Better Off There Than Here

"I'm sorry." she said to her, taking grip of the hand of the person she keeps dear to her heart. She sensed a high level of disapointment in her eyes, and wished to comfort her the best she could.

Tears sliding vertically from her face, she replied. "No- no, it's okay. I understand. Your doctor says it's for the best."

The two girls, sitting quietly in the middle of the luminous, softly sound coffee shop, didn't touch either of their drinks, for one of their spirits had been shot down by a sharp, dark arrow of misfortune, and the other, plagued by it for several months. The falling spirit cannot help but to cry. Everything she adored suddenly began to tumble down beneath her feet.

"I hope this will help you get better sooner, Daisy." one girl said to the other, looking at her friend's pale face, and the black, glossy bunch of hair, making it obvious to any on-looker that it truly does not belong to her.

Tapping her index finger upon the coffee mug, Daisy replied. "My doctor told me he's sure it will." Letting go of her hand, and looking into her sapphire eyes, she added. "But I don't like that I'll have to leave you, Marissa."

She doesn't like that fact anymore than her best friend does. Marissa possibly dislikes it even more. She goes through a corpse-like state of being through her day-to-day life. Having a father dependant on vodka and his newly-wed and so-called "Better half" under the influence of multiple recommended doses of pain killers doesn't send Marissa off dandy and chipper whenever stepping foot into her home. The other environment she spends a good deal of her time in, school, isn't one of her favorite places to be either, like it once had. All the friends who shown a mask of sincerity quickly snapped back at her after befriending "Loopy Leukemia," leaving their faux faces torn and dilapidated.

Daisy Warner has never been seen as anything but weird by the teenagers of Taylorsville, North Carolina. From enjoying toad catching in her free time to choosing to dress in costume-like attires ever since the seventh grade, the whole school found it bizarre. "Crazy Daisy" they used to title her before a loose-lipped gossiper leaked of her then, newly discovered diagnoses to the entire school populace only a year prior. All the kids looked forward to seeing her long, blonde locks vanish, though that only started happening months ago when she started the chemotherapy.

Marissa became immune to her peers gawks and reticules. A single friend is better to have than a hundred of fake ones, she continuously thought. "She must be strange to want to be around that freak." she heard some say in class, the hallways, and lunch room. The chatting and the stares were unavoidable. Now, this being the middle of July, both Marissa and Daisy have been able to more at ease, up until now at least. Their departure was not what either of them foreseen, or wished to happen. With Daisy's fleeing of the state, Marissa will no longer have a real friend at school, nor a prosthetic one.

"How badly has it getting?" Marissa asked, addressed to Daisy's cancer.

"Pretty badly," Daisy replied, turning her hazel eyes away from Marissa's stare.

"I'm guessing it has to be, having to describe it with an oxymoron." she chuckled. Emotions, for her, are easier to suppress when overlapped with cheeky humor.

Daisy laughed in response. "The cancer is spreading, and Illinois having a hospital with really good treatment for it, my doctor recommended my parents to move over there, and to transfer me over to the hospital's care."

Marissa nodded in reply, not being sure of what to say.

"I'm sure you'll be able to make new friends when school begins again, Marissa. Not every at Taylorsville High is a jerk." Daisy said kindly.

What? she thought. Yes they are! You should know that more than anymore, Daisy.

"And maybe without me around, they will all leave you alone."

Marissa felt angry by with remark. "No, they probably wont." she said. "Don't think that way; that it is your fault I lost all my friends. They were never really my friends, and I'd rather have you on my side and them giving me hell than not being friends with you at all."

Daisy grinned with gratitude. "Same here," she said.

Looking back into each other's eyes, they have never felt so close. Hating feeling so selfish, part of Marissa wants her cancer struck friend to stay with her instead of moving far away, and possibly getting better. The same part of her questioned if she were a bad person for thinking that. Then Marissa pondered back to the bohemian girl she knew from years ago. She doesn't want Daisy to endure being the target of laughs at school any longer. To being "Loopy Leukemia" any longer. Daisy will need person strength to help her push, lift, and overcome the powerful weight of her sickness, and living in the habitation of Taylorsville will not permit that to occur.

Marissa, still not liking the idea of her best and only friend being many miles apart, could now accept it the beating of her heart. As much as she loves not being alone, she loves her friend Daisy more, so same as she had said earlier with tears flooding her eyes, "It's for the best."