by R. J. Groves
It took me a moment to realise that I couldn’t hear anything beyond these earphones, the lyrics drowning out all other sounds. These words seemed to suit the moment entirely. They seemed to suit me.
Look me in the eyes, tell me the truth. Is it love or is it hate?
If my body wanted to cry, I was not going to stop it. In fact, right now, I wanted to cry. My body shook, but no tears came. I was tired and my eyes were dry. I came to the conclusion that I had already cried so much this week that my tear ducts were now empty. My body shook once more. I sighed, relieved that it was as close as I was going to get to a tear.
΅ ΅ ΅
I crept down the stairs, my hand clutching my side and my teeth digging into my bottom lip in an attempt to ease the searing pain. I could hear my family laughing and dishes clashing in the kitchen. The delicious scent of satay chicken tickled my nose and I rested my hand against the corner of the wall to steady myself as I headed into the kitchen.
“Oh, Renée. Great – can you take this box upstairs?” my dad said as he held out a box.
I looked up at his face. His hazel eyes stood out against his pale skin and greying hair. My mother didn’t even need to turn around to know I was there.
“Rod, sweetie, do it yourself. Renée’s not feeling well,” she said, tossing the chicken in the wok.
My father observed my face, smiled, and put his hand on my shoulder as he moved past me to perform the task himself. I walked over to the sink to get a glass of water. Fayne held out his hand towards me without looking while concentrating on making the sauce.
“Hey, Née, can you pass me a spoon?” he asked, adding some chilli powder to the sauce.
I picked up the spoon off the dish rack and reached over to place it in his empty hand, letting go of it too soon and missing his hand completely. Instinctively, I made a quick grab for the falling spoon, flinching as the pain shot through my body again, and I collapsed to the floor. Hearing the spoon clatter on the ground, Fayne turned and was instantly beside me, Mum following soon after.
“Renée, sweetie, what happened?” Her frail face had worry written all over it as Fayne leant back against the bench and closed his eyes.
“Same as this morning,” he said quietly as my mother looked up at him, questioning him with her eyes. “This morning, it was a sudden movement that triggered the pain. Same as with now.”
My mother’s eyes fell back onto me before she stood up to turn off the wok.
“Fayne, go get your father and start the car,” she said, covering the wok with the lid.
Fayne looked at her questioningly.
“We’re taking her to the hospital,” she replied to his unspoken question, reaching down to help me up.
Chapter 5
The day the dreaded news came out.
It was Monday once again. I usually liked Mondays, but something told me that I was not going to like this one. The fact that it has been one week today since she came to this school, and one week and a day since the breakup, might have had something to do with it. Or it could have just been from me deciding to do something and not being able to do it.
After seeing how nice Renée was to me and Aimee on Saturday, I decided that I would start being nicer to her – that I would let go of all my paranoid thoughts about her and Kane.
They had known each other for a week. There was no way that they would be going out now or, knowing Renée the little bit that I did, anytime soon. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself this – I still never completely believed it. But I made the decision to be nicer to her and actually welcome her as my friend that morning before school, hoping that, if I put my thoughts into action, then I would begin to believe it.
I had always enjoyed chemistry. It was my only favourite subject on Mondays. I decided, as part of my plan, to make it enjoyable for Renée as well. I planned to go to this class with Renée, sit with her and be her lab partner, actually conversing and working with her, unlike how it was last week. This was my plan for the first two periods of school.
It was when I was walking to chemistry alone that I realised that my plan wasn’t going to work – the first part of it, at least. I could still sit with her and be her lab partner, of course, and I would, if I knew where she was. I hadn’t seen her at all this morning, and neither had Aimee. If she hadn’t been so nice to me after the argument I had with Kane, I would have thought I’d offended her and she was avoiding me.
I walked into the lab with the rest of the class – everyone except Renée. I sat down in my usual seat and observed the classroom around me. Every student had a partner. Every seat was taken except for the vacant one next to me. I glanced at one too many faces, my chest hurting when I saw his tanned skin, his black hair almost flowing into his eyes. He had a lab partner. The seat next to him was occupied. I was slightly relieved, however, to know that it was occupied by Mark, not Renée. I spent all of chemistry with a vacant seat as my lab partner, and the rest of the day with still no sign of the smart, pretty redhead.
΅ ΅ ΅
“How are you feeling, Née?” Fayne asked, sitting down on the hospital bed beside me.
I looked at him, my eyes welling with moisture, showing clearly how I felt without saying anything.
“Right. It hurts,” he said, turning his attention to twiddling his thumbs.
My mother was sitting on the chair next to the bed, her head resting on my arm. My father had just entered the room, three foam cups in his hands, and he distributed them amongst my family.
“Sorry, sunshine. Doc said you’re not allowed to have anything yet,” he said, sitting on the seat next to my mother and placing his hand on her back.
I sighed. I had been in hospital all night, my father and Fayne returning home for a few hours to get some sleep while my mother stayed with me.
After coming to the hospital, I was assigned a bed to stay in while the doctor and nurses tried to figure out what was wrong. They then decided to give me a couple of painkillers and an IV drip and leave me for the night. Whether or not the painkillers worked, I couldn’t tell. I had found another position to lay in where the pain wasn’t significant and I could get some rest.
I didn’t dare move my whole body at any one time because of my previous experience of the pain. It was a feeling I knew I would have to come across sometime soon, but I planned to put off that feeling for as long as I possibly could. I still didn’t know what was wrong with me, and as far as I knew, the doctor didn’t either.
“Renée, I have some more painkillers for you. But first I want you to tell me where it hurts,” a solemn voice said.
The small doctor walked over to my bed and helped me sit up straight. This was my assigned doctor. This is the person who was on a quest to find something wrong with me, to do whatever she could to help fix it when she found it. She prodded my stomach, causing me to flinch.
“Did that hurt?” she asked, looking at my face to show her concern.
“A little,” I replied.
I always hated the part of the examination that required prodding. To me, it was at this stage where I would lose respect for whoever it was that caused more pain from employing this technique. She smiled at my honesty, prodding my stomach in different areas, her final prod releasing a gasp of pain from my mouth.
“Well, Renée,” she said, frowning now. “You may have impinged a nerve, but that doesn’t explain your nausea. Do you normally feel sick when in pain?”
I thought about it. Sometimes I did, and sometimes I didn’t. It depended on what kind of pain.
“Sometimes,” I replied.
My mother looked up.
“She hasn’t been eating much lately. You don’t think she could be bulimic?” she said, surprising everyone in the room.
“Even if that were the case, Mrs. Clarkey, that still doesn’t explain the pain,” the doctor said reassuringly before turning back to me. “Okay, Renée, here are your painkillers. They should start working in ten to fifteen minutes.”
I took the painkillers and the glass of water from her outstretched hand and swallowed them, dreading the horrible aftertaste.
“So, she can go home?” my mother asked, sitting motionless on the chair beside me.
The doctor looked at me and back at my mother.
“With the amount of pain she’s in, Mrs. Clarkey, I suggest that she stays here where we can keep an eye on her and give her any medication she may need.”
I looked at my mother; her eyes dropped to her hands. My father rose to his feet and thanked the doctor as she left me alone with my family.
΅ ΅ ΅
“Emma, I never thought I’d see the day when you would say that you were worried about Renée,” Aimee said to me while we ate our lunch. She looked relieved and happy to see that I was eating a lot more now.
“Well, I guess you can say that I said it a lot sooner than you expected,” I teased.
We both laughed, but I didn’t put much into it. Aimee seemed to think that my laugh was forced this time and, of course, she was right. She frowned, concerned as well.
“Emma, if you’re so worried about Renée, we can go to her place after school,” she offered.
Was she worried about her too? Who am I kidding? I thought. I have known Renée for a week; I can’t really be worried about her. The truth is, I was worried about her and I knew it. I remember her telling me that she wanted to go to university to study nursing. She had told me she wanted to get the best possible entrance mark that she was capable of, that she would not take a day off school unless she was on her deathbed. She’s all right, I told myself, trying to convince myself that all of my thoughts are correct.
“No, I’m fine. I was just wondering why she’s not here,” I replied.
Aimee didn’t look completely convinced but, after a moment of thought, she shrugged and returned to eating her lunch.
΅ ΅ ΅
It was now Tuesday, and the pain hadn’t eased at all. In fact, it was heading in the opposite direction. I had been in hospital for two nights now and I’d already found the hospital bed to be uncomfortable. I not only felt sore from the pain in my stomach, but I also felt sad. No, it was more than sadness. It was worry and loneliness too.
Apart from the fact that at least one member of my family was with me almost all the time, I felt lonely. Lonely because, despite my best friend being with me most of the time, my newer friends hadn’t come to visit me, hadn’t rung, or by any means talked to me since I last saw them on Saturday. I know I shouldn’t judge who my friends were over one incident, but since it had only been a week since I first attended Leverand High, maybe they weren’t really my friends. Could they be? Could friendships be built over such a short time?
I looked next to me. Once again, my mother was sitting next to me, her head resting on my arm, her face hidden by her curly red hair.
“Mum? Are you awake?” I asked weakly, nudging her arm gently.
She raised her head.
“Yes, sweetie. What do you need?” she replied, brushing a strand of hair away from my eyes.
“Have Emma or Aimee called yet?” I looked into her sad eyes.
“No, sweetie. They haven’t,” she said, taking my hand in hers.
I nodded, looking down at my hands.
“Do you think they really are my friends?” I asked, my voice cracking.
I thought I could see a trace of alarm and sadness flash through my mother’s eyes.
“What makes you say that?” she asked, her grip tightening on my hand.
“It’s just that… normally when someone is in hospital, their friends come and visit them, or they at least call. Mum, no one else has come to visit me and nobody has called.”
I felt a tear roll down my cheek. My mother’s face softened as she wiped it away with her free hand.
“Sweetie, don’t ever think that someone isn’t your friend because of incidents like this,” she said. “They may not know about it, or could have so much on their plates already. Whatever their reason is, sweetie, I’m sure that they are still your friends, even if you have only known them for a week.”
I looked into the beautiful green eyes that were observing my face. Despite the amount of doubt that I felt inside me, I knew that I had to trust her. She would never let me do otherwise.
“What do you mean it could be appendicitis?”
My mother’s raised voice, along with a constant pain in my side, pulled me away from the sleep I thought I was having – that I should have been having.
I could tell by the sound of the footsteps in the room that both of my parents and a doctor were having a conversation while I slept. Or maybe their voices gave it away. I avoided opening my eyes or flinching as much as I could to listen to what they were saying.
“The symptoms and a few of the tests mostly point to that being what’s wrong,” the doctor said.
“But that’s bad, right? You must have it all wrong,” my mum said frantically. “My daughter cannot have appendicitis.”
My mother – I could tell it was her by her footsteps – was pacing back and forth at the end of my bed.
“Mrs. Clarkey, with all due respect, our research team is extremely accurate and are experts in that area. It is highly unlikely that they have made a mistake.”
“Well, they must have. This is impossible!”
It was becoming harder for me to keep my eyes closed and still manage to stay awake. I heard my dad’s heavier footsteps walk steadily to where my mum was pacing.
“Amelia, dear, please stop arguing with the doctor.” I heard him turn to the motionless lady who was standing her ground. “There must be something you can do,” he pleaded.
“Wait – if Renée has appendicitis, then why haven’t you and your expert research team picked up on it sooner?”
Fayne’s sudden interjection brought my body to flinch unwillingly. His voice was filled with fury.
“Fayne,” my dad said, trying to calm him down.
“No,” he said, his voice shaking. “She’s been here for days and you only pick up on it now?”
“Fayne, leave the room, please,” my father said, attempting again to keep the peace in the room.
“I will not leave. Don’t you understand? She is my sister! Not only that, but she’s my best friend,” Fayne said, his voice getting louder. “You can’t expect me to be calm about this! Nothing can happen to her – ever!”
“She is as much our daughter as she is your sister, Fayne. We’re just as worried about her as you are,” my dad said. I could hear his voice raising with more authority.
“Then where were you when she needed you, huh? Both of you,” Fayne continued. “You were too busy making us move and trying to start a new life somewhere else. Or too busy working and doing your own things. Where were you when your daughter needed a shoulder to cry on, or someone to help her get back on her feet?”
“Fayne, this is not the time to talk about this,” my mother’s quiet, shaky voice instructed her eldest child.
“When is the time, Ma?” Fayne retorted. “You never notice these things. You’re too busy convincing everyone that we’re the perfect family!”
I heard my mother release a gasp, followed by a sob.
“Fayne,” she muttered through sobs.
My doctor let out a little cough to get everyone’s attention.
“Mrs. Clarkey – if I may. I know it’s taken a few days to identify the symptoms,” she said. “It wasn’t clear and serious enough earlier to make appendicitis the first possible cause on the list. It’s still not confirmed yet. There are still more tests we need to run to be definite. These tests are accurate and will determine the procedure we need to use. In the meantime, we will give her regular doses of inflammation medication and see if that helps.”
My mother’s pacing and sobbing stopped.
“By procedure, you mean…?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
“Surgery,” the doctor said calmly. “We may need to remove her
appendix.”
΅ ΅ ΅
Two days had passed, and there was still no sign of Renée. It was Wednesday afternoon, and I was sitting next to Aimee in our math class. Our teacher had just finished talking and told us to continue with our textbook work. This part of the lesson was our ideal note-writing time.
Renée hasn’t been at school for three days, I wrote, and passed the note to Aimee.
I know. Maybe she’s on a holiday with her family or something, she wrote back.
Aimee, we saw her all last week and on Saturday. She would have told us if she was going on a holiday.
Good point. Hey, do you remember the quadratic equation?
I shook my head at how Aimee could be actually thinking about the lesson when we hadn’t heard from Renée.
No, but Aims – something is wrong with Renée, I wrote, concern building within me.
Damn. We’ll go to her place after school, okay? she replied. She turned and asked Alice, who was sitting on her other side, what the quadratic equation was, and received an answer to the question I was unable to answer.
We knocked on the stained-glass door that belonged to Renée’s beautiful double-story home. The house, along with its front garden, looked like it had just been pulled out of a magazine.
“Her mum must love gardening,” I muttered to Aimee, who nodded in agreement.
From the outside, the big house looked quite empty.
We knocked again. After a few moments, the door was finally opened by a tall young man. I guessed that he was only a couple of years older than us. His curly reddish-brown hair and green eyes looked very similar to Renée’s – maybe he was her brother, though I didn’t know if she had any siblings.
“Can I help you?” he asked, puzzled by our silence and clearly wondering who we were.
“We’re looking for Renée,” Aimee replied. “Is she home?”
