Letting you go [COMPLETE]

Chapter 4

I'm not all that happy with this chapter but it's written and it took FOREVER so I just decided to post it.

It's unedited so I know there's a mistake somewhere. Sorry.

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“Stop pulling me!” I yell.

Rachel doesn’t let go, nor does she stop tugging me along. My breathing is uneven and I can’t catch my breath. She’s moving us too fast for me to.

“Rachel! We’re not going to be late! Let go!”

A few people look at us but they’re quick to look away. I know what they’re thinking—this isn’t their business so they’re not going to get involved. I wish they would. I feel like I’m about to pass out and I don’t even need a mirror to know that my face is red from exertion.

I dig my heels into the ground in attempt to get her to stop. It doesn’t work—the polished concrete floors of the tiles have no traction whatsoever. Again, I resort to yelling, even though I know it won’t get through to her. I’ve been trying to get her to stop for the last few minutes and nothing has worked. “Rachel!”

She doesn’t stop. Part of me wants to hate her because she’s dragging me along as if I’m not at the risk of my breathing stop. I can’t get angry at her though, as painful as this moment is. This is what I asked for when I begged my parents to let me attend school—to be treated as a normal teenager, not someone who’s dying. This is what friends do and I—more or less—brought this on myself. If she knew that I only had one working lung she’d stop. But she doesn’t because I haven’t told her. I can’t blame this on her.

Blackness starts to blur my vision and my throat constricts. In a last ditch effort, I blurt, “Stop dragging me! I can’t breathe!”

She stops—thank god—and turns to face me, a worried expression on her face. “What? Are you okay?”

Paranoia starts to set in like it usually does. Is she looking at me right now and wondering if my lungs don’t work? Does she suspect I have cancer? The questions race through my mind and I can’t stop it. Cancer is my dirty little secret. I’ve protected it and only told select few—well, only family. Worry always sets in when I even give a little bit away.

“Alyson, you’re red. What’s wrong?”

I say the first thing that comes to mind, hoping it’ll sound believable. “Oh, that. Um . . . a guy was staring at me and I couldn’t look back at him if we were moving so fast.” As soon as I say the words I want to take them back. She’s never going to believe it and I didn’t even sound remotely convincing. It sounded like a lie to my own ears. I’m proud of the fact that my voice doesn’t come out as a wheeze. I may sound like a liar but I don’t sound like someone who can’t even breathe.

She narrows her eyes at me and I ready myself, already coming up with an explanation on the real reason. Her words shock me though. “Is this the guy you always sneak off with? The one that you hide from me—the one secret you keep from me?”

Shame sinks in before I can stop the reaction. I have so many secrets I keep from her I can’t count them on my hand. I stare at the ground, unable to look at her, when everything she thinks is lies.

She laughs as if she’s just found out the best kept scandal in the school—which in her mind, she probably thinks she has. “Don’t get shy on me now. So who is he? Is he hot? Is he blonde?”

I’m still in shock that she actually believed the lie that her words barely register.

Rachel laughs, as if my silence makes it all the better. “One day you’ll tell me. One day I’ll find out who he is.”