My life ended three months ago.
I feel like I have an expiry date – like my life is already over, like I’m just biding time. In reality, I am.
Jessica and Eden eye me suspiciously, as if I’m a wild animal. They’ve been plotting, I know. They have been for a while. My arms are criss-crossed with frenzied cuts, my hair hangs limp and my pale ribs stick out grotesquely from my frail, emaciated body.
“We have something for you,” Eden whispers. Her lips are too red, the only colour in the sparse, frigid room. The colour of fresh blood. They hurt my eyes.
A faint smirk plays on her lips.
“We’re making,” she whispers, and Jess finishes.
“Tea.”
The world goes slower, like it always does before the dares. My vision ascends into multi-faceted clarity; I feel my breathing steady and relax.
The pan is cheap and old, its shine long gone in the onslaught of tarnish, but my eyes extenuate it. They cast dark shadows on the waters glistening surface, tiny bubbles reflecting the excited fear in Eden and Jessica’s eyes.
I know what they see and I see it too. I see my hand sliding into the water and my eyes misting over, I feel the red hot pain in my head. I know what to do.
The water doesn’t hurt, not in the real sense of the world. It takes me above, above the clouds, above reality. I am too frail, and I drift away, to the day my life ended.
Cancer.
It happens, I knew. I understood that, but I also knew, secretly that I would never get it. Cancer happens to other people. So when they told me and I knew they were lying I laughed and my laughs turned to thick, choking tears. I drowned in that river, and left myself behind. 4 months was all I had left then, now I have one.
It spread to my lungs and I had trouble breathing. Back then she sat up with me all night, but now all she does is cry and cry, so I leave her.
My thoughts spread like soup, they disable my brain, then my body and suddenly nothing makes sense. I feel myself groan and spasm and fall. My breathing retches itself up in huge disgusting gasps, my feet kick up splinters.
My life ends.
