#iGotCancer Bites

S i x

Plaster

"Merry Christmas, Emma," the nurse says upon entering.

Emma looked up from her book and grinned immediately, letting her beautiful but thinning brown hair fall over her face. "Merry Christmas, Lilly!" she squealed.

In that moment, Lillian couldn't help but envy her undeniably radiant beauty, despite the singular fact that she was going through treatment for leukemia, but she was definitely a strong fighter.

"Come!" she said, eyes alight as she pat the spot beside her on the bed. "I got you a gift!"

Lillian is taken aback momentarily. How had she gotten a present? She hadn't been out of the hospital for days, having been bedridden quite recently. She could walk now, but Lillian was certain Emma hadn't left at all.

"Oh, Emma," she cried. "You shouldn't have!"

"But it's Christmas! I had to get you something, especially after everything you have done for me," she says, handing Lillian the sizable box, referring to a hard part of her life that she had only overcome not long ago. "Go on, open it!"

Lillian pursed her lip as she pulled at the ribbon that encircled the box. A small bear was revealed upon lifting the lid, and Lillian let out an indistinct sound.

It was a pink so soft you couldn't even see it until you squinted, complete with a floppy Christmas hat and a heart that said I Love You; not Merry Christmas or Have A Nice Day, but I Love You.

"I love it!" Lillian exclaims, moved to tears at the girl's unfaltering kindness, reaching to hug Emma gently. Emma had a beautiful soul and everyone knew that; but they didn't know just how kind.

She was the only one in Lillian's life that did not shy away from her touch.

'Just because you hug someone doesn't mean you want to marry them,' was Emma's instantaneous reply to Lillian the day she confessed she wasn't straight.

"But I have nothing to give you," Lillian says suddenly, pulling away and frantically reaching into her pockets, as if she could magically conjure up a present.

"I do not want anything, Lilly."

"Here, take this," Lillian says, pulling the ring out of her finger. It was her late mother's ring, and Emma knew it as well as Lillian did.

"No! I can't take such a thing away from you!" she exclaims, pushing Lillian's hand away.

"Please take it," Lillian begged. "You mean more to me than this ring does," she says sincerely, having grown to love the girl like her own sister.

Giving her a wary look, she gave in. "Alright, if you insist," she says, taking it from Lillian's out-stretched hand.

"Thank you," she says, softly.

Lillian stared in curiosity as Emma put the silver ring around her neck, having strung it onto the necklace that held another mystery ring. Lillian did not know who gave it to her, but she knew not to push - Emma was honest, and if there was a reason she didn't tell, it was most probably because it was a wound she wasn't willing to open.

And Emma had enough wounds - metaphorical and literal - to last her a lifetime.

"You know what, Emma? You won't be spending Christmas alone. I'll get someone to move you to a shared room, just for one day, I promise," Lillian said aloud, hurrying out the door before Emma could protest.

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