What He Wrote

Chapter 7

"Hey."

I opened one eye, momentarily unsure of where I was. The confusion wore off quickly when I saw the dark fluorescent light bulbs and felt the uncomfortable couch against my back. I was at the hospital. Cleo was sick. It was bad.

"Hey, are you awake?"

Cleo's normally sing-songy voice sounded broken and off. It was similar to the way a chord would sound when a wrong note was struck on a piano; so similar to the real thing, but desperately incomplete.

"Psst."

"I'm up, I'm up. What's wrong?"

"Can we talk?"

I froze. Everyone knows nothing good comes from those three words. No one says "Can we talk?" and then give you a promotion. It's usually more along the lines of "You're fired!"

Cleo must've sense my panic, because she then said, "it's nothing bad or anything. I just can't sleep and wanted to talk to someone."

"Okay then. What about?"

"What do people say about me in school?"

I paused. It was not a very Cleo sort of question. She wasn't really into the whole gossip thing. I never thought she would ever care about what people said about her.

"Well, our English teacher misses you a lot. Roxanne's been upset lately. A lot of the populars are pretending they've been your best friends since birth. You were featured in the school newspaper, and they even included that poem you wrote about an affair. I think they're entering it into a competition."

"So they're basically acting like I'm already dead."

I didn't say anything, but I knew she was right. People were acting like she was already dead. Our teachers all but framed her essays and A+ tests. Students were either crying in class or using the grief counselor to get out of it. The newspaper had practically written her obituary. People I had never spoken to before were coming up to me and asking if I was okay and how she was everyday. I had eventually learned to ignore them, but that just led to more rumors and more pitying stares.

"I doubt any of them would actually show up to my funeral. Except for Red. I know she'd come."

Red. Short, pixie-ish, dreadfully honest, but loyal. I had only started speaking to her in school when the news about Cleo spread. I knew that Red was Cleo's only other true friend, and that they had actually known each other since birth.

"I'm sure Roxanne would come."

"Yeah, she'd show up in four inch heels and a designer dress. Then she'd flirt with every single male in the church, including the priest and my gay cousin, until she became the center of attention and my body would be left to rot."

Roxanne wasn't exactly a slut, despite Cleo's crude description. She had actually sworn to remain a virgin until marriage. She just liked attention, and if flirting was how she got it, so be it. I'm not saying I particularly liked Roxanne, I just thought it would be unfair to imply that she was what she wasn't.

"You have a gay cousin?" I furrowed my eyebrows, having never been told about it until then.

"Yeah, Damon. It's a almost a shame you're not gay, because he's pretty damn hot and just your type."

"And what is 'my type'?"

"Basically quintessential Cleo. You know, smart, unique, humorous, undeniably sexy..." She trailed off.

"I don't need a knock off Cleo. I have the original."

"Touché." She smiled, but it quickly turned into a grimace.

"Shoot. Are you okay? Do you need me to call a nurse?"

"No! No, I just need some more painkillers. Stupid chemo can't give me a break." I was taken aback by the breathiness and desperacy of her voice that she had tried to cover up with humor. Her face, bathed by moonlight coming in from a window, looked tired and lifeless. She looked like that a lot lately, all thinning hair and sunken cheeks in place of her usual sunny complexion and magnetic personality.

"Are you sure you don't need a nurse?"

"Yeah."

Silence engulfed the room as her breathing grew more and more steady. For a second I thought she was asleep, but was proven wrong when she spoke in a slightly slurred tone.

"You know what I just realized, Teddy? Originals are worth a billion times more after they're dead."

"Cleo..." I said, almost warningly.

But she was already asleep.