To Feel Alive (NANOWRIMO)

Chapter Sixteen

“Hey,” Lily said as she opened the door to her house after I rung. I frowned for two reasons; firstly she had answered the door herself which she normally left to one of her parents to do, and secondly she was a strange pale colour. She had been off school for a week but she told me she was now feeling well enough to see me. It didn’t look like it though.

“Are you okay?” I asked, already concerned.

“Just come in,” she said, wiping her brow. She ushered me inside and into the living room where Tessa and Aaron were sitting closely together on the sofa, both with red eyes and clutching each other’s hands. “Mum? Dad?” she said, cautiously, and they both stood up with such stiffness it was as if they’d been in that position for years. They left the room, and as soon as the door closed behind them, I heard Tessa break out into an uncontrollable sob.

My heart began to pound. The house that had always been a place for me to come and get away from all the sadness in my life - a beacon of light and contentment - suddenly felt a lot like my own home. “What the hell is going on?” I asked as Lily began pacing back and forth, fingers to her temples and taking short, shallow breaths. “Lily!” I said, panicking, eyes wide.

“Just sit down,” she said, without even looking at me. I felt like my body was now made of wood, unable to bend, and I stood there at the edge of the room, watching my best friend break down like I’d never seen before. She’d failed exams, broken bones, spilt a cranberry drink all over her new cream carpet floor and I’d never seen her react even close to this. “I don’t even know how to start.”

“At the beginning?” I said, a slight laugh escaping me at the ‘Sound Of Music’ reference, though it eventually just came out hoarse. I knew this was no time for humour, something which had always been a key part of this household. It now seemed like that very element had been sapped out of the walls, and floors, and lastly the people within it.

Lily swallowed and then said, “This isn’t the place. Follow me.” I walked behind her up the stairs to her messy bedroom, then to her and Cody’s den, then to the kitchen, and living room, and then we ended up outside in the cool November wind, crossing over to the swings and setting ourselves down on one on each, hearing the frame creak slightly under our weight. This whole time we’d remained silent, and the suspense grew as I started to worry I didn’t truly want to hear what she was about to say.

“So you know I’ve not been feeling great for a while? Like…faint and feverish, and I had these…these two lumps on my neck?” I nodded as she gestured to them, not able to speak for I felt so choked up. “Mum made me go to the doctors as its gotten a lot worse this week, and he did some tests on me and stuff, and yesterday I had an appointment and I…I finally found out what’s wrong with me,” she said, staring at the ground with such fixation it was as if she was hypnotised by it.

And then for a minute or so she just sat there, rocking herself slightly forward and back on her heels, like you’d move a baby in a crib to comfort them. She was waiting for me to press the button, and unlock the information she was withholding, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to remain in this moment when everything was fine and normal. And then I found myself ramming into it with such perseverance I couldn’t stop.

“What did he say?” I finally gasped.

“I’ve got…well, its shortened name is ALL, but its full version is…Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Which…” She took a deep breath, and looked over at me, eyes large and scared. “Which is cancer,” she said, so quickly the words tumbled out of her mouth in a mess.

And then it was like a tiny bomb had been planted in my mind, ticking away before it exploded, stretching its damage through every artery, vein and capillary, ripping them apart one by one until I was just a shell, with a ruined mess inside.

The damage was done, but it had not yet been reflected on the outside of me, as my whole body remained rigid upon the news. The news that my best friend was sick, and not in the typical way. She was sick like those kids you saw in the papers, and on the television, and in the commercials pleading for charitable donations to help them. She was different now, and yet looking at her you wouldn’t yet presume anything worse than the flu.

“Please say something,” Lily said desperately, taking a deep breath as she continued to stare at me. A million things were racing through my brain at that moment; so many questions I wanted to ask her. Was it curable? When did she start treatment? What treatment would she have? Would she still be going to school?

But none of them seemed appropriate or able to come out of my mouth so I settled, once I’d regained the power of speech, with a simple, “I’m so sorry,” before I broke down, the tears rolling down my cheeks one after the other. I wheezed in horror as I collapsed off the swing, shaking, and Lily knelt by me.

We held hands, and she squeezed mine tightly. It was meant to be a sign of support, but I realised as her grip only intensified that this was for her benefit. She needed me there, like I’d needed her just a couple months earlier, when my Mum had abandoned me without any notice.

“You’re gonna get through it,” I managed to say an undetermined period of time later. “You will, Lily. You have to.”

“I’m gonna try,” she replied, also crying now, which was something she never did. In my mind, Lily was always so strong, but right then, she was the epitome of weak. We sat there, weeping together, until the sun disappeared behind the gloomy clouds, and until I had no tears left to shed. We wrapped our arms around each other, and held each other, faces smothered by the other’s shoulders, and felt the other shaking.

We were frozen not only by the cold but by the moment, because we knew that the very next day, what were now words would become a vicious reality. Something we’d have to face. Lily would grow weaker and weaker and her life would progressively become more and more abnormal.

Nothing would ever be the same, and that was why we sat there in each other’s arms, because right then, though in our minds it had happened and been said, in real life nothing yet had changed. We were in the middle stage, routines not yet altered but preparing to be completely disrupted at any moment. By something we’d heard about in science, and learnt to hate at just the mention of it by society, and mourn for in movies. Cancer. And it just wasn’t fair.