Taylor said her parents were just as weird as mine, but that is so not true. Her mum was really nice to me and her dad didn’t have to work late. When he came home we all ate dinner at the table together and it was delicious. It was a lasagne that Taylor’s mum cooked herself, in the oven, not the microwave, from scratch. Her parents didn’t argue once and her dad was actually quite funny, cracking silly jokes the whole time. Taylor rolled her eyes, maybe she’d heard them all before, but I laughed.
After dinner they said we could either go hang out in Taylor’s room, or watch a film with them. They have the biggest TV I’ve ever seen. I think Taylor wanted us to go up to her room, but I said I’d like to watch the film. Her mum made popcorn and her dad turned all the lights off, so that the only things we could see were the Christmas-tree lights and the glow from the television. It was like being at the pictures. Her parents sat on the sofa and Taylor and I shared a giant beanbag on the floor, as if we were a proper family. I didn’t really pay much attention to the film, I kept looking around the room. Everything was so perfect, I wish I lived there.
Taylor had fallen asleep by the time the film was over, so I thought maybe I should pretend to be asleep too. Her mum picked her up and I was a bit scared at first when her dad picked me up in his arms, but then they carried us upstairs like we were still babies and put us to bed. Taylor only has one bed in her room, so we were sharing. The sheets smelled so nice, like a meadow. Taylor really was sleeping, but I couldn’t, it was the best night ever and I didn’t want it to end. I looked up at her bedroom ceiling and saw hundreds of stars. I knew they were only stickers that glowed in the dark, but they were still beautiful. I reached up and if I held my finger in the right place and squinted my eyes, it was like I could touch them.
Even when I heard Taylor’s parents go to bed, I still couldn’t sleep, the thoughts in my head were too busy. I got up to go to the bathroom and when I got there I noticed the three toothbrushes in the cup. I’d asked Taylor about them earlier and she’d explained that hers was red, her dad’s was blue and her mum’s was yellow. She said they always had the same colours. Then she said maybe I could get a green toothbrush and then I could be part of their gang. I didn’t want a green one though. I wanted to be red.
I crept back to the bedroom, where Taylor was still asleep. I did something bad then. I didn’t mean to, it just sort of happened. I walked over to the dressing table and picked up her jewellery box. She’d asked me not to touch it earlier, which made me really want to. I opened it slowly and watched the tiny ballerina twirl away inside. There should have been something for her to dance to, but someone had broken the music. I watched the little doll spin round and round, dancing in the silence with a tiny strawberry-coloured smile painted on her face. Inside the box there was a gold bracelet. I held it up close so I could see it properly and noticed that it was engraved with Taylor’s date of birth, it could have been mine, it’s my birthday too. On the other side it said ‘my darling girl’ in tiny joined-up letters. I didn’t mean to take it. I just wanted to see what it felt like. I’ll give it back.
After that, I climbed into the bed and wiggled my body so that my face was right next to Taylor’s and our noses were almost touching. Even though she was sleeping, she looked like she was smiling, probably because she’s so lucky. I bet even her dreams are better than mine.
There are three things that Taylor has that I don’t:
1. Cool parents.
2. A nice home.
3. Her very own stars.
I’m glad that Taylor and I are friends now. I’ll give the bracelet back, I promise I will. And I hope we don’t ever move house again because I really would miss her. I wish I lived in a house that smelled of popcorn and had stars on the ceiling.
Now
Thursday, 29th December 2016
My family is not like other families. I think I knew that even as a child. I’ve always wished my parents would love me the way other parents loved their children. Unconditionally. Things weren’t perfect before Mum brought Claire home from the hospital, but things were better than they became. Nobody was there for me then and nobody is here for me now.
Paul has not returned. Every time the door opens, I hope it might be him, but the only people who have been to visit me since morning rounds are paid to do so. They talk to me, but they don’t tell me what I need to know. I suppose it’s hard to give someone the answers when you don’t know the questions. If Paul really has been arrested, then I need to wake up more than ever before. I have to remember what happened.
Evening rounds are brief, I’m no longer the main attraction. I’m old news now. Someone more broken than I am has come along. Even good people get tired of trying to mend what can’t be fixed. Forty-A-Day Nurse was talking about her upcoming holiday with one of the others earlier. She’s going to Rome with a man she met on the internet and seems happier than usual, a bit gentler. I wonder what her real name is: Carla, perhaps? She sounds like she could be a Carla. She’s not my favourite, but I’ll still miss her while she’s away, she’s part of my routine now and I’ve never been fond of change.
In my new world, I am dependent on complete strangers: they wash me, they change me and they feed me through a tube in my stomach. They collect my piss in a bag and they wipe my shitty arse. They do all these things to look after me, but I’m still cold, hungry, thirsty and scared. I can smell dinner on the ward outside my room. I feel the saliva congregate inside my mouth in anticipation of something that will not come. It slides its way around and down the tube in my throat, while the machine that breathes for me huffs and puffs as though bored of it all. I’d give anything to taste food again, to enjoy the feel of it on my tongue, to chew it up and swallow its heat down into my belly. I try not to think about all the things I miss eating, drinking, doing. I try not to think about anything at all.
I hear someone come in – a man, I think, based solely on the faint smell of body odour. Whoever they are, they don’t speak and I can’t tell what they are doing. I feel fingers touch my face without any warning and then someone opens my right eye, shining a bright light into it. I’m blinded by white until they let my lid close again. Just as I start to calm down, they do the same to my left eye and I feel even more disoriented than before. Whoever it is leaves shortly afterwards and I am glad. I never would have thought lying in bed could be so uncomfortable. I’ve been on my right side for over six thousand seconds, I lost count after that. They should turn me soon. Nothing good ever happens when they leave me lying on my right side, I think it might be unlucky.
I feel something drip on my face, something cold. Then it happens again. Tiny drops of water, landing on my skin. It feels like rain but that doesn’t make any sense. Instinctively, I open my eyes and see the night sky above me. It’s as though the roof has been lifted right off and it’s raining inside my room. I can open my eyes, but I can’t move. I look down to see that my hospital bed has become a boat floating on gentle waves. I tell myself not to be afraid, this is a dream, just like the others. The rain falls harder and the sheets that are pulled over my limp limbs start to feel damp and cold. The body that I am estranged from starts to shiver. Something moves beneath the sheets and it isn’t me. The girl in the pink dressing gown emerges from the covers at the foot of the bed and sits herself up so that we mirror each other. Her hair is already dripping wet and she still doesn’t have a face. She can’t speak but she doesn’t have to, silence is our common language. She chose it, I live with her choice. She points up at the black sky and I see the stars, hundreds of them, so close that I could reach up and touch them, if I could move. But they’re not real. They’re assorted luminous stickers, which start to peel off and fall down onto the bed, pointy corners of white plastic curling up at the edges. There are star-shaped holes in the sky now. The little girl starts to sing and I wish she wouldn’t.
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.
She takes her hands out from under the sheets and I see a flash of gold on her wrist.