Silence

-6-

I stared up at the dark sky as the rain came to a halt. The rooftop was soaked, as was I but I didn't mind as my eyes were still eerily casted towards the sky. I blinked and water dripped from my long brown eyelashes. When I was still healthy, girls would turn their heads as I walked by. Now they turned their heads for a different reason.

        I now felt like an outcast, like I didn't belong because I was sick. It was plain as day, I looked sick. Dark bags rimmed my eyes and my cheeks were hollowed out. I was twenty-five pounds lighter than I should be. My bones were defined all over my body, even poking out in some places. I was disgusted with myself whenever I looked in the mirror, I was wilting away.

        When I was first diagnosed with cancer four years ago, I was always happy, and even optimistic because I was strong and believed that I would survive. I had had hope and faith and  that was what kept me going. Now I held no hope and nothing that anybody does can change that. I was now the opposite, never happy and always wondering if this day or the next will be my last. The cancer was caused by my own cells, mutating and turning against me. And my body was slowly killing me, like a virus.

        I looked away from the sky and down at my feet. I was suddenly struck with guilt. My brother must be worried, with the way I took off. He was probably freaking out wondering where it was that I sped off to. I probably shouldn't even be driving in the condition that I was in. It was suffocating to think about what  my brother must be going through. He of people had to deal with a dying brother that decided to take off in his car without his driver's license. After all I did to try and keep Simone from feeling grief, it only seemed like I was pulling him further and further into the darkness of it. The more I thought of it, the more my insides churned with disgust. It was only natural that parents died before their children, it was every parent's dream that their child will outlive them, continue on the legacy of the family. But I would die far sooner than my parents. All my parents did were work, bear all the pain to bring me into the world. It would be meaningless, all that Simone and my parents did for me would amount to nothing in the end.

        All of the thinking I was doing was hurting my head. The throbbing in my head only got worsened as I blamed myself for everything wrong with my family. It was my fault that my brother wasn’t married at the age of thirty-one. It was my fault that his life was so messed up, that it was incomplete. It was also my fault that Simone and our parents would feel the loss of losing me, that they would be sad and lonely without a child and a sibling. Everything was my fault, everything.

        I wiped the tears that fell from my eyes.  I felt like the whole world was crumbling around me. My knees hit the ground, hard. My head began to hurt and I clawed at my hair, feeling like I was going crazy. All of this was all so overwhelming for me. Sobs racked through my body as the salty tears flowed down my face. It was all that I could think about at the moment, the grief and pain that I would cause everyone when I was gone.