"Without surgery, Dr Topaz, how long will I last?"
"I'm not one to judge, Raine."
"I need to know,"
"Without surgery, four months at least Raine but we can't tell how much the tumor has spread. "
"I know."
I've done more driving than I had in a pretty long while. And one would think I'd crash my car with these heavy thoughts in my head but I made it quite alright if you ask me. As I drove into the sketchy neighborhood Tasha Johnson used to live in, I realized a lot had changed in the hood in three years.
I needed to get out. The sympathy, the arguments, the thoughts, they were all suffocating and I didn't think much about where to go to escape from them. I didn't think at all and that's why I headed back to the city I used to live in, one that harbored the memories of my father, my childhood, and what my life used to be like.
East Texas.
I knocked on the door to the house where Tasha used to live in. An old granny came out after peeping through the hole. Her brows furrowed to see me,
"Good evening ma'am," I greeted the lady who had a crochet pin and wool in the grasp of her left hand. She looked behind me, taking a quick glance at my car before turning back to me.
"What is a fine lady like you doing in this rugged neighborhood?" She threw me a good natured smile and I finally relaxed.
"Do you happen to know a Natasha Johnson?" I asked and she smiled again.
"You a friend of my granddaughter's?" She asked.
"Yeah, but I left town three to four years ago," I answered
"Well, come on in and have some tea," she invited me into their house. I looked around the living room, pictures of when Natasha was little hung in the living room.
"I assume you lost her contacts?" I heard her voice from the dining room.
"Yeah, we haven't talked ever since." I answered watching her approach me with a tray of tea. I took the tray from her and gently placed it on the table.
"Tasha is on a scholarship to Yale, she won't be home until spring break," she explained to me and the corners of my lips twitched up to a smile knowing that she made it into her dream school. She was always fussing over her grades and worrying about school so much that she needed timeouts and that was when we went to parties.
"Kindly tell her I stopped by if she calls?" I told her.
"Why don't you leave your number here, what's your name darling?" She handed in her mobile phone for me to press in my number.
"Raine Parker."
"Excellent."
After taking a sip from the tea, I dust my hands off of nothingness and stood up from the chair. She dropped her mobile phone on the table and
"Are you by chance the friend of Tasha's that had cancer back then?"
"That'll be me," I sent her a nervous laugh watching her face morph into the endless sympathy I had traveled away from.
"Your mother came apologizing to us back then. Where do y'all live now?" She asked me with a smile as she took my hands in hers.
"Midland, my mom works at the county hospital," I responded and she nodded like she was glad. As she stared into the empty space, I took that as my cue to leave.
"I better get on the road, it's a slow trip back to midland."
"Isn't midland too far a journey for tonight?" She asked. "You can pass the night here and hit the road tomorrow." She offered me.
"I have somewhere important to be at, thank you for offering though." I smiled at her as she led me out of the house. With a sigh, I got into my car ready to visit a place I never thought I'd come back to.
As I walked into the cemetery, my bones hurt so badly. I plonked down in front of my Dad's grave and I watched some people a few distance away crying about their losses. It made me think that if someone cried on my grave, I'd come back to life and tell them to stop screaming in my ears. Once I looked back to Dad's tombstone, I let out a loud scoff.
"Gosh, I can't even cry. Because there are days that I wish that your pain would just disappear, I wanted so badly to see you in peace. It felt like I had reached a compromise when death took you away, like something that hurt me and pacified me at the same time."
I would have taken a short nap if it wasn't such a weird place to find comfort in. I headed back to my car with the thought that I didn't want them crying over my grave like this. I wanted them to think of the good times, I didn't want to leave any bad memories of me, or the way that I lived.
I switched on my phone and the notifications came piling up immediately I had an access to the internet. I scrolled through my messages.
Ezra:
Raine, I am worried about you. Where are you? I can come get you.
Naomi:
I assume you've been in the apartment this morning, are you okay? Did you go home?
Harper:
Ezra's been here again, I'm guessing you didn't stay at his place. Are you okay though?
Was I okay? I had a lot of answers to that question. My bones hurt like hell, that's not okay. I want to cry and yell out my frustrations on the top of the mountain but I can't do that, that's not okay. I want to accept my feelings and own them but I can't, that's not okay.
But I wanted to create good memories, so I had to be okay.
I leaned on my car a little while as I stared at Ezra's apartment from a distance. I finally mustered up enough courage to go up to his front door and knock on it.
The door swings open to reveal a very worried Ezra, with his phone in his hand like he was waiting for a call or a text. He didn't immediately look up to me,
"I didn't order— Raine!" He was surprised to see me. He started to look at my face and assess my body again for any form of injury but there wasn't and so he sighed.
"I tried calling you, where've you been?" He asked me, leading me into the house.
I had to be okay.
"East Texas." I simply responded, flipping my car keys in my hand.
"East Texas? You drove to east Texas?" He asked again, worried as he felt my temperature and walked to the refrigerator.
"Yeah, I went to see an old friend and my Dad." I answered, taking a seat on the stool in the kitchen. "I have something else to ask you."
"Please don't say to go skydiving," he pleaded and l let out a soft laugh.
"You're killing me, you acrophobic!" I hit him slightly before putting back my serious expression, the smile still lingering on my face.
"I'm asking you to stop fighting at the underground bash?" I asked him.
"Huh?"
"What do you say?" I tilted my head to study his reaction. He doesn't say anything at first, he opened the refrigerator and brought out a bottle of water and then picked a glass from the counter top.
"You look pale," he informed me as he set the cup of water in front of me.
"You didn't answer me?" I argued in my defense, sipping from the water and taking more, because I was dehydrated.
"I'd say give up alcohol and go out with me instead."
Nov 23rd