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As I leave the hospital room and walk through the hallways, it’s as if an invisible weight is being lifted off my shoulders. One by one, the pounds of stress, anxiety, isolation and claustrophobia turn to t. They disintegrate and float off into the air. I’m going to live my life and do what I can while I can.
Dad drove my car here so Jesse and Taylor ride in it with me, Ender and Mads following behind us in his truck. I look in my rearview mirror at a stop sign. Madison is sitting in the center of the truck's bench seat, cuddled up to my best friend. With all the shit Ender’s gone through the past year and a half, it’s nice to see him happy. I really like Madison, too. She and I have finally gotten a chance to know each other better.
When I was stuck in hospital hell, she would sneak me in onion rings and milkshakes from the diner she works at. The onion rings were usually cold by the time her beat up used car made it to the hospital, but they were still delicious. Even if they didn’t stay down for long most days. The hospital was only a forty-five-minute drive from her work–but her car wouldn’t go over fifty miles an hour, so it took her closer to an hour. I tried to get her to drive my car while I couldn’t, but she refused. Madison is fiercely an independent woman. She also oddly loves her tiny used car. I think it has something to do with it being something that’s completely hers.
As I look at my best friends, coupled up–Taylor and Jesse, Madison and Ender–a strange thought occurs to me. I want what they have. Never once have I had the desire to have an actual, real relationship. One that lasted beyond sex. It’s almost an unsettling thought, and I try to push it from my mind.
We make it to the barn, and I pull right up to the big barn doors. Jesse jumps out of the car to slide the doors open so we can pull in. Everything looks exactly as I remember it. It’s only been a few weeks since I’ve been here, but it feels like a lifetime. Before I got sick, I spent most of my time here.
We spend the next few hours playing video games and letting Taylor be the one to shit talk the other players through the headset. We laugh until we cry. Everyone tells me about their classes they're taking and all the homework I’m not missing out on. I managed to keep up with a few classes remotely. I thought I’d love it, not having to physically be in class. To my surprise, I actually miss going to the campus. I miss a lot of the mundane things. The things I thought were boring about my life before I got sick. I miss normalcy.
Ender and Jesse tell me how football’s been going. Madison tells me howshethinks it’s been going. For someone who hadn’t ever watched an entire football game until this year–she’s a mad woman when it comes to our football team. Obsessive is an appropriate term.
She and Ender are sitting in the small loveseat and she gets so animated she has to sit up and detangle herself from Ender’s arms. Apparently, we’ve only won two games this season, and she thinks she has the solution to our losing streak figured out. Ender hangs his head and I laugh when she tells the story of how the coach reacted to her telling him this plan of hers.
“Well, next weekend's game is a home game and we’re all going,” I say, eyeing Taylor, who groans.
“I’ll be there, but I won’t be nearly as excited as the two of you,” she says, pointing at Madison and I.
I laugh at Taylor’s grimace. She hates football, but she loves supporting Jesse.
“Fine, but none of that sitting in the stands bullshit. We’re standing on the sidelines. I might not be able to play right now, but I’m still part of the team.”
“Damn right you are,” Jesse shouts, leaning over and patting me on the back.
I wonder if he can feel how fragile I am under his hands. How different my body is from being ravaged by cancer and the treatment that’s supposed to cure the cancer.
We play video games some more, joke and laugh and order too much pizza. By early evening though–I’ve hit a wall and can no longer pretend I’m not exhausted. I grow some balls and tell everyone I need to go rest. It makes me physically sick to my stomach to admit how weak I am–or maybe that’s a treatment side effect. Nausea.
I jump in my car to give Taylor and Jesse a ride to Jesse’s place. Jesse is making us all laugh on the drive as he usually does. I drop them off and debate on where I want to head back to; the barn or my parents’ house. I send Mom a text letting her know I’m staying the night at the barn. I let her assume that I’m not staying alone because I need some time to myself without the smell of antiseptic and latex gloves.
I get up to my loft just in time, crashing as soon as my head hits the pillow. The familiar scent of the detergent mom buys lulls me into a deep sleep.
Unfortunately, I’m so used to sleeping in spurts of only a few hours that I’m wide awake again by one in the morning. I try and fail for half an hour to go back to sleep before giving up and crawling out of bed. Not sure yet where I’m heading, I pull on a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and head down to my car.
A few minutes later, I find myself driving east down Main Street. The town is asleep, and Main Street is only lit by the decorative lamp posts. All the shops are dark, but I can still make out their Halloween decorations. When I pass all the buildings, I turn south onto a familiar dirt road and follow it for half a mile, turning off into the grass and weeds at exactly the right time. I park under the looming water tower but stay in my car for a long time, leaning over the steering wheel and looking up at it.
I’ve only come out here a few times after Ender and I climbed it that first time. It’s been months though since I was last up on the tower. There’s something about being up there, seeing the entire town I grew up in and love–all at once–that makes everything else in my life seem small. Even the cancer, which is in my blood and literally streaming through my entire body, seems smaller when my perspective is changed sitting on top of the water tower.
After too much thinking, I get out of my car and start the climb.
It takes me longer to make it up the ladder than it did the first time. I get winded halfway up and have to pause to catch my breath. I finally make it up and sit by the edge, letting my feet dangle and lean my arms onto the railing. My breath comes out in front of me in little puffs of white. It’s still too early in the season to snow, but the nights are getting colder. I let my mind go blank as I stare out at the town. The thoughts of what if this, and what if that, evaporating into the air along with the steam from my breath.
I’ve been sitting up here for almost half an hour when I hear a noise on the ground. I look down, expecting to see a deer or some other animal. It’s not a deer I see though—it’s a girl.
Her long hair that hangs loose down her back and her small breasts are visible even in the night. She’s heading toward the water tower ladder and, sure enough, starts climbing it. I freeze—not sure what I should do. Only Ender knows I come out here and I’ve never seen anyone else around here before. It doesn’t surprise me I’m not the only one who seeks the thrill of being so high.
I watch curiously as she makes her way up the ladder, completely oblivious to me sitting up here in the near darkness. Do I call out to her? No, I don’t want to risk her falling if I startle her. As she gets closer, I can see even in the dark that her long hair is thick strands of red, nearly a flame orange color. She’s thin and wearing plaid pajama pants with a white long sleeve thermal shirt. As she moves up the ladder I can see that although she’s thin, she has womanly curves. A tight, round ass and curvy hips.
I tug on my beanie, pulling it down around my ears to make sure it’s covering my bald head, suddenly a little self conscious of my own appearance as I admire hers.
She’s almost made it to the top. When she does and is securely on the platform, I speak in a low voice.
“Um–Hi,” I say.
I couldn’t think of anything else.
She startles, but doesn’t lose her footing. Her eyes go wide as if she is a deer–scared to move.
