Runaway Cleo

Ch 2: What do you mean?

I'm dying.

Those are the two words that keep echoing in my ears as if someone has been pressing repeat on an old Walkman.

I'm dying.

How could the Cleopatra Lynn be dying?? How could she do this to me? She has to be lying. Yep. That's it she's lying. But, she wouldn't be hear saying this if she was lying. She wouldn't be here...

"You're.... you're dying?" i ask in a raspy tone that even surprises me when i hear it. I barely even notice her when she solemnly nods her head.

So many questions crowd my head, I can't even grasp onto one long enough to function what an answer could be.

"I understand that you're confused," she starts, "but, you also need to know why this is important and focusing on that one fact is not going to help me complete my final mission: You, Chris. It's always been you." She says it with a passion. As if it is the most important thing to her in the whole world. Maybe it is.

Disbelief. Anger. Fear. Disappointment. Pride. Defeat. That's just a list of a few of the feelings and emotions that must cross my face while contemplating all of this.

"Chris," she says, and I can hear the hurt in her voice. I can hear her desire to make me understand something i can't yet grasp.

"I need you to listen to me very carefully, I have 6 months to live and I want them to be happy months. The happiest of my entire life. So, I'll wrap it all up for you. In freshmen year, my family life was terrible. Every night i would go home to a drunk dad and a beaten mom. But every day we forgot about it. One night, late in the year, my dad came home and enough was enough, i blocked my mom's hit. He turned on me and i didn't wake up until the next morning.

I was in my bed and every body was acting like none of it happened. But it was NOT something ordinary for my dad to beat on us, his children. No matter how drunk he  got. Yet, he walks in the kitchen and starts talking about the weather and the day he is going to have at work..."She chokes on her next words repeatedly and it took all my might to not get up and punch something, "We made eye contact. And... Chris, he winked at me. How could he do that? What was that supposed to mean? That night after a long day of acting normal at school, my dad came into my room and he tried to do it again. But this time he was completely sober. I-"

And now, she was sobbing again, completely distraught over every word coming out her mouth. But this is what I've always wanted is it not? A chance to hear her story? "I left that night. I wrote my mom, dad, sisters, and best friends letters explaining everything. I wrote about how they each had an impact on my life and why none of them were enough to make me stay. I said why i needed to go and told them to not worry about me. I was gone and I was never planning on going back."

She has cleared up by now, letting only single tears fall down her cheeks. Nothing seems to be stopping her from finishing her story... Nothing at all.

"I got a job a month later at this hotel I had been living in. They paid well and provided free room and board so it wasn't bad. I soon saved up enough to get a place of my own in town and just had to work nights. Schooling wasn't a problem, I just took online courses. Life was good. Then i started to get the headaches. They would not stop. One day I was working and nothing would stop them. I woke up in the hospital, Chris." She looks up at me. I see many more tears flowing out of her eyes. Somehow I feel as if she is an angel sent to me from God. But angels don't cry. Angels. Don't. Cry.

"I was diagnosed with Gliobastoma multiforme, or GMA. And since i can not afford the chemo, i am left to die. My doctors give me 6 more months. 6 more months to fulfill the life that i will be missing. Chris, life is too short to live it unhappy, so why not make it the best life you can with risks and zero boundaries?"