My Sickly Mate reached 5k!!!
I'm so happy that people actually read my stuff and like it! I'm actually kinda surprised.
Please comment and vote and as always, ENJOY!
The artwork above does not belong to me.
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Last Edited 6/29/16 10:27pm
"Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember
You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad that it was over"
I hummed along to one of my many songs I had playing through my radio as I slapped another layer of deep blue paint on a clear white spot on my bedroom wall. Spreading the color left and right, I dance and swayed to side to side, just enjoying the satisfying feeling of thick paint being spread underneath my inch and a half sized paint brush. I scooped up more paint onto my brush from my painter's palette and began spreading it around more, giving me more room to work with.
My yellow long socks moved over the blue small tarp I had laid over the white carpet earlier to keep from turning the carpet anything, but white. I continue spreading the paint and listing to Somebody I Used To Know as I was almost finish with the background color of my new painting I was starting.
When I was satisfied with the amount of color on the wall, I lowered the brush onto the palette, turned around, and walked over to my glass art desk. I lifted the brush in my hand, and set my brush in the purple cup of clear water that was now turning blue, while grabbing a smaller half inch brush. I set both the clean brush and palette down next to each other as I went to grab paints that sat against the wall on top of the glass desk. Not knowing what I was going to paint yet, I grabbed the tubes of blue, green, pink, black, brown, white, purple, red, orange and yellow paint, then began unscrewing the the lids.
I squeezed generous yet even amounts of each color onto the palette, put the tops of each tube back on, and then put them back in color order back again the wall. While humming along to a new song that started to play through the speakers of the radio placed on top of my bed side table, I picked the palette back up as well as the brush and walked back over to the blue tarp and freshly painted section of the wall.
With brush in hand, I stared at the paint choices in my opposite hand of the one holding my brush while wondering what I should paint today.
As soon as I had woken up earlier that morning, I had just stared at the walls of my bedroom while enjoying the comfort of my squishy bed. It felt so much better to lay in rather than the bed I had stayed in at the hospital.
That one week hospital stay was one of the most depressing days of my life, worse than when I actually found out I had cancer, both times. I wanted to take my mind off all the negative emotions I had bottled up inside my head since I had returned home the night before. My hands had been twitching with anticipation of painting something new ever since the second night of my stay.
So, here I was; trying to paint and take my mind off things, which wasn't really working that great. All I could think about and see in my head was my parents sad and tear filled eyes while my brother silently looked at the ground, not meeting my own eyes as they were getting ready to leave me at the hospital and go back home on the first night.
I couldn't concentrate on what I was painting, so I just let my mind go with a big exhale of breath, fully aware that I was going to be thinking about what happened that whole week, completely doing the opposite of what I intended. I just let my hand holding the paintbrush have a mind of its own while I slipped into the memories of the past week.
Flashback:
I have been sitting here for seven straight days, waiting for someone other than my brother to show up to see me or at least entertain me. I was tired of sitting up in the this hospital bed, staring at the muted television on the wall playing some drama show I didn't recognize nor care to. I so was annoyed at the constant beeping in my ears, angry that I had to stay for an entire week before I could be released by the doctors, frustrated that my parents hadn't come to see me once, so done with the sickeningly kind doctor asking if I had changed my mind about the scans and tests, and most of all, I was just depressed with my entire situation.
I wished I had had a normal childhood. I wished that my parents weren't avoiding me because they were so sad that they couldn't even look their own daughter without crying. I wished that I didn't have cancer. I wished that I had friends. I wished I wasn't home bound most of the time. I wished that I never passed out. I wished I didn't cause pain. I wish I didn't feel pain. I wished I could be free of this gloomy grey room. I wished I could be free of the box I had lived in my entire life. I wanted to escape it. I wanted to escape it all. I wanted to go away.
This entire week, my emotions have been all over the place that I was sometimes glad my parents weren't here to witness it. I was able to keep them away when Elliot came to visit, but when he left, I just let the dam to the river break every time. The nurses never said anything when they walked in to my tear strained cheeks and neither did I. The only kind of contact with humans I had to talk to was the one middle aged doctor that I met the first day here and Elliot.
I was kind of happy I never had anyone that wanted to see me. If grandma or grandpa, my cousins, or aunts would have been here to see me all week, I would have hated myself for the look of pity they would have put on their faces and for the words of sympathy they would try to offer.
It was now 7:38 at night and I was waiting for Elliot to come pick me up. I had already changed out of the hospital gown and into the spare change of clothes that Mom had packed in my overnight backpack for me. I was now wearing a light blue pair of jeans with rips at the knees with a mint green sweater along with white ankle socks and my silver glittery moccasins. I was sitting, propped up on the beds headboard, playing Deemo on my iPod while the muted television played in the background and was about to beat my high score on one of my favorite songs when Elliot suddenly bursts into the room yelling," Hey sista! What's up girl!"
I nearly jumped out of my skin while I dropped my iPod off the side of the bed in the process of getting the daylights scared out of me. Panic quickly took over my body as I darted across the bed, grabbed the iPod mid air, before it went too far out of my reach, and sat normally on the bed with heavy breathing my brother caused. When I successfully got control of my lungs after saving my iPod from falling to its doom with my awesome ninja skills, I glared at my stupid brother.
"Shut up Elliot. There are people in the rooms next to us, most likely at death's door from what I heard from the gossip filled nurses. I don't think they would appreciate it if you gave them heart attacks and early deaths," I said straightening my body while turning my iPod off. His eyes were open wide at me. He kept glancing at me and then at my iPod, then back to me. He kept repeating this process multiple times. I just rolled my eyes at his odd behavior.
He stayed silent as I hopped off the bed and walked over to one of the chairs to the left of the bed. I lifted the slightly slouching bag and slid my iPod into the side pocket of my backpack that rested in the seat of one of the chairs. I grabbed one of long blue strap of the bag and slid it up my arm, placing it over my left shoulder. I turned to my left, meeting the gaze of my tall brother who was watching me, almost like he was analyzing me. I raised a single brow and he quickly snapped out of it and shook is head. Ignoring his odd behavior so far, I asked," Is Mom or Dad here too?"
I had already guessed his answer, but I just wanted to make sure.
Elliot's face turned to a look of sympathy and just shook his head, probably not wanting to talk about it. I just nodded and looked down at my hand holding the blue strap of my overnight bag.
He stayed silent for a couple seconds before clearing his throat. "You ready, Ava?" he asked me, trying to sound cheerful. I just nodded, looking back up at him. He smiled to me before turning and leaving room and also leaving the door open, expecting me to follow behind. I quickly walked over to the ugly white bedside table, grabbed the remote to the tv, turned it off, and jogged out of the room after tossing the remote carelessly on the bed.
I sped my short little legs up after leaving the dull gray room when I realized that Elliot was yards away now, halfway to the elevator at the end of the hall, and fast walking with his long legs. I groaned and sped my legs up faster after realizing that my brother didn't notice me not close behind. I was breathing deeply to get enough oxygen in my cancerous lungs as I sped past nurses in pink scrubs who yelled at me to "slow down" and "no running in the halls" while I ignored them. I finally, while breathing heavily and wheezing, had met up with his long strides when he slowed down when he heard the nurses yelling at me.
"Sorry," I heard him say apologetically to my left. I simply nodded to him while trying get a hold of my breathing before I needed to bring out my clothe to cough into.
We walked, now side by side, through the almost empty corridor of the hospital except for the few people who worked here at this small hospital.
I hated these hallways. They seriously needed to update this place, or at least paint the walls a bright color or something. The ugly chipped tan walls were a bore to look at every month.
I came to a stop when I realized we were now in front of the metal doors belonging to the death trap called an elevator. Elliot, seeing as I made no move forward to press the button to my possible early death, walked up to the wall and pushed the elevator button of the sign of a black arrow pointing down to the floor. He stepped back to my side and waited for the metal elevator to come to the fifth floor in silence.
Impatient, I leaned all my weight onto my toes and then back to my heals then back to my toes again. Swaying purposely forwards and backwards, I asked Elliot a question to try and make it less quiet while still staring at the closed shiny doors.
"So, did you guys win the soccer game at school Thursday? What school did you guys go against?"
A grin immediately plastered itself on his face just thinking about it. "It was so awesome. We crushed them so bad. It was Tonian High School that we beat. They weren't really that much of a challenge for them being undefeated for the entire season though. They had so many short and scrawny guys on their team so I wasn't surprised that we easily beat them."
I chuckled at him. From what I had heard from Mom and Dad awhile back and from watching Elliot kick around a soccer ball in the backyard, he was a great captain and player. But, I wouldn't even know for sure because I have never gone to one of his games.
"Well, I'm happy for you. Hoping for a scholarship?" I asked as the elevator finally dinged opened and we strolled lazily in.
"Definitely. I hope I'm good enough that a scout will approach me," he said with a far away look as he pressed the lobby button on the panel, making the elevator doors close and start to move down. I nodded silently although I knew that he wasn't even paying attention now that soccer was on his mind. I stayed silent for the rest of the ride down, keeping my mind blank except for the thought of sleeping. I was so tired. The stiff bed I had to sleep in was so terrible that I had thought the floor would have been better to sleep on.
I missed my little Julie and my dog, Lydia, who I had yet to see for a week. I was getting so anxious that I bounced a little on my toes, making the elevator jump a tiny bit as it slowly went down.
"Hey. Stop that Ava," Elliot said, snapping out of his dream like state. "Your going to make the elevator break and we are going to plummet to our death if you don't quit it."
I immediately stopped after that. I would rather not die in a confined space that crashes to the floor. No, thank you.
Seconds later, the elevator came to a soft stop with a high pitched ding following behind. The silver shiny doors in front of me slid open and both Elliot and I stepped out. I glanced around the dull lobby with a bored and straight faced look. Sitting in the waiting area was a middle aged, red haired father with two little boys climbing over him like a jungle gym, a young blond haired pregnant women sat in the old leather chairs looking beyond uncomfortable, and an old couple sitting side by side holding hands were all waiting patiently for their names to be called for either appointments, surgeries, or visits.
To the side of the waiting room, there was a desk were people checked in or signed out for the hospital. Sitting at the chair behind the desk, was the cranky old divorced women who could not do makeup for her life, Ms. Bethany.
Elliot and I made our way over, reluctantly, to the old lady chewing gum loudly. Knowing he would already do this, Elliot stopped a few feet away from the desk and turned to the left, and walked to one of the leather seats in the waiting room.
Elliot hated Ms. Bethany, so much. Ever since Elliot had turned 16, the old bat would try and flirt with him. She would attempt to flutter her bright pink eyeshadow covered lids and caked up black eyelashes, smile with her purple lipstick covered mouth that ended up showing her yellow teeth, and twirl her grey hair in between her wrinkly fingers. It was horrifying to witness and even worse for the person she directed her flirting to. So now every time Elliot had to come to the hospital and had a chance to not converse with her, he took it, leaving me to deal with the witch.
I strolled up to the desk, smiling widely, and waited for Ms. Bethany to look away from her computer screen. Clicking her mouse a few times, she glanced up at me with a scowl.
"Yes? How may I assist you?" she asked, returning her eyes to whatever was on the computer screen.
"How you doing Bethy? Enjoying the lonely life?" I ask with a crooked smile. She didn't even glance at me. She just deepened her scowl.
"Ah, Ms. Karcy. What do you want girl?"
"Just need to sign out today ma'am. Death has yet to claim me so you won't be getting rid of me anytime soon," I said jokingly while leaning up against the front of the counter and using my elbow and hand to prop me head up.
Ms. Bethany sighed an exaggerated sigh like this is the hardest thing she has ever had to do in her life. "Fine."
The lazy cabbage didn't even get up. She just pushed her wheeled chair away from the desk, turned the chair around the the filing cabinets behind her, scooted over with her tiny legs, grabbed a piece of paper from the stack of papers on top of one of the cabinets, and rolled back over to the desk with an annoyed face like I just wasted her precious time. "Here. Fill this out and I need to see your ID," she said monotoned, not even bothering to get me a pen. Jokes on her, I have a pen in my side pocket of my backpack. Ha.
I reached behind me in the pocket, grabbed my wallet alongside a blue pen, and pulled both out. I unfolded the worn brown thing I called a wallet that almost held nothing and pulled out the I.D with my ugly picture on the front of it. I slid it over to her and set my wallet beside me.
Silently, I picked up the pen and filled the sign out paper as fast as humanly possible. When I was done, the witch had just finished the scan of my I.D.
"Here you go Ms. Bethany. I have to get back to my brother," I said purposely just to get her hopes up into thinking that she might get to talk to him. Her makeup covered face lit up like a light as she handed back the card.
"Oh! Elliot is here? Where is the boy?"
"Over in the waiting lounge. He didn't want to see you. Sorry," I said with a smile.
"Why you-"
"Sorry Miss, gotta go," I said quickly, interrupting her, and then dashing away towards the exit as fast as I could without losing my breath. I think Elliot saw me on my way over to the glass sliding doors because I suddenly smelled his stinky man perfume next to me.
"What did you do?" Elliot's deep voice sounded knowingly next to me.
"Oh nothing. Just the usual monthly poke at Ms. Bethany," I said while slowing down when we neared the glass doors. He chuckled beside me.
"You know. One day your going to regret being mean to her," he said as the doors opened.
"Hey she started it years ago. It's not my fault. I can return what she gives," I answered while walking through the exit of the building and entering the parking lot. Elliot just hummed in response, not bothering to argue with me. I slowed down a little and let him get in front of me so he could lead us to the car. I didn't feel like roaming the parking lot today. I wanted to get home to my babies, Lydia and Julie.
I silently followed behind him as Elliot passed by the many different colored cars and trucks. I wished I had a car. And a license. And more freedom, but I couldn't have any of them till I was healthy, which sucked.
While walking past the cars, I looked at each license plate as we passed. I loved looking at the license plates and trying to find out which ones were the customized ones. I loved trying to figure out the meaning and why the person behind the wheel put that as their license plate. I guess it amused me and occupied my time, or just helped me forget the events around me. I continued walking with my head slightly turned towards the cars.
"So Elliot, when we get home, you wanna- omff," I started, but was interrupted when I ran into his back. "Hey, why did you stop?" I asked allowing some annoyance seep into my voice while stepping back.
"You could have warned m-."
"Ava," Elliot interrupted
"What?" I snapped back. I walked out from behind his back and glanced up at his face when I was next to him. He was looking forward with his eyes trained on whatever he was looking at and his body stood ridged.
"Elliot, you oka-," I started to say with worry when I was interrupted again by a new voice I slightly recognized.
"Hello," the velvety voice from somewhere in front of me sounded.
I stomped my foot on the cement childishly and very much annoyed. "Would you people stop talking when I am!" I yelled. "Geez," I mumbled while folding my arms and looking at the ground. My demand was met with silence on Elliot's side as well as the strangers. Glancing up, I realized the Elliot's black truck was a few cars away, but there was a guy half standing half leaning up against the car in front of us, blocking the way. I realized immediately who the man was. It was the hot guy who came to our house right before I embarrassingly passed out before him. Great.
Before I could say anything, Elliot seemed to snap out of it and beat me to it.
"Hello Mr.- uh- Artemios. Can I help you?"
The man, who I assumed was Mr. Artemios, glanced from my brother to me and then back to my brother, but before turning back to my brother, he met my teal eyes with his striking silver ones.
"Aren't you going to introduce us, Elliot? I never knew you had a sister. Actually, I don't think anyone knows you have a sister. A beautiful one at that," Mr. Artemios said with one of his caramel colored eyebrows lifted.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Elliot glance at me for a split second before returning his eyes back to the man and shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"Well, uh, yes. This is Ava, my older sister," Elliot said nervously while turning towards me," Ava, this is, well, um, this is my history teacher Mr. Artemios."
Realization then dawned on me. Of course Mr. Artemios wouldn't have known the Elliot had a sister. No one from his school would know because I didn't go to school. I was home-schooled.
I turned towards the older man that seemed to be a bit young for a teacher, but ignored it anyways while greeting him with a kind smile. Before Mr. Artemios looked at me, I saw him give my brother a surprised, yet confused look. I guessed that would be from realizing I was the older one of us two as well as his sister. I walked up to him and held out my hand while looking up at him. He turned his attention to me and met my eyes with his own.
"Hi, I'm Avalon Karcy. Nice to meet you Mr. Artemios. To be honest, I've never met a high school teacher before," I said with a chuckle then looked down as I placed my hand in his outstretched one.
I shook his hand once and tried to remove my hand from his, but he wouldn't let go. He kind of just stared at my hand in his with a dazed amazed look and then shifted his silvery blue eyes up to my face. He raked his eyes all over my features, like he was seeing me for the first time ever. I was slightly creeped out.
I tried again to tug my hand away from his, but he had a tight hold on it and wasn't letting go anytime soon. It was starting to get a lot weird now .
"Uh, Elliot," I pleaded a bit. "You wanna-."
Suddenly I felt arms go around my waist and Elliot's man perfume crashing onto my senses. I tried not to gag as I was lifted off the ground and then set down behind my brother's back with my back towards his. By the time I turned back around, Elliot was already faced towards his teacher. I got on my tippy toes and tried to looked over his shoulder which was unsuccessful considering how small I was compared to my bothers giant self.
The two males were having a staring contest mixed in with a slight glare from both. I didn't like it. A creepy teacher mixed in with my over protective brother was not so good. I went back to standing normally behind Elliot and began searching for his keys. In his right back pocket, was a ring that held three keys hooked together. I, as silently as I could, reached in and grabbed them. I felt Elliot jump a bit, but stayed standing in the direction of the older man knowing what I was doing.
I stepped back from Elliot and clutched the keys in my hand so they wouldn't make a clinking noise while I made my escape. To my left, there was a gap between two cars perfectly aligned with my body. Awesome.
I glanced back over Elliot's shoulder and saw that both men were too preoccupied in trying to win the starring contest that they wouldn't see me using my ninja skills. I quickly sprinted out from behind my brother's back to the left and ran in-between the two vehicles. I then turned right, ducked down in front of the cars so I wouldn't be seen by the boys, and waddled three cars down to Elliot's black truck.
Still crouched down to the floor, I penguined over to the passenger's side of the truck and stood up in a way that the boys couldn't see me through the window. I quickly found the key that could manually unlock the door, shoved it into the key hole, turned it, opened the door, grabbed the keys, hopped inside, shut it, and locked it using the main key that had an automatic lock on it.
Both men heard the beep of the truck from me locking my door and turned my way. I looked out the left side back window towards them and waved at them with a smile. I then looked over at Elliot, who was watching me with an amused expression, and then tapped my imaginary watch on my wrist. Elliot understood and nodded once.
I don't know what happened because I turned back in my seat to face the front window, but when Elliot knocked on the truck window a few minutes later, silently requesting to unlock the door, he looked majorly pissed off. So angry looking, that I didn't say anything when he got in the car, on the way home, or even after we got home.
That night, I didn't really talk nor see any of my family after I got home. I only heard their loud voices from the living room as I fell asleep in my comfortable bed with Julie in my arms and my dog, Lydia, sleeping on the bed at my feet.
End of Flashback
Coming out of my thoughts, I removed my paint brush from my wall. I blinked a couple of times to realizes what I painted. My eyes widened.
On my wall was a giant painting of mismatched colored wolf with every color of the rainbow use on it. It was alluring. It was beautiful.
It was going to stay on my wall forever.
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Wow. I really liked this chapter a lot. I hoped you did as well.
4,950 words.
Sorry about the last chapter guys. I didn't plan to have such a sad chapter early on. Actually, I'm not really planing at all. I'm just winging every chapter as I go. I know where I want the story to end up, its just I don't know how I'm going to get there, so I just do the chapters by what my mind comes up with on the spot. But, heads up, there will probably be more sadness in the future.
Holy crap guys. 5k! I'm so excited. *screeching noises in the distance*
Sorry that I haven't been publishing anything lately. But, school is now over so I will have more free time to write.
Let me know what you think in the comments and if you have any suggestions let me know as well. VOTE AND THANKS FOR READING!
Till the next update,
Lady Amethyst