Lost

Can You Hear Me?

"Are you dead?" I heard giggles and then a loud bang.

"Jessie be nice to your sister, she fell into the door!"

Just when I thought hell was a better option than opening my eyes, I felt a tiny hand slap me in my face.

"WAKE UP CAMMMMM" I felt a mouth pressed against my ear, I knew it was Kesley, my little sister. I decided to open my eyes and was met with her eyes inches away from mine.

"Get off me before I throw your tiny butt into a cold shower." I felt her body jump off me and heared steps running out the room, "Cammie didn't die! She's alive." I grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it over my face screaming into it as my mother greeted me.

"Elizabeth, finally you're awake, took you long enough. Do you know how much work i've been missing?" removing the pillow I look up to see her on the phone, typing away, probably to a friend about how she couldn't get her manicure fixed due to her daughters tumor acting out again.

" First, my name is Camryn. Second, you can leave now, nice seeing you after 4 years." I lifted myself off my bed and threw my pillow towards the door where Jessie and Kelsey stood " and take the two devils with you"

"HEY!" they both yelled, fighting for the pillow I had just thrown their way.

"Jessica, Kelsey lets go!" My mom yelled as she walked out the door.

"Goodbye Claire" I waved after her, once she was gone I opened my arms with a huge smile. "Come here my children" Kelsey and Jessie ran up to me screaming.

"Goodbye, don't forget about your dying sister. Please keep being your devil selves." I kissed both their foreheads as they ran off.

"Love you Cammie." I waved as the door closed behind them and I fell back onto my bed in anger. I heard the door slowly creak and I lifted my head once again, slightly to see who opened my door. I knew it wasn't time for my medication, I assumed it was the nurse coming to check on me, but as my head lifted off my mattress, I saw Melanie's small frame peek in and make a silly face. Instantly I jumped off the bed and ran to open the door.

"Welcome to Casa de Camryn, where the sick kids go to..." I looked at her ready to comment as I usually did when she came to my room, but stopped myself remembering yesterdays events.

"... die? You can say it Cam, don't treat me differently because of yesterday. Shit happens." She said walking towards my bed and plopping herself down, "but the reason I have gifted you with my presence is not because I am currently dying and need some counseling from death itself, I saw mama devil with baby devils, I wanted to see how that went." She threw the last pillow I had on my bed at my face, "you okay, big baby. I heard you passed out in the hall after Jen left you, really wanted all the attention to yourself, huh"

"Oh shut up, you're the one who decided to bleed out, couldn't hold it in?" I joked, bending down and scooping up all the pillows and chucking them her way.

"Okay, okay I surrender." Picking her hand up and pretending to wave a flag back and forth. We burst out laughing, letting the giggles quiet down before she looked at me. The moment I saw her face I knew what was coming.

"Claire came, wh-" I cut her off before she could finish asking her question.

My mom had disappeared months after I came to Jensdale. She treated it as a shelter, she only came when legally it was necessary, at first she would make excuses. Blaming it on work and the girls, they were just babies at the time, I understood where she was coming from. Soon after, she just stopped making up lies all together and stopped showing up at all. Her life was moving on, and having a sick child was not on her list of life accomplishments she wanted to be remember for. No one knew about me, except those who knew me before my glow up.

She hid me from the world, pretended as though she never birth me. I understood, who wants a dying child to be their legacy, you should mean more than just your children, but we lived in this sad world, where your children defined you as a person and people talked. Someone was bound to blame my mother and how she raised me, equivalent her parenting skills to my tumor in some fucked up way. I didn't let it hurt me, I didn't mind being forgotten, I did mind that the moments she did come see me, she couldnt care less about my opinions or what was really wrong with me.

Last winter, my tumor had enlarged, it was inoperable and the doctors had told us about a new trial medication they could start me on. It hadn't been tested, and could have some trippy side effects. I told Jen I didn't want it, that I wanted to do Chemo and see how far that could take me, I was tired of being prodded with needles. My mother on the other hand, didn't once listen to what anyone had to say. Too caught up in a phone conversation to care and she ripped the paper out of my hands and asked where to sign. I begged my mother, pleaded, got down on my knees and begged her not to sign it.

That afternoon, I was led into a white cold room, stripped of all my clothing and forced into a hospital gown. I was in x-ray machines all afternoon. I went back up to my room the night and cried for hours. I couldn't sleep, and throughout the trial, not once did she step foot into my room, let alone the hospital.

To make it all better, I spent the last months during that trial, throwing up my will to live, while I was stuck in a cold room, away from everyone because my immune system was shot. I couldn't walk the halls, they feared me catching something my body could not fight off. I was alone, in the dark, I was going insane day by day, the longer I spent in there, the more I wanted to die.

Those days made me resent her the most. The days I was isolated from everyone, when the only communication I had to the outside world, was through recorded phone conversations to Melanie's room.

"Claire came and went, you know the drill. She comes in, signs whatever paperwork she has to and stays the appropriate amount of time so she doesn't look like a bad mother. She leaves pretending as though I don't exist till the next time they call, and then we do this all again." I couldn't help, but laugh. I was use to it by now, it no longer hurt, I felt numb at this point. "She brought devil 1 and 2 this time, thats a plus. I haven't seen them since Kelsey's second birthday. It's been about three years, it felt nice to actually see her in person versus over Skype."

"I heard their loud asses from the end of the hall, I knew you survived the apocalypse the moment I heard 'cammie's alive'. I came to congratulate you on making it one more day, you passed with the rest of us." I could see her smile falter a little as she said it, I couldn't keep in my curiosity any longer.

"Cancers back?"

She didn't fake her smile any longer, she broke eye contact with me, and for what seemed like forever we sat in silence.

"Cancers a bitch... I tried to not let it control me... why?" She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face, for the first time I saw her break. I saw the one thing she truly had ever been in love with taken away from her, the feeling of being in remission.

"Cancers a bitch. We should get that printed on a t-shirt" her head lifted from my shoulder and I felt her giggle, most of her tears absorbed by my sleeve, but the little she had on her face she wiped away.

"Thanks...Elizabeth" With that she laughed and tried her hardest to run out my room.

"I TOLD YOU NEVER TO CALL ME BY MY BIRTH NAME!"

Lifting myself off the bed, I bolted towards the door, trying my best to remember yesterdays events and not end up on bed rest again. Before I could turn the corner towards Mel's room, my side collided with someones chest.

"I am so sorry."

Looking up I was met with those piercing blue eyes and soft delicate smile.