BREATHE FOR ME

Chapter 6: Marchesi

At the end of the meeting, Dr Lea gives me a small booklet full of names to contact, including hers, if anything is to go wrong. It also contains some 'fun facts' about the lungs which makes me raise my eyebrows, sparking a laugh from the Doctor herself. With assurance that she will be in touch soon and setting another date in a months' time, we head out of the small office. If I thought that I was going to come out feeling enlightened, newer or normal, then I am sadly mistaken when everything is completely the same. I can't start the medication until tomorrow so, for today, I am the same me as I've been for the past seven years. However, just holding the three large tubes of meds, it changes everything.

......

Later on that night, with my mask around my face, I decide to set up a canvas and some oil paints for the oncoming sunset/skyline landscape that I've been dying to paint since I got here. It's currently six o'clock which means that the sun won't set for at least another hour. Leaving all of my art stuff prepared and ready to use by the canvas, I pad over to my bed and begin to unpack my many bags of new clothes and school equipment. I decided, along with my new mentality, that I would only buy clothes that the 'New And Improved Gen' would wear. Maddie also brought through some of her old vintage t-shirts and crop tops that she didn't want anymore because she knows that I love to alter them, adding different materials, threads and beads.

For the next hour, this is exactly what I decide to do. I grab my textiles kit from under my bed and a cropped white tank, donated by Maddie, and head through into the conservatory lounge to get to work. Keeping an eye on the sunset, I sew different coloured threads into the neckline, creating a rainbow effect. I then add some small glassy beads, the size of rice grains, and do the same to the bottom of the tank. As I'm doing so, Maddie comes through wearing a long, black night dress and holding two cups of hot cocoa; she curls up on the large couch next to me. I still have a while until the sun sets so, finishing up with the needle and textiles, I put my equipment away on the coffee table.

"How was today?" I tentatively ask Maddie as I sit back into the L-shaped couch, accepting a mug of cocoa from her. I take a sip, savouring the feeling of the sweet, warm liquid coating my mouth.

"It was fun. We went to the botanical gardens, looked at the billions of cacti and then got some coffee and came home." She says whilst tracing the rim of her mug with a delicately painted fingernail.

"Is that all you got up to?" I ask with a knowing smile.

"Yes Gen. That is all we got up to." She replies bluntly, giving me a warning look. "He's a nice guy, he wouldn't try anything on a first date."

"So he didn't ask you to join his Italian cult? Or give up your eggs? Or try to lock you in his creepy basement?" I tease, trying to provoke a smile from her. She raises an eyebrow at me.

"Well... maybe that would explain why he gave me an information booklet about the Italian Mafia..." she fakes consideration, over-doing the act by scrunching up her face in thought.

"Mads, I don't think the Italian Mafia is the kind of organisation that gives out free booklets." I say, chuckling.

"No, perhaps not." She smirks, taking a sip of her cocoa. "He did tell me to tell you something though." I give her a questioning look. "He said that I had to tell you that everything is sorted with your Italian SWAT team or something."

I freeze, cocoa mid-way to my mouth. That familiar icky feeling from last night returns, coating my stomach. After a second or so, I slowly lower the mug and place it on the coffee table beside us. Maddie does the same, cocking her head to the side in curiosity.

"What does he mean by that?" she asks almost humorously. Surely he doesn't mean, Scary Guy? Please, please, please tell me he doesn't mean Scary Guy.