FW: Honesty
I want you to read the email I got from Jack last night, then you can probably imagine what kind of mood I’m in.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jack [mailto:Address removed by anti spam software]
Sent: 01 July 2008, 22:07
To: Poppy [mailto:Address removed by anti spam software]
Subject: Honesty
Poppy,
There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time, but I can just never bring myself to say it to your face. I should have told you when we first met, but I do have a reason for it, even if it is a selfish reason.
I don’t have much choice but to tell you now. Not just because of how guilty I feel but because it’s going to be impossible for me to hide it any longer. Well, hide isn’t quite the right word. I hate that word. I’d never be able to hide anything from you, Poppy. You’re my best friend. I know we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but it seems like ages. I love being around you. It makes it easier for me to ignore the truth. I try to act normal and forget about things, but it’s impossible. The only time I can really forget it and enjoy myself is when I’m with you, but I haven’t been fair on you. You have a right to know the truth. It’s going to kill me telling you this. Ha, not that it makes any difference. Either way, something’s going to kill me.
I know you lost your mum when you were young and how hard you’re still finding it to cope without her, and that’s what makes it even more difficult for me to tell you. I’m taking the coward’s way out and writing it in an email. Just read what I have to say and then everything’s up to you.
When I started secondary school, I fell in with the wrong crowd and I started smoking, but even though God gave me the courage to stand up to my ‘friends’ and stop, I’m paying the price for it now because in March I was diagnosed with lung cancer. There are two types of lung cancer, and I’m unlucky enough to have the most deadly one. Lucky me, I beat the statistics and am one of only a handful of teenagers in the world who have ever been diagnosed with lung cancer. The type I have is a very aggressive form of cancer and spreads rapidly. By the time I was diagnosed with it it had already spread, meaning that the chances of me getting over it are pretty slim.
At the time I was diagnosed, the doctors said I would only have a few weeks to live if I didn’t have chemotherapy, so I didn’t have much choice. Luckily enough, the type of chemo I’m having doesn’t make your hair fall out, but it makes me feel so tired and ill afterwards I hate it. The chemotherapy will never be a cure though. It’s just a way of controlling my symptoms. Even with the chemo, the doctors say it’ll be unlikely that I’ll live to see 2009.
Inside, I just want to die in peace. I hate having chemo and it’s not going to cure me. It won’t kill the cancer, it just slows it down. It’s just prolonging the inevitable and I always feel so ill afterwards. I just want to stop having it and let the cancer just do its work, but I have to think about Mum and Emily, and I can’t do that to them. Now there’s you to think about as well.
I know you know how it feels not to have any friends, and I’ve been so lonely since I was diagnosed. I didn’t have any friends before, but with lung cancer I didn’t have much chance of making any, and at the one time in my life when I needed people the most. You can probably imagine how much of a turn off it is for people when you introduce yourself to them and then say ‘Oh, by the way, I’m going to be dead this time next year’. I needed someone outside of my family I could talk to and just hang out with to get away from my life. When I’m at home, I watch Mum and all of the things she’s going to have to do on her own when I’m not there. She acts like everything’s okay, but I know that’s not what she’s thinking. When I saw you the first time at the nightclub, it was love at first sight for me. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you about my cancer because you’d turn away from me like everyone else I knew or had tried to get to know. Every time we get together now, I tell myself that that’s going to be the time I break the news to you, but I can never do it. So, here I am now telling you in an email because I’m too much of a chicken to say it to your face.
I told myself that I was going to say something before now, before we started getting attached to each other, because you’re going to lose me. You’ve already had someone close to you die, and I don’t want to put you through that again.
I’ve found it so difficult to get up the courage to tell you this. Even now I’ve had to force myself because I’m going into chemo tomorrow and I don’t want to lie to you. I’m not going to be here for the next week, and I’m not going to give you excuses. The truth is it’s because I’m going to be in hospital. We can’t even talk to each other because I’m not going to be here, which makes me telling you now even worse. I hate myself for this and you have every right to hate me too. If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to spend three days being injected with chemicals designed to kill the cells in my body with no distinction between good or bad cells, and the three or four days after that feeling so ill I wish I could die there and then and being so weak I can’t even get out of bed because I’d probably collapse before I’d walked 5 metres. The drugs that are supposed to stop me feeling ill don’t work because I’m allergic to them. I don’t get the tiredness other people normally get, but I have no way of stopping the sickness.
I’m saying this now because I might not get a chance to tell you again, but I’m completely in love with you, Poppy. There’s nothing I want more in what’s left of my life than to have you be my girlfriend, but that would be stupid and selfish of me. I know me dying is probably going to be bad enough for you as it is.
I should have told you sooner. I should have given you the chance to turn away from me like everyone else I’ve met since March. If you never want to see or speak to me again, I’ll understand that. It’ll be the smart thing to do. Don’t let yourself get any more attached to me. Just text me to let me know that you’ve got this email, so I don’t sit here wondering. I kept this from you and I can’t even expect you to want to be my friend after this. I just hope God will forgive me, even if you can’t. I’m so sorry, Poppy.
Jack
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Remember after I met Jack, you told me that it was proof that life isn’t totally unfair? You were wrong. It’s proof that life is COMPLETELY unfair, beyond any doubt, reasonable or not. Of all the people who were at the club that night I could have run into, I had to make friends with the one who’s going to die. I’m so close to the point where I’m convinced that you’re doing this to me on purpose. What are the chances of all the bad things that have happened to me happening to the same person? It must be miniscule. I can’t see any other explanation for it other than that you’re doing this to me on purpose. I know now I was never meant to be happy. Jack was the one piece of evidence I had to go against that, but now that evidence has been disproven.
I had to read that email four times before I could really take in what it was saying. Even then, it was ages before I could really accept it. Of course I couldn’t stay away from Jack after that. I didn’t text him, I had to go to his house to hear it from him himself. I still couldn’t believe it was true. I was convinced it was some horrible joke. I ran all the way down to his house but when I got there and he answered the door I couldn’t think of anything to say. He knew I’d got the email though. I can’t imagine that it would have been hard to tell from the state I was in. I didn’t know what to say to him. I just threw my arms around him and I didn’t want to let go. That was when I started crying. You know what I’m like when I’m upset. I can’t control myself. We just stood there in the doorway for ages with me crying, neither of us knowing what to say.
Jack is so annoying. It’s beyond me how he manages to remain positive in the face of all that. The first thing he managed to think of to say to me? “I’m the one who’s going to die, and you’re the one who’s crying?”. I kissed him after that. I don’t regret it. I love Jack and now I realise I don’t have time to waste with him any more.
I told Jack I’d be his girlfriend. Him dying will be bad enough whether he’s my friend or my boyfriend. Either way, I won’t have anything left to live for once he’s gone. I might as well enjoy him while I can.
Jack was totally right, that it would be the smart thing for me to do to cut him out of my life, but it’s too late for that. Whether I cut him out now or wait for him to die, it’s going to break my heart.
Why do these things keep happening to me? It never happens to anyone else! Not the way they happen on a regular basis with me. I know I’m not supposed to be happy. Why is the world set up to torture me? Why is it always the people I care about who die? There are enough other people! Why Jack and not someone else?
I feel so terrible right now. I thought maybe I’d be feeling better today once I’d had a chance to sleep on it (not that I actually got much sleep last night) but I’m actually feeling worse. Seeing Jack drive off this morning was horrible. It was just like he was taking a huge chunk of me with him. I suppose he is in a way.
I’m so lonely. I feel so completely alone. I’d forgotten how it feels with no-one else here. Every day with Jack was an adventure. Now it’s back like old times again. Nothing to look forward to and no reason to get out of bed. This next week while Jack is in hospital is going to go on forever, I can feel it. I don’t know how I’m going to manage without him here. He’s only been gone for an hour now and it’s already killing me, and I know he’ll be coming back next week. I can’t even bear to think about how one day he’s going to be gone for good. I won’t have anything left to live for. There’s nothing else in my life.
I can’t even type properly any more because my hands are shaking too much and if I get any more tears on the keyboard it’s probably going to catch fire to itself or something.
Camael, just shut up. I can’t take it any more. If you want to spend the rest of your life depressed, go ahead. I don’t care any more.
-Poppy
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