Elixir

Chapter 10 - Fear

A month, maybe sooner? The words kept leaping through my mind, shaking me to the core of my body in fear. The words were usually followed by “I don’t want to die”, which not only made me terrified, but sad.

I was lying in bed in the hospital, sleep lost on those simple words. How could you sleep when you knew that you were going to die within the next month? How were you supposed to be lulled in to sweet oblivion when you were soon not going to be alive any longer.

My mind pondered these ideas, going through different ways I could keep myself alive, but coming up with nothing. What about Katie? She would be devastated when I died, she’s so young. Will she even remember me when she grows up to have her own kids? The idea of sleep was lost on me. Every hour of sleep seemed like a waste of the little time I had left.

After a couple of hours of wrestling with the idea that I was soon to come to an end, I pressed the nurse’s button on the side of my bed and asked for something to help me sleep. After being hyped full of drugs, making me dead tired, I fell into a dreamless sleep. Finally.

__

The next morning, I got a text from Alex.

“Violet, it’s Alex. Call me.”

Then another one ten minutes later.

“Violet, call me. We really need to talk.”

Another one soon after.

“Look, you have every right to be mad, but we really need to talk. I’ll explain everything, just tell me – How are you feeling? Are you sick, weak, really good? Tell me how you feel please.”

How would he know that I’ve been feeling bad? And he was right about one thing, I did have an extremely good reason to be mad at him. His brother put a knife to my little sister’s throat! What was I supposed to do, go running back into his open arms full of forgiveness? Yes, a small part of me said, that’s exactly what you should do. But the other part screamed, HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN KATIE KILLED! BE FURIOUS AT HIM! That part of me won.

But my anger weakened with the next text.

“Violet, I’m so sorry about your sister. I would never do anything to hurt you or your family. Venen is not a good person, and I’m sad to say he’s my brother. Please forgive me Violet, I only want what’s best for you.

J I love you.”

Tears sprang into my eyes. He loved me, and he was sorry. I thought back to the other night. He only seemed to be reasoning with Venen. I don’t think he would purposely hurt me. He loved me.

But the other part of me wondered if it was a trick. A trick to get closer to me. How had I gotten into this mess in the first place? I wasn’t ready to forgive him yet. As much as I wanted someone to talk to, I couldn’t be weak. I couldn’t let him in.

I only got one more text that day.

“Violet, I love you. Please call me, I’m worried about you.”

__

Over the weekend, I only got worse. My stomach began hurting constantly, and it took a lot more than Advil to keep me from screaming and moaning in pain. When I wasn’t groaning and screaming in pain, I was hopped up on morphine, which was about all the time.

Not only that, but I was getting weaker. Every day I continuously got worse. My body took on a pale grey look, and my eyes were sunken in and hollow. By Monday, I could barely lift a water bottle. I didn’t know how much longer I was going to last.

Alex texted me repeatedly, wanting to know how I was doing. I wondered why he was so intent to know. I figured he would know Monday, when I wasn’t at school. I had almost been looking forward to being with my friends again, but now that wasn’t going to happen.