TICK to the TOCK (A Coming-of-Age Story) (5 page)

Staying is to surround myself with people who know my fate. Staying means accepting I'll die in a hospital bed, clinging to the branch like that stubborn leaf.
 

Taking a deep breath, I place my hand on my chest and press down hard.
Drum, drum, drum, drum, drum
it goes, the thought of giving in like this causing panic within. My body's telling me something. It's telling me to leave, not stay and dwindle away with regret and longing.

But I'm scared. The doctors don't know what's going to happen with me. They know the headaches will get worse. They know my meds will get stronger. They know it will be hard no matter what, but they don't actually know anything. If I leave, I risk never saying goodbye to my mother. I risk dying in a barren wasteland where nobody cares who I am.
 

And so the question continues to haunt:
what am I going to do?
 

Ethan wants me to stay, and my parents can't comprehend why I would want to leave, but I can't expect them to understand, not when I don't fully understand it myself. Staying makes sense, but so does leaving, and round and round it spins, all the while the constant monologue inside my head, asking:
what the fuck am I going to do?

My chest is still pounding, but I remove my fingers and place them on the wet window. Cool and soothing, I rest my forehead on the glass, the chill instant and refreshing. The smudged canvas continues to rush by, my pupils struggling to keep up with the constant blur. Closing my eyes, I imagine being out there, on top of the train as the whistling wind pounds my cheeks. I'd become a blur like the trees and houses. I'd be me, but not. I'd be free, for now. I'd simply... be.

*

**

Seven months. That's how long it's been since I was last here. It's eerily familiar and little has changed, but I'm a stranger before this door. The white trim remains prominent, but not like I remember. The paint around the windowpane is chipped, the raw wood underneath exposed and flaked. It's as I remember, but not. It's a dream I once had, a strange déjâ vu.

I shouldn't be here. I should have called, or not at all, but I shouldn't be here. I can't show up after seven months and expect everything to be fine. Too much was said, none of which can be taken back. This house is my past, and what sits inside it is lost. But as soon as I stepped off of the train, I knew what I had to do.

Instead of turning right out of the station, where I would eventually find my home, I turned left, taking the once familiar route. I shouldn't be here, but I can't put this off any longer. She deserves to hear it from me. She needs to hear it now.

The last time I saw her, she cried. In the three years we were together, I only saw her cry twice. Too many people allow their emotions to dictate them, but not Danii. She's strong. She's brave. But she cried the last time I saw her, and her tears are all I can see now.

"I hate you!" she shouted, the overcast sky a perfect complement to her anger.
 

"If you hate me so much, why are you here?"

"You had no right punching him? Who the hell does that?"

"Who the hell lets some guy they've been dating for a month move in? For that matter, who the hell moves on so quickly?"

"I'm tired of this, Dante. It's the same old nonsense. For three years you pulled me down to your depressing level. Jon is a real man. Someone willing to commit and be happy. Not live in some stupid fantasy land with their lunatic friend."

Biting my bottom lip, I swayed from one foot to another. "I tried so hard to make you happy, but all you ever did was try to change me. You would say you love me, but did you ever really?"

"How dare you! Of course I loved you," she said, striding towards me and slapping my chest. I spent three years loving you and trying to persuade you to love me back." Tears bulged and ran down her cheeks.

"I didn't love you? Are you kidding me? I didn't end things, Danii. You did!"

"Because you left me no choice. It was one rejection after another with you. The truth is, you're unhappy with yourself, but for no real reason. Well, congratulations. You've always wanted to be like Wil, and guess what, now you are. I hope you enjoy being on your own."

"Screw you, Danii."

"Goodbye, Dante. For forever, okay!" Wiping her cheek, she stormed off.
 

Seven months ago. So many horrible words. Too many tears. I shouldn't be here, but I must.

Climbing the six steep steps that separate the house from the roadside, I arch my neck upwards. Her bedroom window glows with a gentle orange, but it's no longer
her
bedroom. The thought that he gets to share that with her, something I never did... I must get this over with now.
 

Knocking three times, I place my hands in my pockets and wait. In an instant, the vibrations from inside rumble all around and I pray it's her who answers. "What do you bloody want?" asks Jon, as soon as he opens the door.

"Hi Jon. Is Danii in?"

"Not for you she isn't!" he says, practically spitting his words all over me. His hand clenches the door handle, his knuckles white with fury. I can't blame him; he does, after all, owe me one.

"Look, I don't want any trouble. I just need to speak to her."

"Get the hell out of here before I step outside and lose my temper."
 

"Jon, I shouldn't have hit you that day. I'm sorry for that, I am, and I understand—"

"Fuck you, Dante. I think you've done enough to her, don't you? Now why don't you just—"

"Jon, it's fine," the familiar voice says. I didn't realise how much I missed her soft, quiet tones, but hearing them brings a wave of emotion. On the day I met her, I heard the voice before I saw the face, and although people glorify love at first sight, they rarely consider
love at first sound
.
 

Moving in front of Jon, she ushers him back into the house, nodding and whispering something until he disappears. Her dark black suit clings to her curves, one of the many tricks she uses to gather respect from colleagues and peers alike. I'm not sure why I haven't thought about this until now, but I've no idea what to say.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asks, her dark brown eyes glaring at me. I'm sure she's pouting and a scowl crosses her cheeks, but for now, I can't take my own eyes away from hers. They've always suited autumn more than any other season, a dark black centre that lightens to a rich brown, strings of contrasting hues swirling and twisting around its centre. All this sits on the most tranquil, angelic white imaginable, as though she's never had a restless night in her life.
 

"Well, what do you want?"

"Hell... hi... It's been a while," I splutter out.

"Are you kidding me? Yeah, it has been a while, but I thought we both agreed it could never be long enough. Why don't you stop wasting my time and tell me why you're here?"

I don't know what to say. I can't simply tell her, can I? "Can I... can I come in... please?"

"Can you come in? Can you come in? Have you heard yourself..."

She's ranting, and although I hate I'm the cause of it, I miss her passion.

As soon as I first heard that voice, I had to see the face that came with it, and as soon as I caught sight of it, it was her eyes that struck me down like bolts of fierce lightning. They're enough to end a man and she knows it, always decorating them with a careful ring of black mascara, the job of which is to highlight them and wear down her prey. It's painful seeing them like this, with hate instead of love and compassion.
 

"...You broke his nose, Dante. He did nothing to you and..."

I miss her hair. I miss how she lets it hang over her left shoulder and curls it around her middle finger. I noticed this on our first date, sitting across from her and gazing into her expression and drinking in her everything. Looking at her wasn't like looking at other girls. I didn't see her, I saw into her. It terrified me. It still does.

"...It's been seven months, for god's sake. What gives you the right to..."

I love how her hair changes as the year goes by. In winter, it grows darker, but in summer, a lighter tone shines through; the result, a gentle wave of multi-hued brown strokes. Some go to great lengths to achieve this look, but it's what nature gave her.

"...I can't do this anymore. I've had enough of all this. You can't be part of my..."

What I hate above all is, I'll never see her smile again. You don't notice it at first, but on closer inspection you realise how wide and immersive her lips are. She doesn't often submit to her fullest of smiles, because she doesn't have to. Even the slightest of partings creates two distinct dimples on either side of her mouth. They're incredible, and on more than a few occasions I've lost myself in them, forever trying to please her further in a bid to see a grander example, for when she truly embraces her giddiness, new lines appear and run down her cheeks and towards her chin, creating an almost perfect picture frame of delight and beauty.

"God! Why are you here? You're so frustrating. Just as I finally move on with everything..."

Telling Ethan and Wil was hard, and sitting my parents down was torture, but the thought of confessing this secret to the only girl I've ever loved... impossible.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" she finishes, leaning on her left leg and flicking out her hip.

"Feel better for that?"

"Dante, I swear, don't—"

"Look. Please, I haven't come to argue. I just need to talk to you."

She looks away and pouts those beautiful lips. How I wish I could kiss them one final time. "Fine, talk!"

"First of all, I'm sorry. I shouldn't of hit him–"

"Damn right you shouldn't have—"

"But you have to understand I was hurt. You knew him while we were still together, you started dating him a week after we broke up, and he moved in after a month."

"It was none of your business. We were over, and what I do is–"

"Okay, fine. But that's not why I'm here. There's something I have to tell you, and I wanted to make sure you heard it from me."

She says nothing, merely raises her eyebrows and shrugs.

"Right. Well, this isn't easy to say." I couldn't look my mother in the eye, but I can't not look at hers. I need to drink her in one final time, because I have no idea what this will do to her... to me... to us. "I'm sick."

"Sick? What kind of sick?" she says, relaxing into a slouch.

"The bad kind. I have a tumour... a brain tumour." I draw out a slow blink. "It doesn't look like I have long left."

She bites her upper lip and shifts her gaze to the left. She cups her hands and plays with her long, pianist-worthy fingers, stepping from one foot to the other. Her arms fall to her side, and her shoulders relax, but then she stops moving altogether. With the slowest blink I've ever seen someone muster, she looks at me and moves to talk, but doesn't say a word. She tries again, this time clinging to a sound. "You should go," she says, closing the door and snapping it shut.

Facing the green door I've opened and closed hundreds of times before, I sink into a whole new pain. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect that.

16
^th
October—York:

Recommended Listening:

Sleeping In—The Postal Service

Dirty Rain—Ryan Adams

Sloom—Of Monsters & Men

It's a month since I discovered life was closing in on me. I've travelled hundreds of miles, met a dozen doctors, and had more tests than I can handle. So much could have been done, but so little has. I know no more now than I did back then, and it's this that frustrates me above everything.

The encounter with Danii hurt and I've heard nothing since, not that I've tried calling. After going through so much together, it's hard to accept that this is the end. Deep down, I always thought we had a second coming, how one day, we'd cross paths and pick up effortlessly where we left off. I'd be ready and mature and no longer fighting her ways. The time without each other would simply vanish. Maybe this was silly, a crazy little idea. But to end without so much of a hug... a goodbye... a good luck?

I returned home that night empty and cold, intending to write. To confess. To unload. Only, I couldn't. For hours, I stared at the page with pen in hand, but no ink was lost. There was a time I would lose myself in my writing when life became too hard. With words, you can alter an ending. You can transform pain into happiness, sorrow into love. Not this time.

I suppose I know now better than ever that life isn't perfect. Sometimes things simply end. We had our time, but it's now in the past. Clinging to what was is futile. Danii is now a memory and nothing more. Apparently, just like my writing.

I must move on, but I'm not. Each day is the same:
'stay and fight,' 'leaving means giving up,' 'there's still hope,'
et cetera et cetera. And as night approaches, my pain remains: scared and torn and teetering on the edge.

"There's still hope," said Ethan, just yesterday afternoon.

"I swear, if you mention hope again I'm going to end it here and now. What is this so called hope you speak of, Ethan? Because so far, from the various tests and meetings I've had, there seems to be little of it."