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Day 11: A Song from Your Favorite Band

Day 11: A Song from Your Favorite Band

"Top of the World" by Anthem Lights

Standing on top of the world
Hands up in the air feeling so alive
Screaming at the top of our lungs
To the rhythm of our heartbeat beating tonight
And from way up here our problem seems so small
So baby have no fear we'll fly above it all

I fling open the door with a bang, the sound causing some birds, which happen to be sitting on the edge of the roof, flit away in a dizzied hurry.  I can’t help but laugh and run over to the edge, looking out at the street below.  Chicagoans on the street down below have no clue that a girl is now cancer free.

I spin around with my arms stretched out and stare up at the sky, feeling like a little kid who just found out they were going to Disneyland for the first time.

Freedom.

Freedom from cancer.

I take off my hat and throw it up in the sky.  “I’m free from you!” I cry to the sky before catching my hat and putting it back on.

My hairless head hates the cold.

The door to the hospital bangs open again and my best friend Lucas rushes out, looking around wildly.  “What happened?  Did the doctor find anymore tumors?!”

I shake my head before jumping up and down with the biggest grin imaginable on my face.  “No more tumors!  No more cancer!  I’m free!”

It takes a moment to sink in before Lucas’s eyes widen.  “What?”

I stop jumping up and down, my chest heaving.  “No more cancer.  It’s gone.  They got it all.”

Without another word, Lucas picks me up and spins me around by my waist as I squeal in surprise.  “Oh thank goodness, thank goodness,” he whispers into my hair.

I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him tight.  “You aren’t getting rid of me that easy, Luc,” I say with a smile on my face.

He laughs.  “Not a chance.”  He sets me down and then looks me over.  “You need a coat,” he announces before taking off his own coat and putting it around my shoulders.

I roll my eyes but don’t object and slip my arms through the arm holes.  “Yes, mom,” I say sarcastically.  But a smile from me softens the reply.  “So, what did you think after you got my text?” I ask cheekily.

Lucas shakes his head.  “You know how to give someone a heart attack, that’s for sure.  When a text says ‘At the hospital, on the roof, come ASAP,’ your brain goes straight to the direst situations thinkable.

“Oh, I just love giving you heart attacks,” I coo while pinching one of his cheeks.

It’s so much fun to mess with him.

Lucas gently slaps my head away.  “Yeah, yeah.”

I grin before turning away and sitting down on the cold concrete, my back against the edge of the roof.  “Come.  Sit,” I invite, patting the spot next to me.

Lucas sits down next to me.  “So why did you come up here in the first place?”

I don’t answer for a moment.  “Have you ever felt like a caged bird?” I finally ask.  “You turn this way and that but you can’t find a way out.  It’s been like that for the past few years and finally being cancer free is… like this huge euphoria that I can’t even explain nor even begin to comprehend.  And birds sit on roofs, the ones that aren’t in cages and don’t flutter about in them trying to find a way out.  They fly free wherever they want to go.”

My eyes gaze at a pigeon hopping along the roof on the other side.

“My cancer… it just caged me.  I didn’t know if I was going to be able to get free or if I was going to die in that cage.  I didn’t know if I was going to be able to get free.  So when I found out I was cancer free, I didn’t even think.  I just ran up here.”  I give a short bark of laughter.  “The nurses’ and doctors’ I passed in the hallways were priceless.  I don’t think they’ve ever seen me that happy.”

“Nat…”  Lucas tips up my chin and turns it so I’m looking at him.  He doesn’t say anything else and instead uses his thumb to wipe away my tears.

I didn’t even realize I had started crying.

“You’re only in a cage if you let it put you there,” he says gently.

My lip trembles and I swear I try to stop it, but the dam breaks open and I begin sobbing.  So many emotions pour out of me.

Anger.  Fear.  Disgust.

But the strongest?  Relief.

Tears run down my face in rivulets, but those tears set me free.

Lucas gathers me in his arms as I bury my face in shoulder.  He rocks me in his lap while whispering words of comfort in my ear.

He’s always my rock when all hell breaks loose.

My sobs turn to sniffles and soon I just sit there.

“Better?” Luc asks me after a bit.

I nod, clearing my throat.  “Yeah.  Thank you.”  I take a glance at his shirt and cringe.  “I’ll—uh—I’m sorry about your shirt.”

Lucas laughs lightly and shakes his head.  “You are the weirdest girl I’ve ever met.”

“But you know you love me,” I say with a smile beginning to form on my face.

Luc tugs my beanie down on my head.  “That I do, Nat.  That I do.”

I stick my tongue out at him.  “Love me enough to carry me to the cafeteria?”

“The things I do for you,” Luc mutters.  “Yeah.  Let me stand up and I’ll give you a piggy-back ride.”

I happily climb out of his lap and stand up.  The wind had picked up—hey, Chicago isn’t the called the Windy City for nothing—and it had gotten chillier.  I shiver.  “I feel bad for taking your jacket,” I say as I jump up on Luc’s back.  I loop my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.

“It’s okay.  I offered it to you anyways.”

Luc heads toward the door that leads inside.

There’s a noise behind me and I turn my head around.  I see that another pigeon had joined the first one on the edge of the roof.  Then they both spread their wings and hop off the roof.  The wind catches beneath their wings and they fly away together.

Free.