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Chapter Twenty-Two

"Thanks for doing this, I don't know if I could have done it alone." Noah said to me, his voice slightly muffled as he was scrummaging around in Lorna's wardrobe. From my spot in front of her chest of drawers, I turned around.

"Yeah, no problem." I replied, dumping a green singlet onto the 'not keep' pile. "Hey, what about this?" I asked Noah, holding up a white lace top. "Keep?"

Noah pulled his head out of the wardrobe and dropped the bag he was holding. "Uh....keep. Yeah, keep."

I nodded and tossed it onto the appropriate pile. Noah and I were cleaning out Lorna's room as Mrs Smith thought it would be healthier to not keep her room as it is and change it into a spare room. It would be better for everyone to not walk past Lorna's room and have to see all her stuff still in it.

It was two days after the funeral and things were getting just the slightest bit easier. I was adapting to life without Lorna and although I didn't like it, it wasn't impossible.

My eyes fell on a white and red striped shirt neatly folded up in Lorna's draw and I pulled it out and studied it. It had been the shirt she was wearing when I first met her, the day where she asked for a movie ticket and we lay on the ground in the theatre watching the movie. I smiled and tossed it into the 'keep' pile.

I shut the draw, now finished with that section. "What next?" I asked Noah.

"Desk?" Noah muffled back.

I wandered over to Lorna's small, grey desk that sat in the corner of her room. It was cluttered with paper and pens and folders and I sat down in her chair, my hands drifting over it all. I looked through all the papers, finding notes and small drawings and I tossed them aside. I was looking through her English folder when my eyes fell on a small brown moleskin notebook. I picked it up immediately and started rifling through it.

Dear Diary,

Huh, what a funny thing to say. Diary. It just sounds tacky. I'll call you a journal. But you're not a journal. Notebook? No, that's even worse. Okay diary it is. Today is my 11th birthday. I got this diary/notebook/journal from Noah. He told me that everybody needed to have a place to record their thoughts and even if I didn't frequently use it, it would always be there if I needed it. He also said that sometimes your mind can get so clouded that you just need to put all your thoughts to paper and try and make sense of them all. Well, that's what he said anyway. He's only 10. One day he's going to be famous, I assure you. Anyway, I haven't got much thoughts yet. I think they'll come later on when I'm older. Mum said that I should just stop worrying about growing up and enjoy being a kid. I'll be a teenager soon, two years time and even though I'm somewhat excited, I'm also scared of all the problems I'll have. What if my mind get's so clouded that I can't make sense of it all and writing all my thoughts down doesn't help? Well, I don't know. But you're here if I need you.

Lorna.

I flicked through a few more pages.

Dear Diary,

You know how I've been feeling really tired lately? Well, I know why now. I have something called Leukaemia. According to my mum and dad, it's bad. I can't survive it. The news scared me because I didn't understand it. Noah didn't understand either and if he doesn't understand something, you know something's wrong. I'm going into a surgery tomorrow to try and kill the disease before it gets too deadly and I'm scared. Noah gave me his special red teddy that he always sleeps with and he told me that I would be okay. I really do hope so. Because I really want to become a teenager. I want to have thoughts to record down.

Lorna.

Dear Diary,

As I'm writing this, tears are falling. The page is becoming soaked but I need to write to you because my mind is clouded and I need to record everything down. I told my friends today about my surgery I would be having that night and how I have cancer. They were all shocked and then they starting pitying me, telling me how it was 'just so awful how things like this' happened. Their reactions made me more nervous for the surgery and I started crying, telling them I hoped I would be okay and they all assured me I would be, but their voices were a bit off. The bell went and I turned to Cara and she just smiled at me. She told me that she was really sorry I had this disease and that if she could do anything to help, she would. Well, that was a week ago. The surgery was fine, I was in hospital for only two days. Those of which, only Noah and mum and dad came to see me. Cara didn't come and I was quite sad about that because I had visited her when she had her tonsils taken out. Today at school I was late to lunch and when I went to go sit next to her, she just blocked me out. Saying I was 'still sick' and that I should probably go home. I hope you never have to feel what I did that day because when you have to sit in a cubicle in the girl's toilets for lunch, you really do feel sad.