~Banner's POV~
"She told me that she doesn't want to die," Demi informs from behind me, her tone a hushed whisper, as I brush my sister's blonde hair away from her sleeping face. "She broke down in front of me, Banner, and - god did it hurt. It hurt me seeing her like that. I just wanted to take all of her pain away, even if it meant me having to go through it."
Her words are sincere. She's genuinely emotional about Kelsie's current state, and I hate it. She's becoming attached to Kelsie, which is the last thing that I need right now. I need to be pushing her away so she doesn't get hurt in the end, but doing so is proving to be more difficult than I ever imagined. Almost as difficult as watching Kelsie reject life by starving herself. In both cases, two people are being distanced from me, whether involuntarily or not. Two people that I care about. Two people that I -
"Banner?" I silently thank her for interrupting my stupid, disastrous thought. "Are you ever going to explain what the orange wristband means?"
It means that I'm going to die and you're going to hurt. I thought tossing the wristband in a trashcan outside would stop any further questions of hers. Out of sight, out of mind. Apparently, I thought wrong.
With a clenched jaw, I abandon my sister's bedside and push past Demi to get out of the room. The antiseptic is giving me a pounding headache behind my left eyebrow, or maybe it's the tumor eroding my brain that is causing the intense, sudden pain. Either way, I need air. I need out.
Elevator button. Down to the lobby. Once. Twice. Three times. Ding.
With her hand, she stops the elevator door from closing. How is it possible that we're the only people in the elevator?
"Why are you avoiding my question?" she asks, and I can feel a muscle in my jaw twitch.
"Why do you keep asking when it's obvious that I'm trying to avoid answering? It's just personal, okay?"
She falls silent while I wonder if it's possible for this elevator to move any slower. "I care, Banner."
"I know." The door finally opens with another ding and a slight whoosh of air that brings in remnants of laughter and lively conversation and coffee and shoes squeaking against polished tile. Claustrophobic is how I suddenly feel, suffocating on all those little remnants of life that I will no longer be able to feel or cherish or take for granted. "But you shouldn't."
Outside, the sun is warm on my skin - a welcome relief from the hospital with morgue-like temperatures. Morgue. That's where I'll be stored, isn't it? Or is a morgue just for those who remain unidentified, those who freeze on metal dissecting trays not knowing the reason - that gaping hole in their chest, that sharp pain in their skull, that twisting-rumbling-churning feeling in their stomach - they are there. My death won't be a mystery. I can't tell which is worse.
I sit on the same bench where I found Demi earlier. I place my head in my hands and groan as my headache rhythmically pounds against my palms like a second pulse. I don't know how long I sit there like that; it doesn't feel like long enough. My phone, vibrating, is the only thing that brings me back to reality. I retrieve it from my back pocket and wonder when I even put it there in the first place. I open a text from Demi.
I'm asking a nurse what the orange wristbands mean
No
Seriously
Don't
Where the hell are you
Cursing, I nearly run back into the hospital, hoping that she's in the lobby, talking to one of the nurses at the front desk. She's not. I immediately go for the elevator, hoping that she went back upstairs to Kelsie's floor. The elevator is crowded this time, bony elbows jabbing into ribs and sneaker treads smashing toes and fruity sweet perfume sprayed far too generously and impatient exhales of hot air in dire need of a breath mint or two. I swear that the elevator is even more slower this time around, too.
Kelsie's floor
Don't worry; you just might be in luck
No nurse is paying even the slightest bit of attention to me
I don't dare let myself breathe a sigh of relief, especially not in this claustrophobic cart that feels as if it could come to a grinding halt at any second.
That made me sound really egotistical
I don't dare let myself laugh either.
Once the elevator stops on Kelsie's floor, I push through the crowd, ignoring the murmured explicits aimed at me. I walk fast down a seemingly endless maze of corridors, my shoes squeaking and sliding against the too-white linoleum. Dodging nurses with clipboards and rolling carts stacked with trays of food and the occasional balloon bouquet, I type a hurried text to Demi.
I'll tell you what the orange wristbands mean
No you won't
Do you honestly think I'm capable of lying to you
She doesn't reply; however, she doesn't need to. I find her leaning over the nurse's station outside of Kelsie's room.
"Excuse me?" She tries, and fails, to raise the attention of a male nurse who is typing away at his computer. "Can you explain to me what the orange wristbands here represent?"
Why am I not moving? Why am I not running, trying to stop her, trying to stop him? Why am I doing absolutely nothing to prevent this trainwreck from occurring right in front of me? Am I fascinated by it and, therefore, secretly wanting it to happen? Or have I simply just given up? Maybe I'm finally tired of fighting.
"Patients wearing orange wristbands belong to our oncology ward," he answers in a monotone, still not looking away from his computer.
"Oncology?" Under any other circumstances, she would look cute with her nose scrunched up in confusion.
He finally looks away from his computer. I wish that he hadn't. He stares at her with sad, sympathetic eyes, and I hate how, without saying anything, he makes me feel like some charity case. "Cancer."
To my surprise, she doesn't cry or collapse right there. She thanks him in a neutral tone, then walks towards me with a blank face. Maybe she doesn't care as much as I thought. Maybe me thinking she cares is just my subconscious hope thriving for attention.
"Demi..." I trail off when she walks right past me, not sparing me two syllables or even a look of some kind, of any kind.
I scowl at the male nurse when I realize that his eyes follow Demi down the hall. He hastily redirects his attention to his computer, and I sigh before trailing after Demi. I make sure to put distance between her and myself as she leads us outside to the parking lot.
"You don't honestly think I'm going to let you drive right now, right?" I call after her, not surprised when I receive no reply whatsoever.
As I approach her car, I realize that she doesn't plan to drive at all. She sits with her door wide open, no key in the ignition, and her purse tossed haphazardly on the passenger seat with its contents spilling out onto the floorboard. With my hand resting on the hood of her car, as if my strength alone could prevent her from driving off if she tried, I watch her carefully, cautiously, waiting for any sign of an impending breakdown. Without warning, she beats her fists into the steering wheel and the dashboard. I intervene, not after she slams her hands against the horn a couple of times and thus directs attention to us, but after her knuckles split open and red tarnishes her silver rings. I grip her wrists, forcing her hands away from the front of her car and turning her body slightly so that she's facing me.
"Demi, you need to stop!" My voice raises as she struggles against my grip, trying to hit anything within arm's reach including me. "You're only hurting yourself right now."
"I don't care!" She pushes her closed fists against my chest, and I take a step back. "I don't care." She stumbles out of her car, as if intoxicated, and leans against the vehicle. "It feels good," she whispers.
"The pain feels good?"
In response, she turns so that she's facing her car and proceeds to kick the side of it repeatedly.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Bone shattering against metal.
I wrap my arms around her waist, hoist her small frame up into the air, and turn so that she's sitting in front of me, and my back is pressed against the rear left tire of her car. In my arms, she screams and cries and doubles over as if she is physically in pain. The entire time, for what feels like hours, I keep one arm wrapped around her waist while my other hand rubs what I hope are soothing circles into the small of her back.
"You're dying," she eventually chokes out, her voice raspy and almost completely gone. She looks up at me with puffy eyes and a tear-stained face redder than the blood that drips off of her fingers. "You're dying, and there's not a damn thing I can do to stop it from happening."
One last sob escapes her lips like a gasp, and I hug her body closer to mine.
When we return to Kelsie's room, my baby sister says that she doesn't want to die before me. I hate myself for promising her that such a thing will never happen.
~
Two days have come and gone, and Demi has yet to mention my expiration date since that evening in the hospital parking lot. The unspoken, like the tumor robbing my brain of life, is a ticking time bomb, ready to detonate at the best seen opportunity. What's even weirder is that Demi hasn't slept in her own bed, in her own house, for two days. Speaking of which...
"Is the couch comfortable yet?" My sister asks me, grinning cheekily as she claims a seat at the dining room table.
"Are you going to ask that after every night that Demi spends here?"
"Maybe." She sticks her tongue out at me.
Chuckling, Demi stands on the other side of the table, across from Kelsie. She places three whiteboards face-up on the table. "Okay, sweetheart, pick a meal plan for today."
Since returning home, Kelsie has been following meal plans that Demi herself followed while recovering. From what Demi has told me, the meal plans are designed for three meals and three snacks per day, allowing Kelsie to eat every three hours or so.
"This one," Kelsie says, pointing towards the first whiteboard.
"And you're sure your teachers are okay with you eating in class?" Demi asks, walking into the kitchen to prepare Kelsie's lunch.
"Are you going to ask that every single morning?" Kelsie mocks me, and I offer a sarcastic laugh.
"I'm just checking," Demi defends, pouring half a cup of cheerios into a bowl. "The last thing I need is to have to come to your school and threaten one of your teachers."
"Could you please threaten my biology teacher? Because I swear she is the Devil's daughter." With an amused smile, Demi rolls her eyes and places a bowl of dry cereal and a banana in front of Kelsie.
"Is Mrs. Davis still alive?" I wonder.
"She's my biology teacher."
"Demi, seriously, you'd be doing the whole world a favor by threatening that woman," I deadpan.
"Would you stop encouraging her?" Demi laughs, the refrigerator door wide open in front of her. "Kels, milk?"
"Unsweetened soy, please." The refrigerator door shuts and a cup of milk is placed in front of Kelsie. Mumbling her thanks, my sister then pours half of the cup onto the cereal.
She finishes her entire banana, but leaves about half of her cereal and doesn't even touch the milk remaining in her cup. As she leaves the table to get dressed, she looks pointedly at me.
"Take notes," she instructs with a teasing smile, "because you're going to be the one doing all of this once Demi's gone."
I force a laugh, knowing that it would be expected from me under normal circumstances, but we're not under normal circumstances, and the only thing going through my mind is I'm going to be gone before Demi.
~
"I don't think I should have let her go," I say after Kelsie's bus can no longer be seen from the window in the living room."Do you think I made the right decision? Maybe I should have unenrolled her."
"I think you need to trust her," Demi advices from her seat on the couch. "She's old enough and perfectly capable of making her own decisions, Banner."
"I know," I sigh, "but-"
"You're scared. You're scared that she's going to forget any and all progress when away from you. You're scared that other kids in her school are going to pressure her into doing something stupid. I get that you're scared; it's perfectly understandable, but just because it's understandable doesn't mean that it's going to come true. If I knew that my siblings cared so much when I was Kelsie's age, I would have tried to help myself a lot sooner."
"So, you think I'm doing okay by her?"
A small smile lights up her face as she nods. "I think you're doing better than just okay." Nodding to myself, clutching onto that small piece of reassurance like a lifeline, I claim the seat beside her. "But it shouldn't be just you worrying about doing okay, right?"
I clear my throat, stalling for time, knowing what she's trying to ask without being nosy. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I've been here for two days and have yet to see your parents."
"They're dead," I blurt before I can even consider saying something, anything, different.
Her eyes widen so much, they look like they're about to fall out of their sockets or become stuck in that position. "I'm-"
"So sorry," I dryly finish. "I know." I pause, silently scolding myself for sounding like such an asshole. "They've been gone for almost two years now. Mall shooting. Psycho sniper killed six people."
"I think I remember hearing something about that in the news," she says, her voice an almost whisper. I nod, remembering how it was plastered on the cover of every magazine, bolded on the front of every newspaper, flashing across every news channel, and being shared across the internet. Something so private - a loss of life, a loss of parents - suddenly mass media attention. "So you've been raising Kelsie by yourself," she states, and I nod again. Some of the pieces must be clicking into place for her now - why we're strapped for cash more often than not, why my parents are never around, why nobody ever blows my phone up with calls or text wondering how everything is going.
"Before they died, everything was great. Middle-class family, happy parents who hardly ever argued. Kelsie was struggling a bit, but it became so much worse after we received the news. I swear sometimes she's not even the same girl; sometimes I can hardly ever recognize her."
"And what about you? How has..." cancer "...it all changed you?"
I consider my words carefully before responding. "Demi...why did you react...like you did...in the parking lot?"
"Because you're dying!" Her eyes burn with a new, fiercer light - frustration - and her lips curl up, as if disgusted by my question. "Why the hell would you even ask me something so stupid?"
"Lots of people die, Dems." Unlike her near-yelling, my voice is calm.
"But you're not supposed to! Not yet anyways. It's not fair!" I hate how her voice cracks, how my expiration date is causing her such grief and heartache.
"How am I any different from anybody else? I'm just another person, just another statistic."
She's shaking her head before I can even finish my sentence. "Not to me. You're so much more than that."
"Why do you care so much?"
That fire in her eyes returns so quickly, I almost didn't realize that it disappeared in the first place. "I care because I -" she stops herself and inhales a sharp breath that seems to extinguish that fire. "I care...I care about you, okay?"
I almost ask her why. Thinking better of it, I decide to acknowledge her original question. "How do you think a malignant brain tumor would change someone?" She winces, and I rush to get my next words out before the tears already forming in her brown eyes spill over. "When I was first diagnosed, they said that the tumor was inoperable. I didn't realize until recently that there is a new, specialized surgery out there that can make it operable, maybe even remove it."
"So there's hope." I want to punch myself in the face for causing her eyes to light up for a second. "Right?"
"The surgery is expensive, Demi, and -"
"I'll pay for it." Oh god, I wish it was that simple.
I swallow, trying and failing to get rid of the suffocating lump in my throat. "The cancer has spread, Dems." I can't even look at her, knowing that I've just drained the light out of her eyes. "I'm a rare case, with the cancer in my brain metastasizing to my liver."
"But there's a treatment, right?" Her question is a mere whimper, desperate, and I have to clench my jaw to keep my own tears at bay. "There's gotta be a treatment."
"A liver transplant is an option, since they caught it early, but waiting lists for transplants are so long, and donors are far and few between. I'd die waiting for a transplant that isn't even guaranteed to work."
She is silent for quite some time, and it isn't until I glance at her hunched over, shaking form that I realize just how mercilessly my secrets are eating away at her light.
"Dems, please don't cry."
"That's probably the dumbest thing you could say to me right now," she chokes out before wrapping her arms around my neck tightly, as if I could float away from her at any given moment.
My arms settle around her waist as I allow her salty tears to pool between my shoulder and neck. I'd be lying if I said that her breathing wasn't worrying me - raspy and uneven, sounding as if it pains her to release a single breath.
"Demi," I trail one of my hands upwards to rub her back, "I need you to calm down, okay? Just try. Please."
"I can't. I don't want to." Eventually, however, she does calm down and leans back so that her bloodshot eyes meet mine. "How much longer do you have?"
With closed eyes, I answer, "My doctor has been faking optimism around me for months now. I can feel my body becoming more tired, weaker, failing. I give myself three months max."
"Well then," I open my eyes after realizing that she sounds a lot more calm now, "we're just going to have to try our damn hardest to make these last few months the best months of your life, right?" She says this with a small, watery smile that I return.
"And when exactly do you intend to start mission: best-months-ever?"
Though my question was asked in a teasing manner, her voice lowers to a seductive murmur that has my entire body tensing. "How about right now?"
With her head tilted slightly and her eyes the color of wet soil - a deep, intense brown that smolders black - she leans in slowly, giving me plenty of time to stop her should I want to. I should want to stop her, but the only movement made by my body is that of my heart achingly pounding against my chest in anticipation. Her breathing fans across my face and down my neck, in short fluttering breaths, sticky and sweet from the box of strawberries we split while Kelsie was getting ready. When her pink lips finally connect to mine, they move hesitantly, as if exploring new territory, as if this were our first time kissing each other. My arms tighten around her waist, bringing her closer to me, and she ardently reciprocates by shifting her weight forward, forcing me into a horizontal position on the couch. Her arms settle over my shoulders, allowing her fingers to toy with the fine blonde hairs at the nape of my neck before traveling upwards and clenching fistfuls of the longer strands. To my surprise, her teeth manage to catch my lower lip and pull.
"Why the hell did you never do that before?" I groan.
She grins wickedly, another surprise that I will happily take in stride. "You never asked." Her words sound breathless, and her chest heaves a bit as she studies me with mischievous, calculating eyes. Her legs that were once pretzeled with mine then straddle my hips, and she leans over so that her chest is almost flushed against my mine. Her wicked grin turns into a wicked smirk and not once does the mischievous glint in her eyes dim as she slips her hands underneath my shirt. Her hands are flat as they slide up my body, her palms barely grazing my skin; however, as her hands travel back down, her nails scratch lightly down the same path.
"I never thought of you to be the dominating type," I comment as she pushes my tee-shirt up over my head.
She snorts. "Yeah, well, I never thought of you to be the submissive type."
"You're not really giving me much of a choice here." To that, she chuckles lowly, emitting a sound that barely escapes her throat.
She kisses me again, briefly, before forming a path down the front of my body with her soft lips. I groan again, the back of my neck curving against the arm of the couch as her lips, her tongue, her teeth scrape against and teasingly hover over the waistband of my jeans.
"Sorry," she murmurs in my ear, not sounding even the least bit apologetic; in fact, she almost sounds amused, "but I like to be in control."
Admittedly, it isn't until she's trying to unloop my belt from my jeans that alarm bells start ringing in my head. I softly grip her arms, right above her elbows, to stop her. "Demi, we can't - I can't have sex with you."
Her eyebrows furrow to form an expression of genuine confusion and raw, pained vulnerability, which only makes me feel like even more of an asshole. "Why not?"
"I just can't, okay!" I don't mean to snap at her, but it's frustrating how she truly doesn't understand why us being together, intimately or otherwise, is so disastrous. My internal guilt certainly isn't helping matters. "Look," I sigh, "I know you're probably not used to anybody saying no to you," I shift my position on the couch so that I am able to get her on her feet while also standing myself, "but us having sex together - hell, us being in the same room together and engaging in a purely platonic conversation - is a disaster waiting to happen. With that being said, I'm going to go take a cold shower, and you need to be gone by the time I get back."
I leave my shirt abandoned on the floor, and I don't even bother fixing my belt. What's the point if I'll just be taking a shower anyways? Demi, however, seems to have other plans in mind for me, for she wedges her foot in between the bathroom door and the door frame just as I am about to close it.
"You think it would have been just sex to me?" Her tone isn't accusing or bitter; it's wounded, which is even worse. Awaiting an answer, she stares at me as if as if I'm an old friend she hasn't seen in years - familiar but unrecognizable.
"I think it would have been a distraction to you."
She shakes her head. "You really just don't get it, do you? Yes, having sex with you would have distracted me, but one: that's not the only thing it would have accomplished and two: there's a hell of a lot more things I want to do with you, too."
"If it wouldn't have been just sex to you then-"
"It would have been me allowing you to see just how much I care about you. It would have been me trusting you enough to become vulnerable and intimate with you. It would have been me showing you how much I hate the world for being so against us by seeking refuge in a small window of time where we can both finally feel in control and complete for once - a moment of time where we can forget about death and the inner demons that haunt our past, present, future and where we can create memories that will ultimately be forgotten, regardless of how much we want to cling to them and how desperately we try to."
I swallow harshly, my head spinning. "Why are you saying all of this now? I don't want to be your charity case."
"You're not my charity case!" she insists exasperatedly. "I'm saying all of this now because I - I think I'm in-"
A knocking on my front door has her shutting her mouth and me wondering who the hell is here. Kelsie's not due home for another few hours yet.
With apologetic eyes, I tell Demi to hold her thought and wait in the bathroom for me to see who's waiting outside. Upon opening my front door, I come face-to-face with a woman a little taller than Demi, but shorter than me, and probably around the same age as Demi, if not a few years older. Her hair is dark brown, almost the same shade as Demi's eyes earlier, and her eyes are a shade of light brown that remind me of coffee when you add too much creamer.
"May I help you?"
She smiles at me too widely. "I'm here to collect my girlfriend."
"I'm sorry?"
"Demi. I know she's here." She rolls her eyes and smiles to herself. "I'm sorry; I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Adaliah."
I force myself to shake her extended hand and mutter my name. She sure as hell isn't what I was picturing Demi's girlfriend to look like. Reluctantly, I welcome her to sit on the couch while I go get Demi. I have to practically force myself to not tell her what Demi and I could have done exactly where she sits right now.
"You didn't tell me your girlfriend is hot," I whisper-hiss at Demi once we're both locked inside the bathroom.
"Adaliah's here?" she screeches before throwing her hands up in exasperation. "And I'm so sorry that that piece of information slipped my mind because clearly it's the most important." Sarcasm is not a very good look on her. "God, how the fuck did she manage to find me here? She's truly crazy, I swear, she's psychotic. And why the hell do you say that like it's such a surprise? Appearance-wise, I'd like to think that my standards aren't dirt low." Her mind is obviously scattered, jumping from one panicked thought to the next as she paces back and forth.
"Dems," I grip her shoulders and force her to stop pacing so that she can look at me, "it's all going to be okay. I promise. Until then, just go out there right now and..."
"Face the music?" she finishes with a weak smile. I nod, hating the current situation that we're all in. It's not fair to any of us, not even to Adaliah who didn't ask for a cheating girlfriend.
I exit the bathroom first and reassure Adaliah that Demi will be out here soon. My words ring true a few minutes later when the popstar joins us, deciding to stand near the exit as if preparing to make a quick getaway.
"If you don't mind me asking," I almost interrupt Adaliah to tell her that I do actually mind, "why is your shirt on the floor?"
"Because it's not on my body, nor is it in my closet or dresser." Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Demi biting her lower lip to suppress her laughter.
"Well, why isn't on your body?"
"Because it got hot in here." Which isn't exactly far from the truth.
She hums incredulously, and I suddenly pity Demi for having to deal with her everyday. Having to explain every little action and decision to her must suck a hell of a lot.
"Is he the reason you've been ignoring all of my calls and texts the past two days?" she asks Demi, and my eyes widen because I certainly didn't realize that Demi had been avoiding Adaliah to such an extent while she has been here.
"My phone has been turned off," Demi mumbles. "Is that how you found me here? Through my phone?"
Adaliah smiles. "You left your GPS location services on."
Demi nods while a bitter laugh slips past her lips. "You're crazy, Adaliah."
"Perhaps." The other woman shrugs, then her eyes study me. "But at least I'm not a liar, or a cheater, or a slut." My jaw drops at her words, at how she can toss them around so carelessly, without any regard as to how Demi feels.
Such a shame my mother and father raised me to never hit a girl.
"I want you out of my house," I say. "Now. Before I call the cops."
She actually has the nerve to fucking chuckle. "Fine. But Demi has to come with me." I'm about to protest when Demi shakes her head at me, successfully killing the words in my throat.
"Can't you see that you're making her miserable?" I blurt. "Can't you see to what extent you're abusing her?"
"I've never laid a finger on her." This lady's nonchalant attitude towards everything is really starting to piss me off. I almost wish that she'd snap just so I'd have a reason to lash out at her with something other than a few words.
"Emotional abuse. You not trusting her and calling her names and putting her down all of the time isn't right, Adaliah. That's not what true love is."
"She has you convinced that she's actually in love with you, doesn't she?" She cackles as if she just heard the most hilarious joke in the entire world. "I hate to break it to you, but you're nothing to her. She's probably sleeping with every single man and woman on this entire street."
I steal a glance at Demi and almost regret doing so. Her body trembles from either withholding the tears that stain her eyes red or from trying to restrain her anger, maybe both. I wish that she'd say something to defend herself, or to at least refute the bullshit that Adaliah is claiming to be true.
"Can we just go home?" Demi softly wonders, causing my body to slump in disappointment. She needs to fight harder. "I just want to go home."
Adaliah flashes her girlfriend a sickly sweet smile, as if she is totally innocent and has done no harm whatsoever to anybody or to anything. "Of course." Her smile vanishes as she gives me a pointed look before holding hands with Demi and leading her to my door.
"I'll call or text you, Demi, I swear." I don't know why I say it, but it sounds desperate, like a last ditch plea to get her to stay and fight.
"Don't bother." She looks at me with newly bloodshot eyes. Her chin trembles from what I now know is her trying not to cry. "I hope your last few months are amazing, Banner, and I hope that you complete everything on your bucket list." She smiles faintly, sadly, but that smile is gone as soon as it appeared. "Please tell Kelsie that I'm sorry and that I will never, ever, forget her."
As she walks out of my house, I tack or you to the end of her sentence - an unspoken whisper that comforts me just a tiny bit, just enough to remind me that I need her in my life. The pain that clenches my heart after the door shuts reminds me that I will never have her in my life again, not to the fullest extent.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
