terrible things - ashton irwin

thirty one

In the evening they sedated Ashton, because his breathing had become laboured and painful. That, apparently, was the pleurisy. Or maybe it was the pneumonia.

Alone, I read every magazine I could find in this poor excuse for a hospital: Golf Digest, Sport Fishing and Fit Pregnancy. None held any useful information for me, but considering I'm a golf hater, a vegetarian, and a virgin, that was not exactly surprising.

Then I wandered the corridors, noticing again how much one hospital resembles another. They sound the same (the beeps of heart monitors, the hiss of oxygen machines, the murmuring tones of visitors). The serve the same food (syrupy, too-sweet grape juice, soggy dinner rolls; and pink, plastic looking ham).

They even smell the same (odors of disinfectant, recycled air, and bodies and what comes out of them, a mix i can only describe as lavatorial).

As terrible as La Junta General was, a tiny part of me relaxed a little. Unlike the rest of our cross-country journey, the hospital ward was known territory. A place I could navigate. And I guess I was glad to have a roof over my head again.

But as Ashton would be the first to point out, you can't be Bonnie and Clyde in a hospital. You're in a different movie altogether.

"Pace much?" one of the nurses asked with a friendly smile when I walked by the station for the twentieth time.

I smiled. "Sorry. Just stretching my legs."

"No worries, keep at it," she said. "Exercise does a body good."

She looked like she could stand to get a little exercise herself, but she was busy playing FreeCell on her computer. Slow night in the ER, I guess.

I turned down a new hallway and came upon a set of heavy double doors. Pushing them open, I found myself in the foyer of a small chapel.

It was utterly unlike the rest of the sterile white hospital. The front wall was a deep red. There was a plain wooden altar with LED candles flickering alongside it. There was no statue of Jesus on the cross, though, no Mary or Ganesh or Buddah or Harry Styles, either, or whoever it was people prayed to around here. There was just that red, the red of valentines, of blood. Faint classical music came from invisible speakers.

I sat down on a bench. My parents had taken me to church about three times before they lost interest in shushing Carole Ann and me every other second. Now I was the only one in the room, so I didn't quite know what to do with myself. I put my face in my hands. Anyone who poked a head in would think I was praying

I thought of Carole Ann and Ashton, and myself, too. How we'd all been affected by forces that felt terrifying and supernatural but were actually just terrifying and basic. Cancer is abnormal cells diving without control and invading other tissues. It's that simple. But it was still always a mystery: Why in the hell is my body trying to kill me?

Before I went into remission, I hated my body for betraying me. And considering that I was being treated for cancer at the same time I was suddenly going through puberty, well, it felt like my body was adding insult to injury.

Having Ashton with me on that journey meant everything. We were able to laugh at how weak we were. We had contests over who had the worst mouth sores (chemo causes them; they're awful). We goaded each other to eat food when food was the last thing we wanted.

We'd saved each other, Ashton and me. Or at least, he saved me.

But why me? Why was I doing so well when Ashton was so sick? When Carole Ann was dead?

What I know about sickness, beyond the fear, the uncertainty, and the nightmares drudgery of it, is that it builds a wall between the sick and the well. back in the pediatric ward, Ashton and I had been on the same side of that wall. Now I couldn't bear the idea of any wall between us. I wanted to experience what he was experiencing. I wanted to be with him. For everything.

In a way, I felt like my body was betraying me again, but this time, it was killing me by keeping me well. I knew that wasn't rational. It wasn't like I wanted to get cancer again..right?

I stared at the flickering lights for a long time. When no priest of angel or epiphany from above came to answer my question, I decided to go back to Ashton.

He was getting the intravenous antibiotics for his chest infection. They'd given him morphine, too, because otherwise the medicine hurt too much going in.

Ashton turned toward me and smiled. His eyelids were heavy, his skin pale.

"Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?" he asked.

I straightened the edge of his blanket.

"That's the morphine taking," I said.

But still I blushed. And I hoped and prayed that it was really him talking.

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word count - 862