❦ WINNER OF THE RIVETING WRITING CONTEST ❦
OLIVER IS DYING
With only months left to live at just seventeen, Oliver spends his remaining days of endless tests and debilitating drugs in the St. Andrews paediatrics ward planning his impending funeral...
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TOMBSTONE has a revolving door.
A lot of people who stay here leave with a successful recovery under their belt. It's always nice watching them walk out into the world with their life back. I've always wanted that.
But the older I get, the more I've come to accept the fact that I'll likely never leave Tombstone walking. I'll be like the other people who leave out of that revolving door—in a box.
Alice was one of those unlucky kids.
She had cancer.
She was at the end of her run. A good run.
She was a nice girl. I didn't know her very well, but Bobbi had.
Alice was Bobbi's best friend.
She was a mess when she passed away. A lot of the nights after she spent sleeping in my bed with me. It was the least I could do for her.
Alice's room is further down the corridor from mine, through the ward lobby and past the sun room by the head of the cancer unit Doctor Patrick's office.
I'm elected to go first.
I peek around the corner of the threshold into the pure white room that looked so empty compared to the last time I'd set foot inside.
Boxes are strewn around the room. The bed is made to perfection, no crinkle in sight. Everything is so neat and tidy, a blank canvas, ready for a new patient to customize and make their own.
The new resident is looking out the window.
She's petite and thin with blonde hair—proper, natural blonde, not bleach blonde like Bobbi's.
"Hi there," I say.
The girl whips around and I'm faced with startlingly blue eyes set on a pale face. The contrast of the blue and her light-toned skin is unlike anything I have ever seen. I already have a feeling I know what her NAD is.
"Hi," she replies, barely audible.
I hold out my hand. "I'm—"
"Bobbi."
Bobbi sweeps into the room to stand next to me, clutching my arm and pulling me close as if to mark her territory, territory she knows she can't actually claim.
"I'm Bobbi," she repeats. She looks the new girl up and down. "What's your NAD?"
The girl blinks. "My...My what?"
Simon wheels to my other side. I could actually hear him rolling his eyes at Bobbi's blatant rudeness. "Your NAD. Name, age, diagnosis."
"Oh." She shuffles her feet. "Uh, Frankie, fifteen, leukemia."
Leukemia. Nasty. I've known a few kids in Tombstone with it. Some walked out, some didn't.
"I'm Oliver." I jut my head to my friends. "You now know Bobbi. And that's Simon."
