Saving Ella (40 page)

Bree

I shivered as I pulled the quilt up around my ears, my body curved into a pillow on my side. The drapes were drawn the room dark even though it was light out. It was November on the Eastern coast of Australia which meant it was warm bordering on hot, but I was freezing. I just couldn’t seem to shake off the chill that had invaded my body eight long months ago. I had lost so much weight I would no doubt be lighter than a feather, but I felt heavy. My soul was no longer treading deep waters, it was drowning in it. I had eclipsed sadness months ago and now seemed to exist in a deep well of nothing. The world I lived in now was silent, there was no music, there were no friends, there was nothing but fear and repulsiveness. With a long drawn out shuddering breath I forced myself from my bed, I really had to pee. It pissed me off that my bodily functions kept me from existing in the comfortable cushions and blankets of my bed. In the bathroom I glanced at the mirror, or what would have been the mirror if I had not covered it with a towel. I hated the girl who looked back at me from that mirror. That wasn’t me, it was an imposter. My eyes were darker somehow, by cheeks hollow, my full lips were always cracked and dry, my body thin and spindly. Worst of all was the smooth bald scalp that seemed to ridicule me, not to mention the non-existent eye brows and eye lashes. The hair on my arms and legs was gone too, though I guess that wasn’t such a bad thing. Worse yet was when my pubic hair began to fall out. Some women paid top dollar for that look, to me it just looked like cancer. The girl whose reflection used to consume that mirror had bright eyes that were a little bit blue and a little bit green, her lips were usually covered in a cherry flavored gloss and her high cheeks accented with a quick dash of color. And her hair was long, thick and golden. That girl was gone.

When I went to the doctor eight months ago complaining of fatigue and an unusual lump in my neck the last thing I expected to hear was Cancer.
Hodgkins Lymphoma which thankfully was discovered at a very early stage. A combination of chemotherapy and radiation was required which had completely racked my body. And nobody told me that along with my body I would also lose my soul. I have no idea where it went. I couldn’t even tell you when it went. It seemed one day everything was fine, I was coping and my positive attitude saw a smile on my face even after the long hours of vomiting and diarrhea which seemed to follow my treatment. Then the next day I woke and it felt like the world was crushing me. Eight-seven percent of survivors live past the five year mark following treatment. I had been relatively healthy at the time of my diagnosis and they caught it early, so Dr. Kwan assured me the outlook was good. My brain refused to receive that information. All I heard was you might get another five years, good luck with that. I knew I was depressed, I knew the pity party had stayed on much longer than it should have, but I couldn’t pull myself out of this funk. I was trapped.

As I washed my hands I glanced at the t-shirt that lay over the washing basket in the corner of the bathroom and my chest ached with a whole new pain. It belonged to Harper, my best friend, the guy I had loved my entire life. I didn’t just love
him, I was in love with him. I hadn’t whispered a word to him in eight long months, he knew nothing about this ugly girl who had invaded his best friends body. George had been threatening to call him if I didn’t get up and leave the apartment soon and stubbornly I remained indoors. Poor George who had sacrificed so much for me and we weren’t even family, but he was the closest to a father I had ever had. My mother was kind of a hippie, hard core, to the bone hippie. She lived in a commune in the middle of the desert for goodness sake. She had no idea who my father was, apparently several men were a possibility and I had decided all the men who lived in the ‘motherland’ were a bunch of sex craved perverts anyway. George was the perfect adopt a dad. But even George who loved me just like a father should was unable to prevent the cancer from ravaging my body. What he could do for me though was take care of me, and that’s exactly what had done. He began working from home. He did something with investments that I really knew nothing about. He was good according to Harper. When I had had to sell my car to pay for treatment he drove me to and from as many of my appointments as he could and when he couldn’t his son Remi was there in his stead. He cooked for me and cleaned up the apartment when I was too tired to move from bed. George was my rock and I knew this shattering depression was destroying him too and I hated myself for that. I was fairly sure George would honor my wish to not call Harper, but there was a small part of me that desperately needed my best friend here now and I guess I hoped George would see through on his threat. I pulled off my tracksuit and climbed into Harper’s shirt. It was too big and looked more like a nighty but it still smelled like him and it gave me some resemblance of peace to have it close to me. Dragging myself back to my bedroom I instinctively pressed the play button on my iPod that sat docked with speakers on large retro style desk, painted in a dusty shade of worn yellow. I loved my desk and right now it was buried under a sea of paper, bills and clothes. The clutter bothered me, I was a neat freak but right now I couldn’t gather the energy required to divest my treasured desk of the mess. Avril Lavigne’s voice filled my room as I dived under the covers and pulled them up tightly around my ears. Her ballad Wish You Were Here entered through my ears, rolled around my mind and sent an ache to my heart so painful I thought it might finally break. I knew this song was a form of torture on my heavy soul, but the words were full of so much truth I couldn’t ignore them, I couldn’t not listen to them.

I can be tough

I can be strong

But with you

It's not like that at all

There's a girl

That gives a shit

Behind this wall

You just walked through it

And I remember all those crazy things you said

You left them running through my head

You're always there, you're everywhere

But right now I wish you were here.

All those crazy things we did

Didn't think about it, just went with it

You're always there, you're everywhere

But right now I wish you were here.

I forced my eyes shut, trapping the tears beneath my closed lids and allowed the music to lull me into a place of detachment, sleep. In sleep I was numb, completely oblivious to the disaster my world had been thrown into. Sleep was where I wanted to live right now, so sleep I did.

Coming soon