You know how the sky seems bluer and the flowers seem brighter when you're happy? She had never seen the sky bluer since last year. Her head keeps spinning, literally and figuratively. She is beyond tired of all the pain and needles she has to go through each day. Everyday, she wakes up to plain white walls on her field of vision, with a beautiful bouquet of lavenders on her bedside as the only pop of colour in this monotonous room. A piercing pain on her stomach wakes her up with a jolt like every other day.
"Have faith," she chants to herself, "have faith"
She exhales a deep breath and looks at her frail hands. The once firm and soft hands were almost to bones and the skin covering it, like rubber. She misses dancing and her dance team. She misses spinning in circles without falling down on the ground before she could hit three spins. She misses the feeling of not having tubes attached to her arms. She misses breathing on her own.
She stands up from her bed, and rolls her rod holding all the IV fluids. She walks towards the mirror and looks at the reflection painted there. The girl she sees there is pale with a sunken face, prominent cheekbones and with a body like a stick. Thoughts start running on her head. She pictures the royal blue dress she wore for homecoming last year, hugging my curves. She pictures how her favorite leotard looked on her when she wore them to the Gymnast's week the year before last year. She pictures all the clothes she used to wear to her dance classes. An involuntary tear slips and streaks down her face, without her realizing. And in no time she is down on her knees weeping, thinking of all the things she could be doing instead of lying down here, connected to the tubes.
She feels a set of arms engulfing her and quietly rocking her. Thoughts still run wild on her head like there is no tomorrow. There probably isn't for her but the pace was hurting her emotionally. She feels a warm breath fan against her face. The person smelt like her, like the hospital.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Be it a stranger or the kind nurse who takes care of her everyday, she spills her sorrows. "I am turning into an ugly hag. My hair doesn't shine and my breasts have shrunk. All the traces of curves I had before has disappeared. I can barely feel the muscles in me. My eyes have huge bags underneath them. I have tubes attached to my body. I am not pretty and I can't dance anymore. Who is going to look at me now, huh? No one. No one will fucking look at me with anything but sympathy. 'Oh how sorry I am' ' Oh I am so sorry that you need to go through this at such a young age' Fuck them. They don't feel sorry. They just want to say something, anything, to this battered soul of mine. I don't need their fucking sympathy," Saying all this did make her feel a tad bit better, but the waterfall of tears did not stop flowing down her porcelain face.
That head that was resting on her head until a second back, was retracted. She lifts her head to see the most beautiful sight. A figure with tufts of black wavy hair resting on top of his head and eyes so dreamy and deep, staring into her boring set of brown eyes, which had lost its shine in the course of time. He had traces of worry and nervousness etched on his gorgeous paling face.
Her eyes couldn't have enough of him. He slowly licks his beautiful pink lips and lightly smacks them. He takes in a deep breath and slowly says, "You're anything but ugly. You are beautiful. Who cares about stupid curves when your personality is better than that of a fucking gem. And fuck those fake ass people."
He then scoops her up, carrying her in his arms almost effortlessly, signals her to roll the IV rod and takes her and rests her in the cold hospital bed. He covers her thin body with the warm blanket. With this, he just turns around and leaves her wondering about who this mystery boy is.
She doesn't know when she will be able to get out of this place with the free of cancer card clutched on her hand, but now she had something to keep her going. This boy just gave her a reason to bear with this gloomy oncology ward. And she needed to find out who her mystery man is.
