Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Have you ever felt that without the person you love, you would just die? That if they walked away from you forever, you couldn’t live without them? I did. Only for me life was a little more literal than that. 

“The test confirms it.” My mother broke down sobbing, my father cradled her like a child. His eyes were red and wet but he didn’t cry because he needed to be strong for me. It hadn’t sunk in. I had just been delivered a death sentence. This was it. I was dying.
“How long?” Dad croaked quietly, Mum stilled her sobbing for a moment so she could listen. The doctor flipped a piece of paper on my chart and took a moment to calculate how many weeks, months or years I had left. He fell still and dropped the chart to his side. Sitting down on my bed, he exhaled deeply.
“This disease is very unpredictable. With luck you could have a few weeks, but realistically we are looking at days.”

The silence in the room was tainted with dread. Days. No twenty-third birthday. No wedding. No children. No anniversaries. No grandchildren. Just days. I sunk into my bed, my arms weak. I could feel my lungs heaving for air more than ever before, rattling in my chest. It hurt to stare at my parents who were hushed. Dad was crying now, his bravado dissolved when confronted with the reality of time.

“Whilst you are welcome to stay at the hospital, we are open to the idea of you going home so you can be as comfortable as you like.” The breath seeped out of me in a crackle. I shook my head. I couldn’t speak because it was too much effort so I furrowed my brow and shook my head.
“Darling, come home so you can be somewhere relaxing, somewhere…” Mum faltered at the end of her sentence, her lip wobbling. I shook my head again. Dad tightened his grip on mum.
“If she stays here, can we visit?”
“Of course, Sir. You will have extended visiting hours but of course, for various reasons, you cannot be here all the time.”
“We understand.” The room fell silent again as they looked at me. The dead girl.
“You’ll take good care of her?” Mum was worrying away at a thread with her fingers, her teary eyes staring right at the poor Doctor.
“We will do everything we can. I promise.” They nodded at each other and a nurse entered the room.
“Doctor?”
“Yes.” He turned to my parents. “I’m afraid she has to be moved to the ICU and will be in a shared room with a male patient of ours. Is that okay? We can change the room if you request but there are curtains for privacy.”
“No no, that will be fine.” Dad shakes his head as he guides mum over to my bed. She takes my hand, I can barely feel her shaking touch but it’s there.
“I’ll have to ask you to say goodbye for now, we have to move Kerry-ann” I mentally cringed at my full name. I hated the added –ann, it was totally unnecessary. I privately wished that I could correct him but all I could do was frown slightly.
“She looks in pain.” Mum whispered, stroking my arm.
“She’s well medicated, she isn’t.” The doctor stated, glancing at my chart again to make sure he isn’t mistaken. He subtly waved in the nurse. She was all in blue, a cheery tone like the colour of a clear sky. My parents said farewell and I tried to look strong for them but my life was slipping away from me like sand through a sieve, I could feel it more than ever. 

The nurse introduced herself as Izzy, as in Isabelle. She babbled about her two children, the weather today, my lovely brown hair, her dirty blonde hair and the patient I would be sharing with. That caught my interest. Who would I be spending my final days staring at?
“He’s a twenty-something year old man, I can’t remember his exact age for the life of me, but he’s very dashing – or at least he was. He’s not here for long he’s just waiting for surgery to get his gall bladder removed. We would let him out but he’s so cheeky and never sticks to meal plans so we have to keep him here. We are sorry that we can’t have you with a female patient but I’m afraid with the current state of affairs we’re so short on beds at the minute. Did you know that on average each patient needs two nurses and…” I let her continue to talk, not that I could stop her exactly. A cheeky, dashing man who is around about my age… I wondered whether he’d talk to me or be freaked out by all the wires and machines. I felt like a puppet, strings and tubes all over so I can barely move for fear of dislodging something vital. 

Finally I was wheeled into the room, feet first so I could see where I was going. It was bright and airy with some flowers next to the beds, just some forget-me-nots. The windows as tall as a man and had huge heavy curtains that were patterned with a gentle pastel tone. I risked a look over to my roommate and was not disappointed. He was a little yellow, but other than that he was gorgeous. Sparkling blue eyes that were squinted with laughter and brown hair like mine that was stuck up too much from lying down all the time. He was talking to yet another nurse who was batting her eyelashes and giggling like a school girl, obviously under his spell. He stopped laughing for a second to look at me. Across his eyes I saw fleeting pity which was then buried by a huge welcoming grin. The nurse whispered in my ear, “That’s Peter Peckering, you’re new roomie.”
My eyebrows raised, what an unfortunate name. I wanted to laugh but I was exhausted so I closed my eyes with a smile pricking at the edges of my mouth. The bed rolled into the corner and my machines were lined up beside me, their beeping was insistent at my ear but I was beyond used to it. Comfortable, I drifted off into a painless, dreamless sleep.