Emily

This is the first short story that I've written this term- it also happens to be one of the best thing's I've ever written, as far as I'm concerned. Hope you enjoy, feedback is very very very much welcome :)

Emily

It was quiet for no longer than 3 minutes after we'd sat down before she started talking, but Emily was never one for leaving a moment peaceful.
“So, I have a bone to pick with God.”
I brushed over her expression, starting at the subject she's chosen to bring up. We'd known each other since we were seven, and we'd never had a discussion involving the big man upstairs before now. I sadly thought this through to myself within seconds of her having said a word and my final thought of 'I 'spose we haven't needed to before' was eclipsed by my asking “...With God?”
“Yep.”
“With the man who created the World in 7 days?”
“Ok”, she began, and I saw her brow furrow, “the things wrong with that sweeping generalisation are threefold; 1) Man? What proof is there that he even existed, yet alone was male? 2) There’s no proof that this ‘Man’ created the Earth except a book by a bunch of people who wrote it ‘cos they were bored of, I dunno... living ages ago...”
“Right...”
“Right.”
“ And the third?”
“Third?”
“You said it was threefold.”
“Oh, did I? Er, OK, thirdly, Er. How about ‘Shut the fuck up’?”
With this she ‘playfully’ nudged my shoulder with her fist, causing my coffee to spill, burning my freezing hands; the concoction of winter chill and smouldering caffeine left them numb and she shook with silent laughter as my eyebrows dipped low.
“Bitch.”
“Now, now, Caleb,”she waggled her finger in my direction, “that’s no way to treat a lady!”
I placed the coffee to the side of me instantly forgetting it was there, explaining, “I tell you what- the second one turns up, you let me know, and I’ll adapt my behaviour so as to avoid offending this...gracious woman” I bowed with false pretence and her lilting joy reverberated around the trees that protected the bench we were perched upon.
“You’ve distracted my train of thought with your preposterous attempts to be well-spoken.”
“Well, one can dream. You, er, said something about a bone to pick-”
“Ah Yes! Pigeons.”
I looked at her expression, and there was no sign of humour whatsoever. The dead branches acted as a morose green screen that enveloped the skyline, but in the chill her cheeks had swollen with a blossom more suitable for spring. I remembered how she had always been a complex blend of conventional and outlandish, and right then her beauty in the park light struck me as both. The image wavered as she turned her head, revealing her profile to be shaped by her lack of hair. Her tendency towards impulsive behaviour left others reeling, including her mother, but I couldn’t help but be jealous. It had been long, dark as damp bark and she had tired of the hassle and fuss of it in the last few weeks, so had opted to shave it all. She still looked beautiful, but I had always thought so, and so now could only be considered biased. Her head turned back towards me whilst she pointed towards the creature that caused her such offence.
“See?”
“What’s wrong with pigeons, then?”
She was silent as her tongue poked into her cheek the way it did when she was deep in thought before announcing,
“Well, I honestly just do not see the point of them.”
“The point? Do they need one, as a rule?”
“Well, they just seem so...careless, of God. Think of it, there are thousands, if not millions of beautiful, wonderful, necessary creatures surrounding us. If you choose to include humans then that becomes billions. But pigeons have, not only no use upon this earth, but all they do is sully the beauty that is already there and...Take up space.”
I watched as she shifted on the bench and drew her knees to her chin. Her arms swallowed her whole and her eyes failed to make contact as she whispered,
“Maybe if they made some space by getting rid of some of these useless pigeons there’d be room for the rest of us, you know? Then maybe we wouldn’t have to give up so much just to move, to breathe, to live.”
We knew we weren’t really talking about pigeons anymore. I reached out and her hand met mine halfway, our fingers cosy-ing together against the cold. We shuddered, but it wasn’t in reaction to the weather.
She didn't leave the moment of upset much time to dwell, before regaining herself, pulling her hand away, and asking
“So how’s our foxy seminar leader Sam coming along?” Her smirk danced all the way from her mouth to her raised, inquisitive eyebrow.
“Oh god, here we go again...”
“Has he missed me? Does he desperately search the room of T6 thinking ‘Well, my word, where on earth could Emily be? I must find out at once!’-”
“Well, actually-“
“Before throwing his fists on the desk, reaching up towards the ceiling, screaming-“
“You always were one for drama."
Her smile disappeared and her features fell down, and she sighed, asking “Why have you started talking about me in the past tense? Am I not still one for drama? Do I suddenly lack this so called drama that-“
“You know,” I interrupted, gently squeezing her knee, “What I meant. Don’t pick a fight with me, you little shit”. I said the last part in a tone of voice that echoed her Grandmothers, who had given Emily the nickname ‘little shit’ after one of her china dolls had become the latest victim of the Tyrannosaurus Rex Emily insisted on carrying everywhere with her until the age of 13. Her grandmother had gone on to tell her that ‘normal girls don’t play with dinosaurs’ to which Emily had replied ‘by now, Gran, you should know I’m not normal’. At the sound of the old woman’s croaky impersonation a reluctant smile broke out on Em’s face.
“Do you know, that’s one of the reasons why I hate you so very much?”
“What’s that then?” I replied, cagily.
“I can never be annoyed with you, because you always make me laugh. It’s massively frustrating.”
“Well, I will bear that in mind, whilst simultaneously ignoring it so that you can never be annoyed with me again.”
She smiled, and leaned forward brushing my fringe from my eyes. “Wonderful. What were we talking about again?”
“The Eighth wonder of the world; Sexy Seminar leaders.”
“Oh, no, that’s the ninth wonder of the world.”
“Right, of course it is. The eighth being...?”
“Duh. Pokemon.”
“Right, yes, how foolish of me. Well, as I was saying before being told that Pokemon are up there with the Pyramids and The Great Wall of China,” In that moment I silently chuckled at the ridiculousness of our conversation and a wave of sadness hit me as I realised my life may never be so surreal again, “Our sexy seminar leader Sam did actually mention you last week”.
She looked at me and could tell by the look on my face that whatever Sam had said, it hadn’t been the declaration of love that she’d been hoping for. She sighed, a breath that was so deep I felt she stole some of mine too on the way back out, and asked “Short and Sweet?”
“He dealt with it like an utter professional. What he said about you and all of...this? It was really moving, actually. Casey Cheswick almost looked teary.”
“Are you sure that’s not just from all the dick that she gets in her face?”
I fell about laughing as she continued her rant,
“Seriously, what the fuck do I care if that utter slag gets upset, she has never said two words to me, except ‘Er’,” and she began swaying slightly from side to side, raising her lips in a perfect imitation of Casey’s permanent pout, “’Do you realise, right, that your ‘air has gone?’”
“Oh come on,” I protested, “She’s not THAT bad!”
“She looks like she’s had botched bot-ox.”
Again I couldn’t contain my laughter. It felt good to feel the joy of it coming from inside me, I hadn’t experienced a laugh like it in a while; honest, and with no hidden agenda. She was the only one who could make me laugh in such a candid way. Her sigh followed my mirth like an encore, and I could see her eyes shift the way they do when she avoided tears. She looked at me, then my lips, and murmured
“I’ll miss the way your lips crease up when you laugh."
I faltered a little. Emily had never been one for sentimentality or observation.
“I love that you’ve managed to say something endearing whilst simultaneously making me conscious of the way I laugh.”
She chuckled lightly, “You’ll start laughing at something and then cry at the thought of me bullying your creasy lips!”
“I think it’s going to be a while before I laugh again without you, Emily,” I began, as I felt my breathing start to shudder around my chest and push it’s way from my mouth. She took my hand as the first tear fell, and I jumped at how cold she was, and pale. The white tag was massive on her slightly limp wrist and I held her fingers gently, afraid they may snap, “I’ll cry simply at the thought of you-” and as I watched the bead emerge, glisten and fall from her eyelash my world span. When I looked in her eyes I saw the fear I felt, and there was a moment while we let the other recover.
“Now,” she croaked, pulling away from my touch, and wiping her eyes, “don’t get silly on me, Caleb, there’s no need for drama. I don’t want you to cry at the thought of me; you can cry for the loss of me, but the thought should...should make your heart a cliché, flipping and skipping. It should make your soul feel warm and you hands feel held. Don’t remember me all balding like Richard O’Brien, remember me as the long haired vixen I used to be.” She gave a cheeky grin as the last tear slid from her face and winked provocatively.
“Used to be? You’re still gorgeous, Em.”
“...I have no hair.”
“So? I’ll buy you a hat, cover the bald”
And like that we were laughing again.

It was only when I looked over at her to measure her beauty against the dusk, that I saw that her eyes had become rather glazed and she was slumped in an unseemly way which made it look like she would cave in any moment. She gave a shudder as I watched, and for the for the first time I realised I could faintly see my breath dance with the sky. I hadn't even noticed the chill, but it swept over me and I tucked my hands under my arms as she pulled a small woollen object that I didn't recognise out of her coat pocket. She saw my inquisitive look and simply said,
“Glittens.”
I thought she'd gone insane, as if the treatment had registered her incapable of speech or something. I couldn't remember whether or not that was one of the side effects her parents had mentioned to me, so I casually asked her “Glittens?”
“Yeah, Glittens.” “She stared and then repeated the phrase I had never heard before, shaking the item as well as she could in my face, “Glittens. Glittens?" Supported by her glazed expression and my ignorance of the word the whole moment was hugely unnerving. She looked hard at my face before asking “Dude, why do you look so worried?”
“Emily...” I didn't know how to broach the subject. Emily had asked me to treat her as I always did, despite what had come to pass, and I knew her treatment, or it's affects, was something she point blank refused to discuss with me, so I brushed my hand along the collar of her coat and asked delicately “Are you sure 'Glittens' is a word? Do you maybe need me to go get someone so you can-can...explain what you're trying to sa-”
“Get with the programme, Caleb.” Her look was pure, undiluted anger, contorted on her face with embarrassment, that I had caused in assuming she was helpless, “They're glove-mittens, Glittens stand for glove mittens, see?” She then furiously untangled the 'Glittens' from the ball they were rolled in, to reveal a fingerless glove that had a small fold of material you could fasten over the tips of your digits. They were magenta, and striking against her pallor, and as she tried to put them on she struggled with the fasten. She could not stand the idea of people naturally assuming a position of pity whilst watching her, and I knew all this too well. Still, it didn't stop me from wanting to help her with the stupid woollen thing, and without thinking I quickly moved as if to do so, but in a swift motion she swung her hand out of my reach, and tried to move up the bench and further away from me. As she did so, her legs fell out of their crossed position and onto the pavement that was so smooth and unscathed it was as if no one's heavy step had ever rested upon it. She lost her balance, taken aback by the speed with which her legs had fallen to the floor, the momentum causing her knees to buckle and collapse . Her body bowed towards the ground and away from me, and with reflexes I never knew I had, I caught her and managed to pull her back by her shoulders. She winced as my grip tightened on her fragile frame, pulling her towards the safety the organised wood of the bench sought to give her. Her breath came out in unnaturally forced gasps, rather than regulated breathing, and in a peculiar second I remembered a time when I had seen my father chopping wood, and how the whooshing noise before the axe fell was mimicked by Emily's now desperate attempts to feel air rush through her. I panicked, but it seemed like as my panic rose hers devolved until it was no more than a heavy sigh, as if I had taken on her fear and kept it for myself. She swayed slightly in her seat, before once again crossing her legs and looking at me like a petulant child who's realised they've done wrong. I tried looking back at her without my feelings getting caught in the back of my throat and failed. I stifled a sob and put my fist to my mouth to protect her from the sight of my grimace, but she pulled it away just as a tear fell and sparkled on our hands.
“I'm sorry, Caleb,” she whispered as her face was painted with sadness that shone in the street lights, that had switched on in response to the ever-nearing dark of the time, “I know you weren't-....I know-” and she let out a little sob that broke both our hearts, and I swept across the bench to cradle her, pulling her into my form and hiding her from what we both knew was coming.

Although our last meeting was two weeks ago, the memory hurts still. A little after I held her the hospice nurse had come out to find us, saying that she'd let Emily be out far too long anyway and that visiting hours for non-family members were over. We felt numb as we'd hugged goodbye, and I promised I would come see her in around four days time from then, once all her family had done the rounds, so that we wouldn't be interrupted by a random Uncle or second Cousin bursting through the doors with sweets she couldn't eat and flowers she couldn't stand.
The phone call had come at precisely 05:51am 2 days after. It had been neither Emily's Mother nor Father who'd phoned, but her brother Darren, who explained in a monotone, voice that cracked occasionally that Emily had fallen into a coma 7 hours before, and had died at 03:42am this morning. When I arrived at the hospital, I vaguely heard several doctors each try to explain to me that the problem with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia is the speed with which events take place and that Emily's blast cell count was to do with it, but I had never bothered to learn the details of her illness after she had told me about it two months before, so it all fell on deaf ears. I had refrained from learning about the disease partially because Emily herself had asked me not to, but mostly because this way I could find no logic in why she was ill; if I didn't know the science behind it then there was no rational reason why she was dying, there was no way it was real. But Darren's phone call had thrown me into a reality the same way touching her limp wrist had on that bench in the hospice park. Emily had died, and no amount of explanation or looks of sympathy could reform my world or make it how it had been and how it should have been forever. But I do as I was told, and when I can bare to bring myself to talk of her I never mention her illness, only her life. With my subconscious being the schemer it is, I find myself dreaming of her often, and in those moments she's truly alive, as am I. Some days I hope not to wake up; but I know soon enough that I'll wake up of a morning and I won't avoid her memory, but that it will come with me, supporting every choice I make and laughing along with me as she had done, and as she always will do.

xXx