When I Die [Wattys 2016]

Chapter 28: Valentines

That evening, I pressed on. The pain in my chest was starting to become unsettling. I knew it would be bad if I told my mom. I knew we would end up at the hospital again, and I knew what they would say. Even worse, I knew that if I went to the hospital again, I better be ready to stay there. I wanted to wait until the very last possible second. I didn't want to be stuck in a place I hated for longer than necessary.
My chest felt like it was being sat on sometimes. Every breath was different, some were easy and satisfying but others were useless and painful. I needed to spend Valentines with Myra. I knew this was it. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to give Myra a lifetime, but at least I could give her one night... Right?
I looked at myself in the mirror. My hip bones were becoming increasingly pronounced. My ribs were peeking through my skin.
I had a painful realization that I was hideous. Why does Myra even want to look at me? I didn't even want to look at me. The weight was coming off rapidly, and it was because I had a hard time with food. Food. Food was at one time something I enjoyed. I could eat, sometimes I'd eat too much and then I would sleep. My mom was a wonderful cook and I loved her food. It was something new every day and I loved it so much, she'd made me her taste-tester. I never gained much weight. I was in a lower weight class for when we did wrestling in gym class. You would have thought by how much I ate at times that I would have been way, way big.
Now, food was hard. I would look at it and feel repulsed often. Every night I would sit in front of a full plate and close my eyes. I couldn't even imagine eating it. My mom tried cooking all my favorite things. It was just so hard. I knew if I ate that it would make me sick. Everything tasted like a mouthful of pennies. I hated it. So I ate to survive, and to please my mom. I didn't eat for pleasure. It was primal. It was survival.
And so the weight fell off, twenty-one pounds gone. I was hardly a hundred and thirty pounds.
Anyways, I needed to give Myra this night. I couldn't imagine dying without giving her something to keep. I wanted her to have at least one night.

I used a good bit of my energy reserves in showering and dressing myself. I was wearing some jeans, they had an adjustable waist band. I hadn't worn pants like these since I was about twelve. I tightened them all the way. I pulled a button-up short sleeve shirt out of my closet. It was a floral shirt, but not in the tacky way. It was probably the most expensive single article of clothing that I owned. I pulled on socks and laced up my Vans, the new ones, not the ones I wore every day which exposed my toe if I stepped weird. My mom would be happy to see this, I thought.

I finished lacing my shoes and sat back for a second on my bed. I was overwhelmingly tired. I was so depleted of energy, I wasn't sure how to muster energy that I didn't have inside me. The frustration was all-encompassing. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't even do that. My mind, my spirit, whatever you wanted to call it... It was stuck in a dying body. How unfair for a spirit so alive to be trapped in something which was soon to be dead. My spirit had fight left. Me, Leo, I had fight left. But the vessel I was in didn't. Leo the Spirit could have gone on living for another sixty years. Leo the Body wouldn't be doing that.

I stood up, knees shaky, but less so than the days before. I could walk, I thought. I wouldn't take my wheelchair. My mom and dad were in the living room. My dad was wearing a nice button-up and khakis. My mom was in a beautiful red dress. She was looking in the mirror that hung on the wall, she was putting earrings in. Her hair was done up. She had her red lipstick on. She looked like her old self. She was so gorgeous.

They both turned around to me at the same time.

"Oh, Leo, baby you look so good," She looked about ready to cry at the sight of me, upright.

She walked over to me, taking my face in both hands. She kissed me on the cheek. I scrunched up my nose at her and she laughed, rubbing my cheek then with her hand. She wiped red lipstick off my skin.