All That I Need

Episode 16

Lily’s POV

Klarissa’s mum had offered to drive me home, but there was no way I was letting that happen. They couldn’t see my reality. I wasn’t ready to lose my only friend.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Klarissa asked, with concern.

“I’ll be fine,” I lied.

I was scared of walking home alone. Of seeing Kiara and Sarah. Of seeing Daryl. I was scared of the sun slowly going down, knowing that by the time I even got halfway home, it would be completely dark. I was scared of the darkness. The last time I had been in darkness, I had been raped. I couldn’t stand it.

But I smiled, waving at Klarissa as I walked out her front door.

As soon as I was alone, my brain was flooded with thoughts. Memories I couldn’t control. The way he had felt, the hopeless feeling of not being able to do anything about it. How much it hurt when he kept pressing deeper and deeper.

The tears began to roll down my face, and very soon I was sobbing.

People walking past hardly even looked my way. They were strangers. And I was a stranger to them. They probably thought I looked like a mess. I was a mess.

I brought the sleeve of the long-sleeved shirt Klarissa had leant me up to my face, wiping my eyes. It smelt like her. And for a second, I stopped thinking about what had happened.

I thought of her, my stomach tingling. Her hugs, holding her hand. She was a great friend. I had never had a friend before her, and I had been gifted with the best person ever to be my very first friend.

What had I done to deserve her? Nothing. Everything I told her was a lie. She deserved somebody better.

By the time I got home, I had managed to stop crying. I just felt empty inside. I was glad, because mum would be able to tell if I had been crying. And she would ask questions that I definitely couldn’t answer. There was no way I could tell her about today.

I opened the door, and found mum sitting on our mattress.

She was crying.

“Mum…” I said, walking towards her.

She immediately wiped her eyes and looked up at me. She was a mess.

“Mum… what’s wrong?” I asked.

My heart sank seeing her like that. I wanted to cry.

“Lily. I didn’t want to tell you yet. I didn’t want you to know yet. But it’s better that I don’t lie to you. That I don’t keep it a secret.” She said, patting the bed beside her.

I felt the tears building up again. I was worried.

“They aren’t non-cancerous skin marks. It’s cancer. I have skin cancer. Built up from many years living on the streets. Sun protection is certainly the last thing we worried about.”

“Mum… th-this can’t be true,” I said. Everything that mattered the most to me in life fell apart right in front of my eyes in that one, short moment.

“And- and I’ve only been given a month to live. It’s too bad for them to treat, its taken over parts of my body that they can’t control,” She was crying heavily now, and so was I.

“Only a month?” I asked, sobbing.

“It can’t be. What about the house you’re saving for, the future you want to have? What will happen to me?” I was in hysterics, drowning in everything horrible that the day had brought.

“I’m sorry, Lily.” She said, crying.

“Don’t be sorry, you can’t help it,” I said, moving closer to her.

“It pains me that I won’t have a future, that we won’t be able to live a stable life together for years to come. It hurts me that I will be leaving you, with god-knows-who.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I don’t have any family to look after you once I’m gone. Someone will be fostering you. I don’t know who. But I hope they have a good life for you, that they look after you well for the next few years, until you’re an adult. Then you can create the future you’ve always wanted,”

The thought was terrifying. My chest hurt from crying, everything hurt.

I hugged her tight. I appreciated that she was there. Real. In my arms. She was alive and breathing. Because in a month, that would be all gone.

“But please, Lily. Please promise me that you won’t spend the next few weeks upset and angry. There’s nothing we can change. I just want to appreciate living life normally, the best I’ve had it, for my last month. I want to appreciate my last month with my daughter. My last month living. And I don’t want you to stop your life for me.” She smiled sadly. I nodded. I didn’t know what to say.

Her eyes crinkled, and I realised how different she looked. How much worse she looked. She looked like an old woman. Twice her age, even. I always forgot how young she was. She was only 34. She should have so many years ahead of her. But she had lost her innocence at 17. It was taken from her by a stranger, and she had never really had a life since she’d had me.

I went to sleep that night in the arms of my mum. The woman I loved with my whole heart. Nothing would ever change that. And I swore to myself that I would appreciate her even more than usual in the next few weeks. I couldn’t accept that I was losing her, when her arms were so real around my body.