Storytime- The Rewrite

Chapter Three: Her First Apology

When I first entered the room, she was drinking from a cup of water and nodding at the nurse. No one looked at me as I walked in the door; small mercies.

"Hi." I said, walking up to the bed. My hands hung down by my stomach, clasping each other as I fiddled awkwardly with my fingers. I couldn't make eye contact with her. All I could do was stare at the floor. All the confidence I had after all the years of building it, all the reputation I had disintegrated the moment I saw her pale face looking at me from the bed. The kindness remained in her eyes again. She even gave me a smile when she saw me approaching her. I was always good at intimidation but when intimidation wasn't an option, I was nothing more than a mess. I never usually had to make meaningful conversation. I never usually had to apologise. I was clueless. How do you apologise to a dying girl?

"Look, I might be sick, but you don't have to stand a million miles away. I'm not contagious." She must have known that wasn't the reason I was standing the other end of the bed but it made sense she would try to lighten the mood. I took a few steps towards her, still reluctant to be near her in case I caused any more damage.

"I'll leave you girls to it." The nurse said, exiting through the side door. Her exit was followed by a long, awkward pause. I knew how to fill the silence but I wasn't ready to. It was an apology I was never prepared to make and somehow the kindness in her face made it harder to apologise. She shouldn't have been so kind to me. She shouldn't have been joking with me. She should have been insulting me like she did in the classroom; it was the least I deserved. I took a deep breath and prepared to finally fill the pause.

"Listen I-I am so sorry. I didn't know-"

"It's okay. You weren't to know." Her voice took a soothing tone, almost a reassuring one, as if I were the one she needed to be worried about. Everything about it was wrong.

"Are-Are you okay?" I continued fiddling with my fingers, chanelling my inability to deal with the vulnerability of the situation into movement and I look down. If there was ever a time for my soft side to show, it was then. So it did. I hated it.

"I'll be fine. Eventually. Well, I won't ever be fine. Not really. This problem is for life. But the bruises will go away and the pain will die down so in the case of the shoving thing, I'll be fine in no time." She smiles a little at me. As I looked at her, my eyes seemed to get lost in hers, a deep green, shimmering in sunlight that streamed through the window. Her hair hung down to her shoulders in beautiful brunette curls and I couldn't help but stare. The smile she flashed seemed to bring out the kindness of her face more. It never seemed to fade, even when she was faced with one of the most horrible people she would ever meet. I'd never been confronted by my cruelty in such an unforgiveable way before. I hated that, too.

"Is something wrong?" Suddenly, I snapped back to reality. I shook my head and smiled. I don't know what I was thinking. What made her so special? I'd never treated anyone any differently, whatever their circumstances. So she was sick. Why did I just collapse my ways for her?

"No. Not at all." I was an idiot. A very distracted idiot.

"Illeya isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Josie."

"Nice to meet you Josie." She smiled warmly at me again. To my surprise, she gestured for me to come and stand beside her. I figured I was already close enough without invitation and I was reluctant to move any closer. It didn't seem right for me to be so close to someone I had only caused damage to. It made no sense that she wanted me closer, either.

"Really?"

"We got off to a bad start. So what? The first day is expected to be like this." She laughed and I did too. I went to stand at her bedside and found myself looking at her curls again. I must have seemed insane with all my staring. I don't know how I didn't immediately get uninvited from her bedside.

"Listen, Josie, I really am sorry."

"It doesn't matter. Look, why don't we just start over? I'm the new girl. I tried to run before I could walk. I have to learn to fit in first and I figure you're the best one to teach me how. Anyway, I've had a lot worse first days than this."

"How can you have a day worse than this?" She sighed and flashed a sad smile. I wasn't the one looking down anymore.

"It's a long story." The assertiveness was gone from her voice. It had been replaced by a feebleness, a shyness that I never expected from a girl like her. All of a sudden, I wasn't the only vulnerable one.

"Oh. I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." But I wanted her too. Why did I want her to? I didn't even care about my own stories, let alone the people around me's. Yet somehow, I wanted to hear all about her life and somehow, she trusted me enough to tell me.

"I was at school. Drama lesson. We were studying A Twelfth Night. No one really understood it," She laughed. "and I was Viola. It was a woman pretending to be a man. None of us had any idea why. It was my first day and I was in a group with some nice people. They were very welcoming and we had a lot of fun together. Then the lady from the school office came. She came into the room with a grim look on her face. I saw the look in her eyes. Those sad, apologetic eyes stared at me and it terrified me. I'd never seen that look before. As she pulled me out of class, I was shaking.  It was an unfamiliar situation and I didn't deal well with them so I was scared. Then she put her hand on my shoulder and I was just confused. She lead me into 'The Blue Room' and sat me down on the big comfy chair. It wa obvious by that point something was wrong. People only got taken to that room to be spoken to and it was always serious. My mum was already in the rom. I could tell she had been crying because her eyes were puffy, her mascara was running and her cheeks were red. She was still sniffling. She just... stared at me. She didn't say anything for a long time, until she took my hand and just held it. She looked me square in the eyes and said to me 'Your sister is gone sweetheart.' That was it. One statement. I sidn't completely understand yet so she clarified. She died, a little after I'd gone to school. I froze as if I was paralyzed, glued to the seat. And I sat there in silence for about 20 minutes. But when it hit me I couldn't stop crying. My sister was my shoulder and she was always there. Always. And she was gone. My mum just hugged me for a long time. They let me off school for a few weeks. So, being pushed in a classroom is nothing."

"I'm so sorry." What else was I meant to say? I didn't understand and I wouldn't for a while.

"Don't apologise. Things happen. Look, I know I may not fit in but maybe we have a shot at being, not friends, but... You know what I mean." I smiled awkwardly. Making friends was never my strong point, especially not when it was with a girl like her.

"Friends. I am sorry about earlier." She returned my smile.

"Already forgotten."

"Thank you." For a moment, we stared at each other and her face broke into a big smile as she laughed at something I couldn't see.

"What is it?" She continued to laugh, shaking her head.

"Nothing. I'm just thinking about your face when you saw me on the floor."

"That was funny?" She kept laughing and it became contagious.

"Well yeah! It was priceless! You were wide eyed and wide mouthed and EVERYONE was staring. Look, every school I've been to, they've overdramatised my condition. I've dealt with it for a long time so I wouldn't listen to their melodrama. I'm not dying. The attacks, a lot of the time, are no more severe than a mild panic attack. It would be nice to have one person who doesn't treat me differently because they think I'm on borrowed time. I know this is a lot to ask, but you seem like the type of person to be honest with people. Can you do that for me?"