FIVE
The sun was shining, which automatically made it a good day in my book. Yes, I liked the occasional rain shower but if I had to choose, I'd always pick sun over rain. What I liked about rain these days though, was that it matched my mood perfectly. Me cranky equalled rainy days and it had been raining a lot of late. Though before my cancer, it wouldn't necessarily have been a reason for me to stay inside, it now meant more trouble, like holding an umbrella, which would drain me of the strength my body possessed, which in turn had led to me staying inside every day since hearing I would die from leukaemia. Except for the two short times outside getting into the taxi or getting from the taxi into my apartment while going to Sarah's party, the latter I didn't even remember because I had been practically asleep, still, not going outside for that many days, it had been depressing as hell. Until Delphine had showed up and taken me outside to watch the stars of course. That had been a nice outing, but it had already been two days ago since she'd stowed up on my doorstep.
There was only so much series-binging a person could handle and also sketching had lost its appeal after a hundred or so. That left reading but I had found myself getting tired the moment I had finished a full page. So all in all, I was leading the most boring life a twenty-six ever had. Having cancer officially sucked ass and these were supposed to be the last months of my life. I was supposed to be enjoying life to its fullest.
The only time I'd actually had fun had been the day Delphine had been here, but it already felt like ages ago already since she'd been here and she hadn’t contacted me again. That day she'd stayed the entire afternoon and evening, we'd gone out for grocery shopping together which had been fun, oh right, I’d gone outside that time as well. Grocery shopping had been fun, how lame is that. Grocery shopping is definitely not on the list of fun things to do. But still, we'd had fun together, she'd forced me to sit in a shopping cart and driven me around the grocery store, it had made me feel like a kid again, which was something I hadn't felt in a long time. After we got home she'd cooked for me and we'd watched that lame ass movie about people dying and then we'd spent hours outside in the nearest park, watching the stars while lying on a blanket and me wearing two sweaters because I was cold. Delphine wore literally a t-shirt, which was ridiculous of course.
When I had found out that cancer meant spending a lot of time in bed, I'd begun writing a list of movies and series to watch before I’d die. That list consisted of movies like Alien, the Clockwork Orange, Amelie, Lost, Mad Men, Prison Break and many more titles. Slowly, I was crossing them off one by one.
Upon meeting Delphine I'd even considered learning a new language, French, I used to like learning the language during High School so I might as well dive into it again, even though I hadn’t been very good at it. So far I hadn't gotten past bonjour and ça va/ça va bien et toi, oh and enchanté of course, because these were the things Delphine said on a regular basis. Perhaps I'd ask her if she'd teach me some French, I certainly wouldn't mind learning from her. She was smart (especially when it came to languages) and she was officially one of the coolest people I had ever met in my life. The way she always bubbled enthusiasm and the way she seemed to enter the room like a fresh summer breeze, it was intriguing to say the least. It made me wish I'd met her sooner.
Since the moment Delphine had left my house around midnight two days ago, I'd found myself hoping she'd show up unannounced again sooner rather than later. So far she hadn't. Over the course of my life I'd met a lot of people, fellow students, people in bars, people from work. I'd never once waited by the phone for someone to call me or to come over, it was an alien feeling and it made me feel rather stupid to be honest. If I wanted to see her I should just fucking call her, ask her to come over. I wouldn't though, not because I was too proud to ask her (which I totally was) but mostly because I knew it wouldn't be fair to her, becoming friends with someone unbeknownst of the fact that they had cancer was cruel and I felt the need to stick to that, no matter that she had come over before.
The thought of dying on her alone prevented me from calling or text-messaging Delphine. Befriending someone you genuinely liked when the future looked so bleak was something to avoid at all costs. My doctor would probably disagree but to me it was the only way to look at it. Being friends with someone who had cancer was one thing but befriending someone who had cancer who didn't tell you about it and refused treatment. What kind of person would that make me. Strangely enough, I only felt reasonable like that whenever she wasn't around.
At the same time I knew that if Delphine would suddenly appear on my doorstep, I wouldn't send her away. It would be her own choice, which would make it only a little less heartless of me. This entire situation only made me more aware of how selfish I really was. My friends had often addressed my selfish side, which was a pretty big part of me, yet I had never cared enough to actually do something about it. If I didn't feel like calling, I wouldn't, if I wanted to spend two weeks straight on a new script without speaking to anyone, I would, no matter if one of my friends needed me for something. This attitude had led to troubled conversations often, fights even and in a way I could understand their opinion, in the end though, this was my life, this was my career and I would do whatever the hell I wanted. Perhaps the difference laid in the fact that the rest of my friends had focused on boyfriends and girlfriends and love, it was something I hadn't been able to identify with, especially at a younger age, so I'd started to focus on myself, on my career.
It had led to good things, that at least was true but still, the way my friends often talked about being in love, sometimes I wished I were able to just fall in love too, just like them, it seemed to add some special dimension to their lives that I didn't understand. Even though I was convinced love was overrated, sometimes I wished I knew what it felt like. It would make a lot of things easier, such as conversations about love, which occurred more than you'd think, also giving love advice would be easier, whenever Sarah came over to my place, tears dripping down her face because she'd been dumped, I had no clue as to what to say other than 'it will be all right, give it time, she doesn't deserve you anyway'. Which is probably the lamest advice ever.
This one time Sarah had been dating a guy called Paul and she had found out that he was dating another girl as well. Sarah had asked me what to do, how to confront him and all I had been able to say was 'just tell him that you don't like it'. Sarah had looked at me like I was crazy. Apparently that was not the way to go about such a situation, she'd called me clueless again and rolled her eyes at me. Well, what the fuck did I know of love and dating. Why would anyone come to me for advice when they knew I had zero experience on the topic. Talk about clueless.
A loud knocking on the front door violently jolted me out of my thoughts and I sat upright on my couch, almost kneeing myself in the face in the process. Who the hell could that be, knocking on my door on such a fine day. Most of my friends would be outside, spending their day at the park or even at the beach, no doubt Spencer and Lee would be spending their day with their feet in the sand, soaking up every beam of sunlight that would shine down. Perhaps it would be someone bringing God. That happened often nowadays, or perhaps, without listening to loud music as usual, I actually heard the people knocking for once. My ears had become real sensitive to sound ever since chemo had started so I played my LP player at an acceptable volume these days. Which apparently lead to hearing people knock on my front door more often. Right. Someone was standing at my door.
Without hurrying I went over to the door and opened it. I was immediately greeted by a jolt going through my entire body. Delphine. She leaned casually against my doorpost, a lazy smile on her face. She wore tight, black jeans and a white sleeveless top that showed off beautifully muscled arms and shoulders. She’d put on a pair of Nikes and rolled up her pant legs, showing off her ankles. She was more tanned than I remembered. As during the times I’d seen her, she wore little make-up, just some mascara and her blond curls were freshly washed and wild as ever. She truly was a sight for sore eyes.
“Delphine” I exclaimed happily.
She threw me a smirk. “Hello, get dressed, I’ve decided you need to get out more so I’m taking you somewhere.”
About three quarters of an hour later I found myself staring at a river just outside of town. The water streamed fast due to the large amount of water that had rained down during the past few weeks but it was a pleasant sight. I liked water, always had. It calmed me down. Even better than staring at water was being fully engulfed by it, swimming in rivers, streams, lakes, the sea and even swimming pools was something I enjoyed and had done often, at least once a week before chemo had started. At a young age I had made it my goal to swim in as many different sources of water as possible. I’d even tried a canal, a ditch and several fountains but they hadn't really been a success, canals were nasty and filled with things you didn't want to touch because it might give you hep A or something, ditches were filled with dirty-looking water and a lot of mud, which made getting out difficult as fuck. A water tower still stood uncrossed on my bucket list but I had no clue as to how to manage crossing off that one.
Delphine leaned against a tree and had suggested for me to lay down my head in her lap. I had and she stared at my hair.
“Why do you have dreads?”
“Because I’m lazy.”
“You have beautiful hair.”
“Yeah. I inherited it from my dad.”
“I got my hair from my mother, she always had long, blond curls.”
I frowned. “Had?”
“Oui, she cut it off a couple of years back.”
“Why?”
“That’s what I asked her before she cut it, she told me her hair was turning grey and she didn’t want to have long grey hair so she had it cut short, now she had these short, grey curls but she can totally pull it off.”
I smiled up at Delphine. “Do you look like her?”
“Very much, you, do you look like your parents?”
“I am the perfect combination of my parents, got my dad’s hair, he’s fifty-eight right now and doesn’t have a grey hair on his head, got his eyes too, according to my mom he used to be the most handsome man in the entire country.”
“And she got him.”
“Yes, she is still very proud of that. Anyway, I got my mom’s face, same mouth, same nose, even the same body, though her boobs are bigger, she blames me.”
That made Delphine laugh aloud before she asked. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“Nope, only child, I was adopted. They couldn’t have kids of their own.”
“Why not?”
“They never told me so I don’t know. You?”
“Well, I come from a big family, I have three sisters, I am the third child.”
“Do they still live in Belgium?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you come to live here anyway?”
She started pulled at the grass beside her and she bit her lip in thought for a moment, she looked away from my face and looked out onto the river, a sad smile on her face. “Got the opportunity of a lifetime with work, right after I finished my degree.”
“Where did you go after university?”
“First I went to Paris, I told you before right.”
“Ah, yes, sorry, I tend to forget things, you studied languages there.”
Bloody chemo had turned my brain into a colander, important information sometimes just seeped through the holes in my drainer-head.
“It’s all right. So I studied there for four years, worked at that same university for a while as a language teacher, all the while translating on the side for a large company that focused on translating books mostly. Once I had established myself as a translator enough, I stopped teaching and focused on translating only, eventually, the company I worked for offered me a job here, so I moved here last winter.”
“What kind of job did they offer you? I thought you were a freelancer?”
“Yeah, I was, my official job description says I’m a floor manager but I have to go to the office only once a week, I keep in touch with my people through e-mail and phone calls mostly.”
“And what do you do?”
“I make sure they get the books and texts that need to be translated, remind them of deadlines, sometimes I hire and of course I translate as well.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Good, that’s important, liking your job.”
“It really is, so I guess I’m like you, always focussing on my work.”
“No time for a personal life and relationships?” I asked.
Delphine smiled. “I tried, but I’ve never met anyone who’s been worthy of my attention more than my work.”
“So no string of exes.”
“No, you can count my exes on one hand, none of them were serious, not to me anyway. How about you? I hear you’ve got an even shorter list than me.”
I grinned. “You’ve been talking to Sarah about me, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I wanted to know about you.”
“What did you want to know?”
“Who you are basically.”
I nodded and decided I liked that she wanted to know about me. “Well, like you said, I have a very short list, I’ve never really been into anyone, tried dating here and there but I’m just not that into people, frankly speaking, they bore me mostly, so at a certain point I just stopped trying.”
A look of disappointment crossed Delphine’s face and for a long moment she said nothing. “So, I hear you’re gay?”
“I don’t believe in labels, I believe sexuality is a spectrum and you either lean toward liking boys more or liking girls more.”
“And where are you on this spectrum?”
“Definitely leaning toward gay.”
Delphine started tracing my arm with her fingernails, making me shiver and she stared off into the distance. She sported a troubled look on her face that made me wonder what she was thinking about. I decided I wouldn’t ask, afraid of what her answer might be. During the times we’d seen each other it had become clear to me that she liked me more than a friend, which was difficult for me. I wasn’t sure whether I actually wanted to be with anyone, period. Even if I didn’t have cancer, I’d seen my friends fall in love and be hurt so badly in the process that every kind of appeal love might have once had, had slowly faded away like a trail of smoke in the sky. Romance was something that had lost its meaning over the years. Sure, I liked Delphine, a lot, but I wouldn’t call it anything more than that. I enjoyed being in her company but that was it. Or wasn't it? I didn't know. For the first time ever I realized I wouldn’t recognize being in love even if it bit me in the ass, so in the end it was easier to believe that I just liked Delphine as a friend. Especially with my inevitable death coming closer and closer with each day.
I made a promise to myself and a silent one to Delphine right there on the spot. No matter how my feelings would develop toward her, even if (and that was an if in capital letters) I would fall in love with her and actually recognize it, I would not act upon them, because it just wouldn’t be fair to her. But assuming there wouldn’t be any feelings to develop was easier to swallow so I just stuck to that. I sighed in resignation, my head was a mess. She turned my head into a mess. Ever since she had whirl-winded into my life, things had started to change, hell, I had started to change. Suddenly there were thoughts of maybe-liking someone, there were thoughts of maybe-telling people about my cancer, there occasionally had been thoughts of surviving all the chemo treatments, most shocking though, was the need to be with Delphine. I knew it was a sign of maybe-liking someone but I decided to just plain out ignore it.
We sat in silence for a while and though there was a desperate need inside of me to say something, after a while I didn't know what to say so keeping quiet seemed to best way to go about the situation. Delphine said nothing either and appeared to be lost in thought. Therefore I just stared at the sky, at the puffy, nothing-resembling clouds that drifted by lazily. When I had been younger, I had always wanted to sit on those clouds, like an angel, staring down at the world, but later on I had heard that it is freezing up there and pretty windy, so sitting or rather lounging on top of clouds had lost its appeal. As if it were possible to even sit on clouds. I'd watched too many cartoons when I was younger. Still, I had always liked clouds, especially the puffy white ones I was seeing floating in the sky above, they comforted me. They contrasted beautifully against the stark blue sky behind them.
Every now and then my gaze shifted from the sky to Delphine who continued being in thought, though her expression had lost its edginess from before. It had obviously upset her and I thought I understood why, probably would have myself if the roles were reversed. If only I could have been normal, like the rest of the world. Well, that wasn't true, normal was overrated, what was normal anyway.
Was Sarah normal with her obsession of getting attention and flirted with? Was Alison with always wanting to be better at everything than anyone? Or what about Spencer, who couldn't sleep anywhere but at home. Was anyone on this planet truly normal? Probably not. I was convinced everyone had their quirks and silly habits even though they didn't walk around tell everyone they came across. My mother for example never went anywhere without her lucky penny, my father always checked the bedroom for spiders, Delilah always drew little hearts above Is and Js and I had noticed Delphine always checked the time on the watch with the broken wristband she carried in her right pant pocket. Hell I whistled Christmas songs all year long.
Everyone was different in their own way and had different characteristics and were considered 'not normal' according to others. My not ever having liked anyone, did that really make me all that different from the rest of the world? My friends had made it seem that way, always questioning my sexuality or my a-sexuality as they referred to it. Was my lack of interest in the opposite sex or the same sex really that different from not being able to sleep anywhere but at home? It wasn't to me, perhaps because it was my kind of normal. Yet to others, I was strange, only because they didn't understand my situation. My lack of interest in sex didn't make me a freak, it just made me a little different.
As the thoughts in my head swivelled and swirled around violently, making me go from one strain of thought to another, I realized how tired thinking made me so for a minute I closed my eyes, only to drift off in a dreamless sleep within a matter of moments.
When I woke up again I found the sun had lowered in the western sky and shadows were considerably longer than before I'd fallen asleep. I looked up into Delphine's eyes who smiled at me gently, the troubled look no longer haunting her eyes. Her left hand was on my chest, as if she'd been checking my heartbeat, while her other was stroking my shoulder, occasionally her nails scratched my skin but it didn't hurt, it actually felt rather pleasant.
"Hi.”
I worked my tongue through my mouth, hoping to bring some saliva back into my dry mouth.
"Oh, wait! Here," Delphine said and leaned over to the picnic basket. "What would you like, juice or water?”
"Juice please.”
She'd thought of everything for the picnic, she'd brought several kinds of drinks, food, music and of course a blanket. She'd put everything into a real picnic basket and driven me out here, to the middle of nowhere where there were no people, where there was no sound other than singing birds, chirping insects, the gentle ripple of water moving over and against the pebbles of the riverbank. It was nice and peaceful. To my surprise I realized it was a relief to be out in nature after all the weeks I'd spent in and out of the hospital. Though my parents lived in the suburbs, which was considerably less crowded and busy, being at their place just wasn't quite like being here.
Whenever anyone asked me where I'd spend the rest of my life, I had always replied with the same two words 'the city' for I had always thought I wasn't a countryside-kind-of-girl. But being here, with my head in Delphine's lap, I could picture myself waking up on some sort of farmhouse and walking outside, looking at the river that would be flowing only fifty yards away, smelling the pleasant smell of freshly-mowed grass and trees, hearing birds sing their song, crickets chirp in the distance. I'd look upon all the green of the grass and trees, I would take it in every morning and afternoon and evening and I would probably love every second of it. Despite the fact that I had always thought of myself as a typical city-girl who had no ambition to move anywhere other than a couple of blocks away because the neighbourhood I lived in was great, I would probably love it out here.
If I'd survive my cancer, I would consider moving out here somewhere, have a house built or find one and fix it up the way I liked it. Perhaps it could become a summer house of some sort, surely my parents would love that, unlike me, they had always loved the countryside and went camping at least once a year. Every year, from my first until my sixteenth, they had dragged me along on their camping trips and I guess I had liked them but only because camping made for great sketching. Every morning I'd head out into the woods or to some sort of lake or river where I'd spend the day drawing my surroundings. The camping itself hadn't been that great, the people were just not my kind of people, the peeing and pooping and showering in the stalls that were practically open was something I had abhorred and dreaded during the weeks before a holiday. My parents had told me regularly not to be a whiney-pants but from a young age I had decided that camping just wasn't for me, I'd rather go on holiday to some sort of resort where I'd have a private bathroom, a swimming pool, a sauna and most important room service. Call me spoiled but that was just the way I liked to spend my holidays. Camping was just too much work.
"Here you go," Delphine said as she handed me a bottle of orange juice.
"Thank you," I smiled, opened the lid carefully and propped myself up onto an elbow so I could take a swig.
"Would you like to eat something? I brought fruit and sandwiches.”
I laid back down in Delphine's lap after closing the lid on the bottle again, I stared up at her and smiled. Delphine looked down and seemed to be unable to not smile back at me. "What is it?”
"Thank you for today.”
"The day is not over.”
"I know but thank you, I've missed doing things like this, you're a good," I said, unsure of how to end that sentence but decided this was the best and safest way. "Friend, you're a good friend and good company.”