“Did she burn the fucking apartment down George, is she alright?” George let out a small bark of laughter but it lacked his usual hearty luster.
“Harp, I wanted to call you long before now, seriously man, like months ago. But Bree wouldn’t let me and you know Bree. She can be as stubborn as a damn mule!” My heart was pounding heavy and hard with worry, the tone in George’s voice was off, I knew something was wrong.
“What the hell is wrong George you’re freaking me out here.”
With a big sigh, George spoke. “She’s been sick Harp, like real sick. Like struggling to survive type sick.” I immediately tried to stand but the weight of George’s words forced me to my knees. “She was diagnosed back in March with Hodgkins Lymphoma.”
“What the fuck is that?” I growled.
“Cancer.” The world began to swim as that word echoed through my mind. Fucking cancer? I sunk forward and somehow managed to catch myself with one hand, now crouching on the beach on my hands and knees I must have looked quite the sight, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I wanted to bury myself in the sand and hide from the pain that currently racked my soul. “She didn’t want you to know, she didn’t want to fuck up your year. She finished her last course of radiation and chemo a couple of weeks ago and she has to wait another three weeks for her last lot of tests to come back. She’s freaking out Harp, she won’t admit it but she’s struggling. She’s depressed, lonely, she cries all the time. She won’t leave the apartment.” George took a big sigh. “I don’t know what happened in March between you two, but you need to put that shit behind you man and come home, now. Survival and recovery for this particular cancer for someone of Bree’s age is good, her chances are optimal, but she’s preparing herself for the worst and she’s caving under it. Harp, I caught her looking at a damn funeral home on the web the other day.” My body was trembling so hard I had to clench my fingers tightly around the phone and press it hard to my ear to prevent myself from dropping it. “She needs you Harp.”
“I’m on my way,” I whispered through a clenched throat and I hung up. I didn’t say goodbye or tell George when I would be back, I couldn’t talk anymore if I tried. I looked over the perfect waves before me. The sky was blue the breeze was warm, such a stunning day and yet it might as well have been bucketing with rain, grey and dull. The glorious world around me suddenly seemed ugly and cold. I hadn’t cried since I was eleven when I broke my arm trying a noseslide on my skateboard down the slippery rail of a stairwell. But now under the bright Portuguese sun a lone tear slipped through my thick eye lashes and chased an invisible line down my cheek. I screamed into the heavens with the unbearable guilt that rocked my entire being. I should have known. She was being so damn vague in her emails. When I had asked her how work was going she never said a thing. She loved her job at the Jungle Juice bar. They let her sing down there on weekends and she flitted about that damn café in her little skirt and too tight shirt like the fucking juice fairy she was. I should have called, I should have sucked up my pride and made that call I had come so close to making so many damn times. Finally I drew in a deep breath and scrambled to my feet. I had failed her and I could have lost her, I still might. I should have fought harder I should have damn well done it right the first time around. But I wouldn’t fail her again. I would make this right, somehow. With a body now rigid with worry and tension, I staggered back to my hotel room with only one thing on my mind, Breeze.
Bree
I shivered as I pulled the quilt up around my ears, my body curved into a pillow on my side. The drapes were drawn the room dark even though it was light out. It was November on the Eastern coast of Australia which meant it was warm bordering on hot, but I was freezing. I just couldn’t seem to shake off the chill that had invaded my body eight long months ago. I had lost so much weight I would no doubt be lighter than a feather, but I felt heavy. My soul was no longer treading deep waters, it was drowning in it. I had eclipsed sadness months ago and now seemed to exist in a deep well of nothing. The world I lived in now was silent, there was no music, there were no friends, there was nothing but fear and repulsiveness. With a long drawn out shuddering breath I forced myself from my bed, I really had to pee. It pissed me off that my bodily functions kept me from existing in the comfortable cushions and blankets of my bed. In the bathroom I glanced at the mirror, or what would have been the mirror if I had not covered it with a towel. I hated the girl who looked back at me from that mirror. That wasn’t me, it was an imposter. My eyes were darker somehow, by cheeks hollow, my full lips were always cracked and dry, my body thin and spindly. Worst of all was the smooth bald scalp that seemed to ridicule me, not to mention the non-existent eye brows and eye lashes. The hair on my arms and legs was gone too, though I guess that wasn’t such a bad thing. Worse yet was when my pubic hair began to fall out. Some women paid top dollar for that look, to me it just looked like cancer. The girl whose reflection used to consume that mirror had bright eyes that were a little bit blue and a little bit green, her lips were usually covered in a cherry flavored gloss and her high cheeks accented with a quick dash of color. And her hair was long, thick and golden. That girl was gone.
When I went to the doctor eight months ago complaining of fatigue and an unusual lump in my neck the last thing I expected to hear was Cancer. Hodgkins Lymphoma which thankfully was discovered at a very early stage. A combination of chemotherapy and radiation was required which had completely racked my body. And nobody told me that along with my body I would also lose my soul. I have no idea where it went. I couldn’t even tell you when it went. It seemed one day everything was fine, I was coping and my positive attitude saw a smile on my face even after the long hours of vomiting and diarrhea which seemed to follow my treatment. Then the next day I woke and it felt like the world was crushing me. Eight-seven percent of survivors live past the five year mark following treatment. I had been relatively healthy at the time of my diagnosis and they caught it early, so Dr. Kwan assured me the outlook was good. My brain refused to receive that information. All I heard was you might get another five years, good luck with that. I knew I was depressed, I knew the pity party had stayed on much longer than it should have, but I couldn’t pull myself out of this funk. I was trapped.
As I washed my hands I glanced at the t-shirt that lay over the washing basket in the corner of the bathroom and my chest ached with a whole new pain. It belonged to Harper, my best friend, the guy I had loved my entire life. I didn’t just love him, I was in love with him. I hadn’t whispered a word to him in eight long months, he knew nothing about this ugly girl who had invaded his best friends body. George had been threatening to call him if I didn’t get up and leave the apartment soon and stubbornly I remained indoors. Poor George who had sacrificed so much for me and we weren’t even family, but he was the closest to a father I had ever had. My mother was kind of a hippie, hard core, to the bone hippie. She lived in a commune in the middle of the desert for goodness sake. She had no idea who my father was, apparently several men were a possibility and I had decided all the men who lived in the ‘motherland’ were a bunch of sex craved perverts anyway. George was the perfect adopt a dad. But even George who loved me just like a father should was unable to prevent the cancer from ravaging my body. What he could do for me though was take care of me, and that’s exactly what had done. He began working from home. He did something with investments that I really knew nothing about. He was good according to Harper. When I had had to sell my car to pay for treatment he drove me to and from as many of my appointments as he could and when he couldn’t his son Remi was there in his stead. He cooked for me and cleaned up the apartment when I was too tired to move from bed. George was my rock and I knew this shattering depression was destroying him too and I hated myself for that. I was fairly sure George would honor my wish to not call Harper, but there was a small part of me that desperately needed my best friend here now and I guess I hoped George would see through on his threat. I pulled off my tracksuit and climbe
d into Harper’s shirt. It was too big and looked more like a nighty but it still smelled like him and it gave me some resemblance of peace to have it close to me. Dragging myself back to my bedroom I instinctively pressed the play button on my iPod that sat docked with speakers on large retro style desk, painted in a dusty shade of worn yellow. I loved my desk and right now it was buried under a sea of paper, bills and clothes. The clutter bothered me, I was a neat freak but right now I couldn’t gather the energy required to divest my treasured desk of the mess. Avril Lavigne’s voice filled my room as I dived under the covers and pulled them up tightly around my ears. Her ballad Wish You Were Here entered through my ears, rolled around my mind and sent an ache to my heart so painful I thought it might finally break. I knew this song was a form of torture on my heavy soul, but the words were full of so much truth I couldn’t ignore them, I couldn’t not listen to them.
I can be tough
I can be strong
But with you
It's not like that at all
There's a girl
That gives a shit
Behind this wall
You just walked through it
And I remember all those crazy things you said
You left them running through my head
You're always there, you're everywhere
But right now I wish you were here.
All those crazy things we did
Didn't think about it, just went with it
You're always there, you're everywhere
But right now I wish you were here.
I forced my eyes shut, trapping the tears beneath my closed lids and allowed the music to lull me into a place of detachment, sleep. In sleep I was numb, completely oblivious to the disaster my world had been thrown into. Sleep was where I wanted to live right now, so sleep I did.
Coming soon
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2 – four years later
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Breeze of Life (sneak peak) Chapter 1
Saving Ella (Mercy's Angels) Page 28