She wanted to die.
He wanted to live.
•••
A hand grabbed onto my wrist, yanking me back just as the train rushed past, before I'd even had time to comprehend whether or not I'd carry out the action. I stumbled back into the person's chest, my hear...
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Cassie had called me optimistic, but she was the one helping me see the silver lining to my dark clouds.
Throughout the night she had rolled her eyes at any attempt of my positivity, insisting I was too unrealistic with every suggestion I made. Perhaps she had been too invested in her problems to notice, but within her she held just as much optimism as I did – maybe even more.
It was strange how as humans, the more we told ourselves something, the more we seemed to believe it. Our thoughts became the limit and we would embark through the arduous pain of instilling false beliefs into our heads, until we turned fact into fiction, and fiction into fact.
Cassie labelled herself as being 'realistic', when in fact she was simply nihilistic after being stuck with her thoughts for an eternity. She had spent so long in the dark that she didn't even believe she was capable of possessing any light, and yet less than a day later she was here trying to convince me that I wasn't the villain in my play, and that confiding in others wouldn't make me selfish.
As much as her poem swayed me to agree with her, Life had reappeared one too many times to remind me of what consequences would follow if I was ever selfish. Arguing with Theo today was enough of a reality check for me, and hearing that he and our parents had gone out to dinner together was only another reminder that when I didn't cause any problems, everyone got along great together.
They all sacrificed their lives for me and moved to London so I could have access to potentially life-saving medicine, and I couldn't be ungrateful and complain about how draining it was. I couldn't be selfish when my family had been nothing but selfless in order to set me up with this opportunity, and when it came to the tragedy that my life was destined to be, I was still the villain, whether or not Cassie saw me as it yet.
'You are seen', Cassie had told me, the soft murmur of her voice making the cords in my chest tighten as her words flitted around the quiet room, yet it was still a concept I was struggling to accept.
I didn't feel like I was seen when I was hooked up to an IV drip a few hours ago as I made my way through the rounds of medicine I needed to take. I didn't feel like I was seen when Theo walked out of the room, unable to comprehend that I just wanted him to see me as his brother and not the embodiment of a disease. I didn't feel like I was seen when Cassie had been asking about the cannula in my arm and how my treatment worked, too apprehensive of over-sharing and ruining the perspective of myself I was so desperate for everyone to adhere to.
Even now, I couldn't fathom how she was still here, willingly choosing to stay despite knowing I wasn't who she had thought I was. All my half-truths and omissions hadn't driven her away, and after answering her myriads of questions she still chose to see the Romeo she had met during the night, as opposed to Will who was unwell and living in a hospital.
"That was beautiful, Cass," I spoke shortly after, breaking the pensive silence that had fallen after she had read the poem out. With my head resting on her shoulder as I glanced down at the lines written in her journal, the tangible echo of her words resonated within the four walls. Despite the dim light, her poem was still legible as the moonlight glinted across the room, though as I reread a few lines I was in a state of awe that she had truly composed it about me. "But I- I still don't get it..."
