Put the Killing Thing Right Between Your Lips

I'd never experienced a world such as this. I'd been here dozens of times, but today felt different—otherworldly. This wasn't exactly a happy place, but it had never felt this gloomy before. It was emptier than usual, but the level of noise never changed. In fact, suffice it to say, the volume in this room was probably the single most consistent thing in my life right now.

"First time, eh?" the man to my left grumbled in the direction of a younger looking boy across the room. The man fiddled with a carton of cigarettes, attempting to shake one out with a single hand; the other hand was intensely gripping the side of his chair as if he would fall onto the ground if he were to let go. This man was Earl, I'd seen him here a handful of times. The first couple times he would sit next to a woman who I assumed was his wife. Then he started coming alone.

"Um, sorry, but I don't think you're supposed to do that in here," the boy cleared his throat sheepishly.

Earl just chuckled in the corner as he placed the cigarette carefully between his lips.

When I realized Earl wasn't going to answer him, I told the boy "he's not gonna light it. It's a metaphor, like in that John Green book."

Earl let out a grunt. He looked over at the boy and responded like I wasn’t even there. "That John Green metaphor is like me. I been doin' this for years, son. Don't get it twisted."

At its fullest, there were only four of us in the room from the time I got there. Me, Earl, a middle-aged lady who sat in the corner and looked at the rest of us as though we were contagious, and the boy.

Once the lady in the corner got called back, the three of us found ourselves alone in that place.

"What's your name, kid?" I leaned forward and asked the boy.

"I'm Cameron." His tone didn't really welcome much conversation, but I persisted.

"How old are you, Cameron? You look pretty young, kinda weird they'd treat you here and not over at the Children's Hospital".

He looked down. "I'll be 21 in a couple months. They had me over there before, but their chemo unit reached full capacity a couple months ago. Had to prioritize the actual children, you know."

He avoided eye contact the whole time he spoke. He kept his arms crossed in his lap, and his knees touching at all times. I wasn't sure if this was his very first time, but it must have been close to it; the scar protruding slightly above his neckline was clearly pretty fresh.

I grabbed my crutches and hobbled over to his side of the room, and plopped down in the seat two away from him. Earl glared at me with a look that could kill. Lord knows I'm vulnerable to that.

I stuck out my hand for him to shake, "well it's nice to meet you, Cameron. I'm Alex. And uh, happy early birthday," He looked at my hand a few seconds, then he met my eyes for the first time, and then he shook it.

Earl got called back next, and a few minutes after that, the lady in the corner walked back through and out to the real world. She looked like she'd been through the ringer, but her face was glowing. My guess was that this was her last day. No one leaves here smiling as big as she did.

After our few minutes of silence following Earl's departure into the back, I asked Cameron "so is this actually your first time?"

"Second."

"Your first time over here though?"

"Yeah, my actual first time was in the Children's Hospital."

I pressed my lips together and nodded in understanding. Neither of us spoke for the rest of our time together. He got called back before I did, and then I was alone. I kept thinking about his phrasing "had to prioritize the actual children". For some reason, that stuck. I looked at him and I saw fear. The one time he met my gaze, I could sense that he was afraid; his body could've had me fooled, but not his eyes. I thought about asking him where his parents were, why a 20-year-old was in a place like this all by himself. Then I thought about Earl. The first time he came without his likely wife, I didn't say anything. I noticed, of course, but I kept quiet. Best to be consistent with my fellow temporary survivors.

I felt a need to protect this kid. He was a legal adult, yes, but in this context, he was a kid. I had no idea what his parents were like, what could possibly be more important than being here with him, or if they were even in the picture to begin with. But a sight like this, like a boy his age with so much life left to live, a boy who should be laughing and drinking beers with his friends in the front yard of a trashed house in a college town, a boy who instead was alone and afraid in the waiting room of a chemotherapy unit, it felt so foreign to me. It felt unsettling.

Cameron hadn't come back through the waiting room by the time I got called back. I held up my index finger to signal to the nurse that I needed a moment. I looked around, and I didn't see any sticky notes or otherwise easy-to-write-on slips of paper, so I took a tissue from the box on the table next to me, and I wrote down my name and phone number, careful not to tear through the silky two-ply. I brought it to the front desk, and I asked the receptionist to please give it to the boy before he leaves. She smiled and nodded, and I stumbled through the hallways, and back to the room that had become so familiar to me. It was funny how I had grown so accustomed to the room in the back; I even knew the order of the photos and paintings that lined the walls in the hallways. But the room just outside those walls... I still had not grown out of my discomfort while in there.

I checked my phone for what must have been every thirty seconds after leaving the hospital for the rest of the day. I never got a phone call.