laugh at how animated she is. Her face housing the same huge smile every time she comes to show me more pictures. She tells me that maybe if she shows me enough of them, I'll get my memory back. I'm at the hospital for my first rounds of chemo. After the day that I blacked out, I woke up to the soothing voice of my mum. "There's nothing to be scared of Kimberley." she said as she wrapped me in her warmth. I cried when she told me what was wrong with me. She said it's normal for me not to remember everything. And if I'm confused then all I have to do was ask. I felt oddly calm after she brought me to her arms. And I believed her when she told me everything was going to be okay.

The doctors didn't expect it was this bad. The tumor got worse and quickly turned cancerous. They said they would try their best to get me healthy again but that anything can happen at any moment and I must keep that in mind. They said some nights are going to be better than others but that most nights are going to be terrible. I didn't know how to handle news like this. What are you expected to say when someone tells you, you might die? Naturally I wanted to know when but all I got was "We can never be to sure with things like this. We advise you to continue with treatment and keep living your life as you would normally " It could be in a few weeks, or a few months. Maybe even in a few years. Either way, I didn't know how to feel. One day I feel completely healthy, and the next I wake up in a hospital with death slowly growing inside of me.