❦ 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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It was all a matter of time when my hair would start to fall out. The first time I was on chemo, it started to fall out in the first few treatments. This time, it's taken longer for that to happen, but I know it's going to be inevitable either way. I started to notice that last night. I'd run my fingers from the front and then to the back of my head and a clump of blonde would be in my hand. It's been coming out like that ever since.
The first time my hair began to fall out and when I eventually became bald is when I first started cutting. It was the hardest pill to swallow to come to terms with being bald and dying, and I barely got any sympathy from it at school. The bullying was brutal. The blade to my skin was relief. And when Matt died, I craved that relief more than anything.
I massage the scars along the inside of my forearm as I look out of the floor to ceiling window overlooking the gardens below.
I nestle deeper into the comfort of a high-backed chair. I rake my hand through my hair, and my palm comes back with blonde strands.
"You okay?"
I look up at Bobbi standing next to me. She takes a seat at the chair on my right.
"Alice went through the same thing," she says. "It wasn't easy for her either."
Bobbi has always come across as the kind of person who knows everyone and is friends with everyone. The way she interacts with a lot of the people around the hospital, it's like she's got connections everywhere. It's like she sees things no one else does.
And so that makes me wonder—does she have the answers I'm looking for? Does she know what's going on with my brother? With him and Ollie? She's as thick as thieves with that boy. I don't see why he wouldn't tell her everything. From the sounds of their conversation I'd overhead yesterday, Bobbi knows exactly what's going on.
But I just can't go ahead and ask her what's going on. That's too suspicious. I need to play this carefully. I don't have all the right cards to make my final move yet.
"Bobbi?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you something?"
Bobbi squints and her lips thin into a curious line. "When people say that, it's usually not a good question that's going to be asked." She gestures her head forward. "But ask away."
"What would you do if you found out something that could destroy your family and you had the chance to stop it, but stopping it would destroy the happiness of someone you love? Would you do it?" I shrug. "Hypothetically speaking."
I watch Bobbi intensely. She picks at her fingernails before chewing on them. Then she turns to face me, propping her leg up on the seat and tucking it underneath her. "I think your friend needs to ask herself if it's really her problem."
"But what if it's happened before? What if what's happening now has destroyed everything in the past? What if I—I mean, my friend—doesn't want it to happen again and she has the chance to stop it this time around?"
