Diane Young [Camp NaNoWriMo July 2014]

Diane Young [20]

20

"That's Scorpio, and that's - what was your star sign again?" I asked Elijah.

"Taurus."

"Okay, so... Taurus is right... There? I think, I don't know."

Elijah propped up himself on his elbow and turned to face me. "How do you know all of this?" He sounded slightly impressed, which in turn, made me feel slightly impressive.

"My dad taught me when I was young." I replied, still lying down. "I have one of those big telescopes too, and we used to go out into our garden during summer and watch and label the constellations." I grinned at the bittersweet fading memory of my dad.

Elijah and I were lying in the grass side by side in the apartment garden at the middle of the night. He proposed that we watched the stars when I went to retrieve him from his home after he said I couldn't go out until he was ready. Now we were lying extremely close to one another, our heads touching occasionally and the arms of our separate hoodies rubbing against each other often.

"Can I ask you something?" He said, suddenly.

"I guess you can." I replied.

"... How did your dad, y'know... Die?"

I sighed and glanced at him. For some reason he looked more nervous than he sounded, but then he smiled at me as if reassurance.

"He had cancer. I think it was lung cancer."

"No chemo?"

I smiled wanly. "Though it has it's perks on some people, Chemotherapy doesn't always work. Especially if you're allergic to gamma radiation."

It used to hurt a lot when I thought about my dad. Tears would prick in my eyes immediately and it'd feel like the time I broke my arm. However, instead of the pain shooting through my arm, it'd go through my heart and make me wonder if I was dying or not. Now it's more of a dull ache that I was scared would go away, but any time I thought about him (which was a lot, I must admit), the ache would make it's presence known and I'd feel it in seven fold.

It rained when he died. It was why I used to hate the rain - the first drop fell when he took his last breath. 

I wish it never rained that day.

"That's not great."

"No, it wasn't. I remember when he told me all about it. I was only nine and I had no clue what he was talking about, but now that I look at it... I'd rather he told me then so I understand later than being fed false information to keep me sedated."

Before I realised it, I was crying. Not loud, brash tears that demanded to be heard or seen, but the soft ones that managed to squeeze themselves out without any prior notice to them. I realised that Elijah was still watching me, but he wasn't doing or saying anything to comfort me, which sort of made it awkward.

"Do you want a hug?" He asked when I was practically done crying. If you could be finished with tears anyway.

"Are you going to hug me?"

"Probably."

I chuckled, wiping at my face. "How the heck will we hug while I'm lying down and you're leaning on your elbows like some Greek lord from the third century?"

He rolled his eyes. "Don't be silly, Diane Young, I'll sit up to hug you. And I think you'd sit up too, or I'll just be looking like a fool."

"What if I don't want to sit up?" I defied. He frowned.