Dying Is Easy, Living Is Harder
*1996*
An arm.
A tube.
Skin.
Touching.
The smell of alcohol swabs.
I hate it.
I can feel it, wrapping around me.
I’m scared, but I won’t say so.
It’s crushing me, her soul, my soul, cancer, it’s… me, and it’s consuming me and everything, and I fall into darkness, and suddenly there’s a hand on my arm, calling my name, and I shift angrily under their touch, opening my eyes.
I see Nurse Sprout and I grit my teeth. I woke up. Again. Joy. Not that I fancy the nightmares I’ve been having, exactly, but I suppose it’s better than real life.
“Your parents will be here in a few minutes,” Sprout says as she presses buttons on my machine. I watch the medicine trickle down into the tubes attached to my skin. I’m grateful that the curtain is still drawn; I don’t want to see the new girl. I already forgot her name. Penny, maybe. Bluebell? It sounded like a type of cheese. I don’t care. I stop thinking.
There’s a knock on the door, and I watch as my mother walks into the room. She’s accompanied by a man who’s not my father.
“Lavie,” my mother gushes, using the nickname from my childhood that I’ve always hated. She walks over to my bed, and the man stays by the door. Sprout looks back at me with a smile as she goes to the other side of the curtain to attend to the other girl. I hear waking noises.
I give a pained smile to my mother, who’s looking at me as if I’m the only person in the world. It won’t last.
Mum coughs and looks back at the man. “Obviously, he isn’t your father…” she begins, laughing awkwardly. “He’s just a friend of mine.”
I’ve seen many friends of hers. She never stays friends with them for long.
I want to ask if he’ll be here soon, but I know better, so I don’t. Instead, I say, “How’s the book coming?”
Now it’s my mum’s turn to grimace. “Oh, you know… same as always, I suppose.”
“Thanks for the new information.”
She nods stiffly, and squeezes my arm. On the other side of the curtain, I hear Sprout speaking to the new kid. I pray that mum doesn’t hear, but she does. She always does.
“You have a new roommate?” mum askes, glancing behind her.
I nod. “She’s annoying,” I mumble.
“I’m sure she’s not that bad, Lavie.”
I shrug in response.
“Maybe you could talk to her.”
“You say that about everyone.”
“It’s true!” mum claims. “You need friends,” she says in a sad tone. Like she actually cares.
“I have friends,” I say, gesturing to my books and music records. Mum rolls her eyes.
“Tim O'Brien is not your friend.”
“I don’t care. It’s the only company I enjoy nowadays.”
There’s a pause. Mum’s unsure what to say, I bet. She’s always been bloody awful at this shite.
Here’s the thing about mum. She’s been going from ‘friend’ to ‘friend’ ever since dad left. She manages to visit me a few times a month, but is usually preoccupied with whoever she’s travelling around the world with. In the past year, She’s seen Africa, America, as well as India, and I haven’t been out of the bloody city in a year. And when she does visit me, she only stays for half an hour at most. Back when she and dad were still together, we all used to dream of travelling together (France, Hawaii, you name it). But when dad kept falling off the wagon and mum couldn’t afford coverup for her bruises anymore due to all of our travel money going towards alcohol, the dream died. Dad left. Mum moved on. I went to the hospital. Mum met Jordan. And then she met Michael, Arnold, and Sam. She went to Puerto Rico last year with one of them. I was too sick to go, so she left me with the neighbor.
The man clears his throat by the door, interrupting the awkward conversation.
“Babe, our reservation for brunch is in fifteen minutes.”
Mum looks back at him.
“Mum, you can go if you want.”
“I’ve only been here a few minutes, though…”
“Mum. You clearly want to go. I’ll see you next week. Have fun.”
Mum smiles gratefully at me in return. “I’ll bring you back something nice,” she says.
“I’m sure you will,” I reply, even though I know she won’t.
“What would you like?”
“Surprise me.”
Mum gives a strained smile. “I’ll see you soon, Lavie,” she calls as she walks out the door with her ‘friend’.
I’m sure she thinks she will. I’ll probably see her again in a few weeks when she remembers my existence.
I sigh and lay down on my bed. I begin to do my morning stretches. I lift a squeeze ball on my night table. It falls out of my grasp. I try again. I can’t get a hold. My arm shakes, and I’m forced to use my other arm to support the one holding the ball. The ball falls out of my hand again after I’ve finally managed to get a few squeezes in, but instead of rolling back onto the night table like it has numerous times, it drops to the floor and disappears to the other side of the still drawn curtain.
I curse under my breath and sigh. No way will I ask for it back. I never intentionally talk to anyone besides my mother, anyhow. It’s about the amount she deserves. The new kid, on the other hand; they don’t deserve a goddamn thing. They’ve done nothing but annoy me this entire time. Sprout will probably end up getting it for me this afternoon when she sees it on the floor.
I hear a shuffle behind the curtain, and stifle a groan. They've seen the ball. The curtain is opened, and the girl appears. Oh, right. She’s not a kid. She’s my age, according to Pomfrey, and I’m not a kid.
She holds her trailing wires up with one hand so they won’t tug on her IV and port, and she holds my ball with the other.
“Er. I think you dropped this,” she says, holding the ball out to me. I give her a nod and take it. Our fingers touch for a second, and she flinches. I bet she felt a ‘connection’ or some shit from one of her novels. I roll my eyes and flop back on my bed, placing the ball in its rightful place.
“Why are you so rude to everyone?” she asks. She doesn’t sound hurt by my actions, only curious.
I don’t answer, which she should’ve expected. I pray that she’ll go back to her bed, stare at Harry dreamily, and leave me alone.
“It wasn’t a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to know.”
I take a deep breath and ignore her.
“Bloody hell,” she says. “Is it so bad to want a friend in this place?”
“Yes.”
This statement slips out of my mouth, and I bite my tongue to keep from saying more.
“Why?”
“Never you mind,” I say, hoping to end her endless questions. “Thanks for the ball; you may go now.”
“I’m not your servant.”
“I never said you were. Just stop talking to me.”
“Why? Why are you being rude to me? Why are you rude to your mum?”
I inhale sharply. “You don’t know a bloody thing about my mum,” I say. This conversation is quickly spinning out of control.
“Let me guess,” the girl says, putting her hands on her hips. “Daddy’s gone, and you’re disappointed that he never visits. Mum comes sometimes, and she cares about you, even if she’s not in her right mind. And you… you hate everything because you’ve given up on life. Am I correct?”
“Got that from Julie Garwood, didn’t you?” I retort, blood rising to my face.
“Maybe. But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“You don’t know anything. Go back to Jane Austen and leave me alone.”
The girl grits her teeth. “Lavender, I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”
“Thank fuck.”
The other takes a deep breath, opens her mouth to say something else, but by then I’ve closed my eyes and rolled to the other side of the bed. The only thing I hear from her the rest of the day are sniffles and reassuring noises from her mum. I catch a glare once or twice from the latter.
I don’t give a flying rat’s arse.
I flip through the channels on the television. My So Called Life is on. I groan and switch it off.
Someone told me once to stop living in the past, and to live in the present instead. I had pondered that for only a moment, then realized that my present blows. What if I wanted to live in the future? But, upon further realization, I concluded that I have none. So now, I prefer to not live at all.
That’s why I don’t talk. Because if she didn’t get to live, I sure as fuck shouldn’t be allowed to either.