A tear

The exterior was pearly white with several rows of clock like windows, people walked up and down like ants admiring its beauty, and there, in the bow, its name. "The Serpentine". Maybe it was a premonition, they would see it as the biggest error of their life, as something vile... But I hoped that, in time, they would maybe feel otherwise, or at least, understand. I was feeling guilty, I knew I was about to commit one of the biggest pains ever endured, but time taught me to be selfish, greedy, rude. They were the sun in my life, the warmth in my skin, the tragic smile in my mouth. It would be the last time that they would see me, I didn't tell them that, of course... Telma, the gigantic of a woman I dared to call mother and Luis, my father, were taking a cruise. The experience of a lifetime, someone once told them. It stuck. I was happy it did. After putting more than one kid through college and working two jobs all their lives this trip was more than deserved. They were so excited. I wanted to sob, to yell, to make them stay just one more second, even if this was my decision. Having kids was their only dream since they were kids themselves. But as a cruel turn of fate, they were both incapable of creating life, cruel diseases they couldn't comprehend or even recite the words of several doctors. But they didn’t break. Broken was my constant state these days. They were strong, brilliant and kind, that’s why they deserved this vacation. After adopting me and my brothers and sisters their world was full of color and light again. That’s how they usually told the story, like the first time they saw me in that crib cured them from blindness. How cruel fate is.

They were saying their goodbyes, but time was flowing too fast, and I didn’t know how to stop it. Mom touched my cheek, and the tears were about to fall, but I kept them in. Dad messed up my hair, and I wanted to drown, but I didn’t. I wanted a hug, one final and infinite hug, but they had to go, and so did I. I saw the boat sail away, I watched until they were mere reflections in the ocean. When my breath returned and my tears finally stopped, I dragged my empty body to the car and cried some more. The air was cold outside, my car looked like a certain scene from the titanic, my life very similar also.

When I got home my sister was sitting in the stairs on the front yard. Her mind was blank, her eyes red. “You shouldn’t be riding.” Were the only words she shed. I opened the door for her. “I had to take mom and dad to the cruise.” She didn’t say a word. She was mad, so fucking mad. But she was my sister, my best friend, the only one who knew every aspect of my life the only one who suffered as much and now more than me. She would never betray me, even if for my own good. I picked up the box I left on the coffee table earlier. “This is for you, inside there’s a letter to every member of the family.” She didn’t move, she didn’t dare breathe. I opened her purse and dropped the contents of the box inside it.

             She was there that morning. Two years ago, to the date. She cried more than me, I didn’t cry at all. She told me we would fight this, she told me everything was going to be okay. But I saw the doctor’s face, I saw the darkness in her eyes and heard the timber in her voice. I knew I was not going to make it. But these past years I still accepted to be tortured and butchered by every doctor and idiot who was gullible enough to hear my sister plead. I almost died several times, was poked a thousand more, and got my chest pierced and carved by more people than I would ever be able to remember by name. I yelled so much when they pulled the drain out of my chest that I lost my voice. I hurt so much that the only time I felt alive was the time people thought I was dead. I was no fighter, no sister anyone deserved, no human society would need. I was mean, sarcastic, depressive. But I was dying.

She moved with me to another state, and we told our parents we were starting a new better life away. Their faces dropped for a millisecond and the hurt was visible on their expression, but they helped us move, didn’t even suspect that the hospital was 5 minutes away from our new house. Again, it was my decision not to tell them… My sister begged me, but they didn’t deserve to suffer so many months and still end up with the same outcome. Life for them was finally good. And I was running out of time. Finally.

Tomorrow I was going to die. Tomorrow I was going to live de last true experience. I was going to be free, maybe brought down to the earth, become part of something my body once was. I didn’t care about the funeral, buried in a coffin, burned and turned into ashes, dropped in the ocean. Dead is Dead. I told my sister that, but I don’t think she heard.

In the morning a small smile filled my mouth, for the first time in two years I slept, profoundly. My sister was already up, the doctors, technicians or whatever they were, had arrived a few hours later. She excused herself and went into the bathroom for a few minutes. Everyone could hear her sob, everyone could feel her pain. When I was finally laid down and with the needle inside my harm, the panic started. I thought it was going to be peaceful, easy, like going to sleep. But my heart was racing against a train. My sister was so beautiful so delicate, so loving and I was leaving her. Her hair was bright and in the morning sun almost white, the light at the end of my tunnel. The doctors left the room for a few last words. She dropped beside my bed.

“Please, don’t do this.” I couldn’t separate her eyes from the tears. “Your family loves you, and right now, no one knows you are doing this, they don’t deserve it, let them say their goodbyes.” She didn’t really care about that, she only wanted another opportunity to stop time. To stop my unforgivable indifference upon the brutality inflicted to her older sister's life. “You were there when I was adopted, you were there when I failed my first math test, when I won my first race, when I lost my first tooth, when my boyfriend dumped me, when I graduated college, when I bought my first house… But you won’t be there when I marry, you won’t be there when I have kids, you won’t be there when mom and dad die, you won’t be there. You won’t be there when I need you. Please stay.” But I was selfish. I just shook my head and squeezed her hand.

The doctors entered the room again. My sister laid down next to me, the bed never stopped shaking with her uncontrollable tremors, the doctor injected the drug, and I died.

In the last second of consciousness a tear fell from my eyes.