II – The Pain of Doing Homework at Home

Why do hospitals inexplicably smell like death? It was a question that bugged her, it was always perfectly clean in the glistening foyer and yet she always felt like she was inhaling the black death itself. She switched off her brain and let her feet take her where she needed to go, dodging around people, trying to avoid the acknowledgement that she was really there infecting her thoughts. That was how she found herself at her usual destination the pharmacy door, a queue already stretching into the corridor. A little huff of annoyance escaped her, she had wanted to be in and out. She slipped the prescription slip onto the counter in the pile and took several paces back to the end of the queue. Why were there such long queues in hospitals anyway, you'd think people had better things to do while they waited to die. 

As she waited, tapping her feet to the no tune exactly just the rhythm of her thoughts. Perhaps she should invest in a new pair of headphones, her old ones had died from water damage long ago from attempting to wear them under her swim cap. As her mind drifted over the rest of her Saturday she was struck in the knee by the corner of a bed that had just been wheeled out from a nearby room. Vesper winced hard, biting down on her lip, her leg muscles already hurt and that definitely wasn't helping. She closed her eyes and tried to resist the desire to rub her knee again, it hadn't even been that hard but a combination of the cold and perpetual ache made it feel more egregious than it perhaps should've. As always, she kept her eyes averted, nothing nice is ever wheeled about in hospital beds. 

"Sorry about that," the voice fragmented her careful disinterest like a pane of sugar-glass shattering. She glanced up against her better judgement and saw a boy with curly brown hair which stuck up at odd angles sitting in the bed looking up at her. 

"Hello," said the boy, he smiled wonky, his glasses were also wonky, in fact his whole face was a little wonky as if his nose had been broken a long while ago. He seemed much too cheerful for a hospital patient. A little frown drifted across her face as she looked at him, he felt so out of place here. Did that mean that she fitted in now? It was a bile inducing thought. 

"Hello," said Vesper. He was about her age and somehow that looked wrong on the clean white sheets. 

"What are you in for?" Vesper blinked; he was incredibly direct. His eyes twinkled a little behind his glasses. 'What was she in for?' as if they were locked up in jail together. She supposed in some ways it did feel like that. 

"What are you in for?" she retorted. 

He paused, as if not expecting his question to be fired back. "Getting my stomach pumped," he said slightly sheepishly, but not as if he was embarrassed, more as if he was poking fun at himself. 

Vesper didn't have time to reply because the shout of – "Phaine!" rang down the line signalling that her prescription was ready for collection. She wriggled her way through the queue and picked the paper bag off the counter, signing the receipt and retreating again, no ID needed. As she fought her way back through the queue to leave the room she passed the boy in the bed again and raised her eyebrows at him as she passed: "drink less next time," she said snidely. "I'm sure your liver would thank you." 

The boy grinned, "not sure I've got a liver left mate." 

She didn't say anything just shook her head as she zipped her prescription into her bag. 

"I'm James," said the boy, holding out his hand to her. She decidedly ignored it and kept walking down the corridor towards the exit to the hospital. Cold autumn sun shone through the glass doors – the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. She scooted past the boy in the bed and his out stretched hand -nothing clean was ever wheeled about in hospital beds either. 

"Hello Vesper," oh my lord why couldn't she just leave? 

"Hi Marie." Marie, her therapist, very bubbly, very nice, sometimes just a little much. Vesper paused mid-stride to face her and tried for a slightly chagrined smile. 

"Remembered about our session tomorrow? I know you always forget," Marie laughed when she said it as if it was a joke but Vesper internally winced. It was true, she had forgotten about last fortnight's session, and the one before that, and possibly the one before that – no maybe she'd been there for that one... 'forgotten'. 

"Vesper? You hearing me?" Vesper tuned back into the conversation with a jolt. 

"Yeah, yeah no, I'll be here." Even if she didn't want to be - apparently. 

Her phone buzzed and she glanced down at it eager for the distraction. 

[from: dad: 13:07] 

[i'm outside if you want a lift ves x] 

"Sorry I have to go, I'll see you tomorrow though." 

"Of course, have a good rest of your day," Marie waved to her as Vesper headed towards the main doors and fresh air, fresh air that did not cling to her throat every time she tried to breathe. 

[from me: 13:09] 

[ye just comin] 

Her dad was parked right outside the front doors, probably blocking several emergency exits in the process, he rolled down the window as she approached. 

"Hey squirt, how was the swim?" nothing about the hospital, not even an acknowledgement, she loved her dad. 

"Yeah, it was pretty good, feeling a bit stiff though," she rolled her shoulder back in thought, her muscles still burning, that insistent nagging ache should've dulled at least thirty-minutes ago. 

"Want an orange?" He handed her one as they pulled off - that was her dad's remedy for everything, vitamin-c. 

"Thanks," the car rolled out of the car park and back towards home, the schools were just coming out for lunch and several cyclists were almost flattened as they drove through town, her dad swearing with volatility from behind the wheel. Vesper laughed and hung out the window letting her hand push against the wind that whistled past. Mr Phaine was an easy man to get along with even if he didn't always know what to say. He and Vesper didn't have to talk too much though, they revolved around each other colliding at the same points of their daily orbit. Their relationship hadn't changed much since Vesper's diagnosis and secretly Vesper was happy about that; long drives with her feet up on the dashboard, like only he allowed her to do, and even longer films in the evening that bored her mother to tears but she didn't mind sitting through. 

She sat at the kitchen table working her way through a sheet of biology course work. With everything that had been happening recently her grades had taken a little bit of a dip and as a straight A student for most of her life Vesper found this a little mortifying. It wasn't that she didn't know what she was doing, she was just so tired that when she went to do it in exam practise all the words swam on the page. This however was a new school year, a fresh term and her last year of education before university. That meant she had to get on top of everything. Her mum put a glass of orange juice down on coaster beside her and glanced over her shoulder. 

"Tough class honey?" 

Vesper shook her head, "nah, just a lot of Latin names I don't know and scientific names I don't know. If we kept it all in the same language it would be a lot easier." 

Her mum laughed but as always nowadays to Vesper it sounded a little forced. "Well, if it keeps you busy." 

Vesper's eyebrows furrowed a little. "I mean, it's not exactly a hobby mum it's for my class." 

"Of course," her mum said drifting around the kitchen making dinner. 

"Are you alright Mum?" she said cautiously. Vesper knew her Mum had been struggling a lot more than she let on. It was her Mum who made her go for check-ups, her Mum who had organised the therapy with Marie. Sometimes it felt like her Mum was making decisions about her health behind her back, as if she knew what was going on, as if she knew how Vesper felt all the time. Vesper tried incredibly hard not to feel irritation towards her but sometimes, sometimes it was hard. 

"Yes of course honey, just, are you sure you're well enough to be going to school this year?" 

Vesper's face evidently displayed what she was thinking because she wasn't allowed to get a word out before her mother interrupted her. 

"I'm just concerned about all those hours of work, it's a lot of exertion for you every day – it's completely up to you and your own decision of course." 

"Right," Vesper mumbled, "of course." 

Her Mum was looking at her like she was awaiting an answer, as if what she'd asked was even a question. 

"Mum," she said irritably, "I'm staying in school, I'm just sitting still writing all day it's not exactly taxing." 

"I'm just not sure about five days a week Vesper I know you're handling it right now but-" 

"Mum I'm fine!" She grabbed her college books and headed up the stairs from which she didn't re-emerge until dinner. The truth was Vesper knew why her Mum didn't want her in school, the travel, the exertion, the noise. Even she had to admit that it did tire her out, but she also knew the moment she dropped out of school she was ruining her future for good. Her Mum had mentioned the possibility of her doing two days at college and three days at home more frequently at the term start date drew closer but Vesper had fought it tooth and nail. Perhaps, because if she admitted she couldn't manage school, more normality (even the boring parts) would be stripped from her. 

As much as Vesper didn't enjoy her days in and out of hospital she enjoyed her evenings even less. As most peoples' day came to an end and they began to wind down she was simply strapping in for another twelve hours of what normally turned into silent contemplation. Vesper would sit at the kitchen table and listen for the familiar opening notes of a movie her dad watched far too frequently, she'd complain loudly that he had a terrible taste in movies but she barely meant it. 

"You have terrible taste Dad," Vesper groaned from the kitchen. 

"Ves this is the greatest opening-" 

"To any film ever made," finished Vesper wandering through and thumping down in front of the TV. 

"Don't disrespect genius Vesper," the two sat in comfortable silence until the credits rolled and her dad was asleep in his seat. He didn't move as Vesper got up quietly, wandered over to the tv, and ejected the disk before heading upstairs. 

She stretched and sat down on her bed wrapping herself in a blanket and slotting the DVD into her laptop curling up as the title theme and screen played for the second time that night 'Lawrence of Arabia.' Vesper's body might be faltering but her brain remained as active as it ever was and that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Left up for hours unable to sleep, but unable to do anything else either, was the prime breeding conditions for the invasive thoughts that crowded her brain. Distracting herself was the only way to quieten that nagging and so three more hours passed with only the light of the screen illuminating Vesper as she sat staring at her laptop for the hundredth time. The shadows under her eyes could've swallowed the screen whole but the film itself acted as a timer for her. As Lawrence set off for Damascus she popped three melatonin tablets into her mouth and downed the glass of water that rested permanently by the box next to her bed. As the credits rolled once more as her body reluctantly and euphorically at the same time, shut down, Vesper was asleep.