Bleed Me Dry

Before I Turn to Stone

"Let's take a better look, beyond a story book. And learn our souls are all we own, before we turn to stone." Turn to Stone, Ingrid Michaelson.

Millie

Andie and I wake up next to each other. Lately we've been sleeping in the same bed because I get so sick at night that I can't be alone. Andie stirs a lot in her sleep, mumbling things that scare me just to know they're floating around in her head. I don't want her to be scared of Vincent. The bad part about the whole situation is she doesn't even know the worst of it. Vincent came in the restaurant yesterday. He asked me about her and I told him so many times that I didn't know her. I should've called the cops on him but I didn't want Andie to know he was even in town, she's already broken as it is.

I get up in the middle of the night to do my usual routine of vomiting and shaking like a scared chihuahua. I've adjusted to my life as a cancer patient. It gets hard at times but the pain has numbed itself. I still go to my treatments but they just aren't working. I'm not scared to die though, I'm getting everything I ever wanted in last year of my life. My life was just one big cycle of boring and now there's an adventure in everyday. Andie comes in the bathroom about ten minutes into my episode. She sits next to me and puts her hand on my back making me feel like for just a second that I'm not a sick person, that what is happening is just a normal part of life. There's is nothing normal about Andie, Gia, and I. We are the the most problematic group of weirdos anyone will ever meet.

Gia was here earlier crying on our floor because she and Tanner had a fight and Andie and I treated it like it was something normal friends do,I swear everyday one of us crys. But there are moments when we forget about all those problems when we go to places we've never been, and we all just have that moment where we look at each other and know we're alright. The other day we went out and drove to this cliff people used to go to to make out in high school. We parked the car and sat on the hood together just taking in the beauty of the stars. They each laid their heads on my shoulders and for a solid moment it felt like I didn't have cancer.

When I done my shaking Andie and I go back to bed. We lay there for a moment and I look at Andie. I can tell she's not asleep so I ask her, "Do you ever feel like your dried up like a piece of fruit?"

She laughs a little bit, "Mil that's kind of a weird question."

"Yeah but do you?"

"I guess so, sometimes I feel like life just wants to suck every bit of life out of of me. If that's what you mean."

"That is what I mean. Why do think we just can't have the normal life everyone else has."

"I don't know, maybe it's not life that's tearing us apart, what if it's just the people around us."

"I guess you're right."

"This is the weirdest conversation I've ever had."

"That's what late night conversations are for."

The rest of the night we just laugh until we're crying about everything in life. We laugh about stupid stuff to until it feels like we're drunk on life itself. We finally go to sleep and I think about all the things I love, I know I have to take all that happiness in before I'm nothing but a headstone.