Soar // Hamliza

• chapter 13 •

• Alexander •

Another day, another headache. New motto?

Eliza stayed with me for hours after our argument last night, until the nurse kicked her out. We just sat in my bed, her in my arms, and talked. About everything. Well, maybe not quite everything, but quite a bit. She told me all about everything that's been going on with everyone at school, drama with students, bad teachers. I told her about the not nearly as exciting hospital drama and the adventures I go on when I'm very rarely allowed to be up and moving around. At this point, they won't let me walk anymore and I have to stay in a wheelchair. But it's a lot better than having to sit in my bed all day.

The one thing we didn't talk about was Eliza. I know she doesn't want to tell me about how she's holding up. But I think she sometimes forgets that her little sister is one of my best friends.

Peggy comes in with John a lot, since they're both so close to me. But every once in a while, she'll come in by herself just to talk and spill some gossip. Lately, it hasn't been lots of gossip.

She tells me about how she's worried about Eliza, how she's picking up on her being a lot more anxious than usual and that she thinks things might be starting to go downhill. I know that Peggy doesn't know about the things Eliza did after their mother's funeral, how she hurt herself.

I want to ask my girlfriend how she is and have her tell me honestly. But I don't want to set her off or make her worry about me worrying about her - yes, that sounds confusing, even to me. But I know that she'll think she's putting extra stress on me if she tells me.

Besides hearing about how she is, the thing I want to do the absolute most with my gorgeous girl is dance. I find myself dreaming of us doing a pas de deux together, competing the way we were supposed to at the beginning of the year, choreographing together while we sat on the floor in her studio where we had our first kiss.

The doctors keep telling me about how risky it is for me to get up and move around too much. With months of being essentially confined to a bed, my muscles surely aren't what they used to be and are likely quite weak. They told me I probably have muscle atrophy and it'll take me a while to build up to where I used to be. It sucks.

What sucks more is my now multi-weekly therapy sessions and new meds that make me feel awful. As if a stage 4 cancer patient can feel any worse than he already does. The therapist comes in all the time trying to get me to talk, but I never want to. The doctors insist that help will be good for me, talking will make things so much better. But honestly, when I tell these people about the issues I'm having and how I feel, I'm always left with guilt about bothering someone or feeling uncomfortable with sharing my feelings.

And don't even get me started on the medications they're giving me. In addition to all the chemo and radiation stuff that's going on, they're insisting on anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medication. They make me feel so much more nauseous than chemo already does, meaning I'm perpetually in the bathroom choking out the food I've just eaten. Which then caused them to tell me that if these meds keep making me sick, I have to get a feeding tube. It's a mess. The meds make my headaches worse too, which is just what I need, right?

The meds also just make me feel... bad. They're supposed to help, but honestly, all they do is make me feel numb and empty. It's not getting rid of the problem, it's just keeping it the way it is. I want to feel something, but at the same time, I feel like at this point, my feelings are just broken beyond repair and I wouldn't even know what good emotions felt like.

I don't tell Eliza these things. I don't need her to worry more.

Despite the issues, I'm still looking forward to certain things. I'm looking forward to later today, when all my friends make a visit to come see me. Hopefully it'll take my mind off things and they just don't ask me how I am. I'll lie if they do. It's okay.

At the moment, I'm having a very exciting time watching some trashy reality TV show while trying to keep down the orange juice the nurse gave me. Ugh. I've thrown up more times in the past few months than ever in my life all together. Probably more times this week than ever in my life all together.

I fall asleep to the sounds of the reality TV characters whose names I didn't learn arguing, and drift into dreamland.

I find myself on my feet, no IV pole, no hospital gown, standing outside of the Schuyler mansion with a bouquet of flowers in my hands. I ring the doorbell and wait, hearing footsteps coming towards the door. Eliza opens the door, looking gorgeous as always in her signature blue.

I feel myself smile as I hold out the bouquet and greet her. She doesn't respond to my greeting, and doesn't take the flowers. She just walks back inside.

Confused, I walk through the door before it closes and follow her to the living room, where she sits on the couch. I sit down next to her and ask what's wrong.

"Alexander, you really shouldn't be here. We have to get you back." She says, giving me a quick up and down look before looking away, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Eliza, what do you mean? We have a date tonight. Come on, we're gonna miss the reservation." I tell her, walking over and grabbing her hand. She snatches it away and looks at me with what I think is... disgust?

"Eliza...?" I say, lost.

"Alexander, you have to go back to the hospital. They're going to be upset with you. Besides, why would we have a date?" She says, standing up.

"I don't know what you mean? I'm fine now, why would I need to go back to the hospital? And why wouldn't we have a date, you're my girlfriend?" I ask, following her again. She walks out the door and ushers me into the backseat of her car. Odd. I always sit in the front.

"You're not fine, they're still treating you. You have chemo soon. The monster-maker. You know? And we wouldn't have a date because... you're not dating me anymore?" She tells me as she backs out of the driveway.

"What? Why?" I ask. Now I really am confused.

"Alex, look at yourself. You're a mess. I don't even know how you got here or how you didn't freeze to death in that hospital gown," she says. I look down. The clothes I thought I had been wearing when I got to her house were gone and my usual hospital gown was there instead. My hair was gone again. My IV pole was tight against the top of the car.

"Besides," she continued, "We already discussed this when things ended. Alexander, chemo and your meds turned you so far away from the Alex I knew and loved. You became a monster. You lashed out, said you hated me, said you wished you had never said anything about feeling sick so that you wouldn't have to do chemo and that you wished I would've let you die instead of have surgery. You told me you despised me for making you live. You didn't love me anymore and told me frequently so I knew it."

I was shocked. How could I?

"Why would I ever do that to you, Betsey, I love you?" I felt a pain in my head again. I felt like I was fading away.

"Because you weren't you. I couldn't do it anymore. You were a whole different person. An awful person, Alex. A monster." She yelled the word 'monster' at me as she sharply turned into the hospital parking lot and slammed the car to a halt. Not bothering to take her keys, she opened the door, came to my door and got me out, pushing me towards the doors of the hospital before driving away. The word 'monster' echoed in my head as I fell to the ground, unable to gain the strength to walk inside.

And then I was awake again, breathing heavily and holding my head in my hands. Oh God. I was barely awake but I found my hands shuffling around, searching for my phone. Desperately searching.

At last I finally grabbed it, needing to text Eliza, call Eliza, hold Eliza and tell her I loved her and that once again, I needed her to come save me and calm me down because I didn't think I could do it myself.

Then I caught a glimpse of the time. Just as I sunk my head into my hands again and tried to slow my breathing, all of my friends walked into the room together. I felt claustrophobic all of the sudden as they gathered around me, Eliza's smiling face closest to me. I was being bombarded with greetings, questions, the latest gossip from school. I was really looking forward to this visit but now all I can think is...

How the hell am I supposed to get through this?