United Forever

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

“I can do this,” I said out loud. I can say goodbye. I’m only going to a different country. 5031 miles, to be precise. No biggie. And leaving behind my friends, home, the comfort of growing up in a place and knowing it is, in some way, your’s? No big deal.

I walked up to Alrys. “Hey,” I said. I hid my fidgeting fingers behind my back.

“Hi, Isabelle!” she replied. She always called me by my full name, even though everyone else, including my parents, call me Izzy. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” I lied. I wish it was nothing. “Um, so I have something to tell you.”

Alrys slung her phone in her back pocket, where it performed some sort of gravitational miracle and balanced precariously there. “Yeah?”

I can do this, I reminded myself. “I, uh, have something to tell you,” I mumbled, half-hoping that she wouldn’t hear me. 

“Oh?” Her interest is piqued. I wondered if that were good or bad. In a normal situation, it would be good, of course. I loved Alrys as much as I loved myself, if not more. She was the sun to my moon, forever shining and eternally beloved in life. Her’s was worth much more than mine. Everyone expected great things from Alrys- cancer cures, shuttling off into space, ruling a country and leading it to glory- these were all possible roles she would play, as discussed by adults. Only I knew the effort it took to maintain a pleasing smile even as anxiety tore at it, the worry that gnawed at her when she got a less-than-perfect grade, the strain of having to constantly appear all-knowing.

“I-” I began, only to be interrupted by Mia barreling into Alrys. “Alrys!” she gasped, almost falling over herself in an effort to get the words out of her mouth. “Alrys! Diana fell from the monkey bars and now her leg’s broken!”

Alrys took three deep breaths, calming herself down. “Is there blood?” 

“No.”

“A bit of bone sticking out?”

“No.”

“A clean break, then,” she said to herself. “Tell the teacher,” she commanded to Mia. She ran off. I followed Alrys, hoping that all this would blow over soon and I would be free to make my statement.

Alrys had calmed Diana down by the time Mia had returned with Mrs Hemmingway and an ambulance. As Diana was loaded up, she even looked distinctly cheerful. “Alrys reminded me that I could pick the colour of my cast,” she told me as the ambulance women strapped her leg in. “And that I can have people drawing on my leg. Well, my cast.” 

That’s Alrys, I thought fondly. She always knows the right thing to do.

“Alrys,” I whispered at Math. She didn’t look up but nodded at her math book, which I knew was a sign. As I opened my mouth, our math teacher, Mrs Langford, called, “Everyone focus, now! This is very important for your exams!” And the moment was lost.

“Hey,” I said at break, the same time as Mike blurted, “I need help with my homework!” Alrys just couldn’t say no- it went against her very nature. She went off, pored over the maths books, gently explaining everything while Mike nodded intently. She returned just as the bell rang, signalling the end of break.

“Um,” I began at lunch as a five-year-old sobbed into Alrys skirt about her mother’s passing. She scooped Michelle up and cradled her in her arms, murmuring words of comfort. Michelle didn’t look much better at the end, but at least she had stopped crying. The only sign that she had been was her dark, spiked eyelashes and tear-tracks, cutting a swathe through her cheeks.

“So, Alrys,” I started at the bus stop where we waited for her’s to come. 

“Oh! Yeah, you were about to tell me something?” she remembered. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m so busy today- I don’t even have any time for my best friend!” She smiled at me. People argue over whether pen or swords is more powerful, but I disagree with both. Alrys’s smile is the most powerful- enchanting as a fairie’s promise, warm as a blanket on a winter’s day.

“It’s just that- uh, I don’t know how to put this,” I said. I almost backed out. I wiped my palms on my school skirt. It didn’t do much to help the liquid pouring out of my pores. 

“Oh, Isabelle, I’m so sorry,” she interrupted apologetically, “but my bus is here. I gotta go. Tell me tomorrow?”

I nodded, the worry in my stomach dissipating. For now. “Yeah. Tell you tomorrow.”

When tomorrow’s morning dawned, it seemed the wrong type of day for my news. It was sunny, the type of day that inspired couch potatoes like me to go out for a walk in the crisply cool spring air. Lost in thought, I pulled on my uniform and ate my breakfast, relying on muscle memory. Then I began my walk to school. Each step I took sent another swirl of nausea in my stomach.

When I reached there, the school was abuzz. I pushed my way to the front. My eyes widened.

In front of me was the teachers, sobbing into their colleagues’ shoulders.

"What? What happened?" I asked, bewildered. One of my classmates- Lila- turned to me. "Don't you know?" she replied. Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks and she made no attempt to brush them away. "Alrys died last night. A car crashed exactly where she was sitting on the bus. And no one else was hurt, because, you know, the bus she rides in is usually pretty empty. The bus driver was cut badly, but he'll live."

I staggered back in shock, hands flying to my mouth. I expect tears, inconsolable grief, an Alrys shaped hole in my heart. Instead, there is grief at the loss the world just suffered, and happiness that we would be united, this time forever. After all, the trip? It was not just 5031 miles; it was hope. 

Hope my parents held that my stage four cancer could be cured with better machinery.

How ironic that I hope for the opposite.