It's been a week now since that visit. But her cat is always visiting me. She likes to scratch the surface of my door. I usually give her water and take her inside my apartment until I realize she had left my apartment from the kitchen window. I don't understand how she can escape from the apartment. The girl, or maybe her windows, are open.
The business at work made me eat my lunch at 2:30 in the afternoon. I forgot about my third cup of coffee, which is half full and cold. I'm looking at the screen of my phone waiting for the hell that knows. I don't know why I want to see her again and I don't know why she's on my mind. She doesn't know my number, so why am I hoping for her message? Then I just smile as her face duplicates in my mind, remembering her smile.
"What are you smiling at?" Jorge asks beside me.
I look at him and drink his water.
I sigh, then shake my head. "There's a new girl in my apartment."
He puts both of his hands up in the air, glaring at me. "Hold up, dude! Is she beautiful?"
"She's gorgeous!" I say.
"Have you talked to her?"
"She came to my apartment looking for her cat!"
"Wow! Can't believe girls nowadays make the first move." He says, rocking her legs up and down.
Jorge is 10 years older than me. He's my senior and has been working here for 6 years.
The bell rings. I ignore Jorge and grab my bag under the desk.
There's a long line at the bus stop. I fish my phone and my earphones, took me fifteen minutes to choose a song I want to listen to while waiting for the bus. For the last few months, I have been obsessed with Wil Seabrook. I finally got my bus after 30 minutes of waiting. There's only one empty seat left, and it is in the middle of the backseat. I'm tired, so there's no way of not taking that seat. Because of tiredness, I fell asleep throughout the drive to my stop. The weather is pretty good, not like in recent days.
I got inside the building before I climb the stairs. I can hear the cat meowing in the hallway, then I run up and see her scratching my door.
"Why are you out again? Huh?" I ask the cat.
"Meow!" She replies to me with aggressiveness in her voice.
She scratches her ear while I'm opening my door. I ignore her, but then the cat defeated me by slowly walking inside my house.
"Shoo!" I say, trying to let her out.
She walks in a circle on my feett while meowing at me.
"Okay, you can stay here until your owner comes from work, okay?"
She licks my toes, then I scratch her head before giving her water. Right when I give her the water, a knock disturbs my home.
"Talking about your owner!" I say to the cat, pointing to her.
I jog to the door with my shirt soaked with sweat, messy hair, and a stressed face I open the door, surprised to see the girl with a smudge of chocolate on her face and a red mark on her right cheek with her unbrushed messy hair. She's holding a medical facemask.
"A… are you okay?" I ask her.
She brushes some of the hair on her face.
"Is Peach here?" She says with her quivering voice.
"P… peaches?"
"My cat." She whispers.
"Oh." I exclaim.
I run to her cat, and gently carry her to her owner. She just looks at her cat and bit her lower lip.
"Are you fine?" I ask her again.
"No." She didn't lie, and she's not ashamed to say it.
She leans her head on the doorframe, looking at me blankly. She crosses her hands on her chest and licks her dry, chapped lips. I put Peach back on the floor. Peach roams to my living room and jumps on the sofa.
"I'm dying and my parents thought it's a good idea to make friends." She said.
I don't know why she said that, but that explains why she said 'no' to my question. I wonder what happened to her, but she looks so lonely, unlike the first time I saw her.
"Excuse me, but did you just say you're dying? What do you mean, dying?"
"Mother died last year and her last request for me was to make at least one friend." She turns to me like she wants to kiss me.
"I'm cooking dinner. Do you want to remove that?" I point to her face.
"Thanks." She sniffs.
She walks inside and slams the door shut. She pats Peach and goes to the bathroom. The sadness left in the door and I began to wonder what had happened to her. Wonder what makes her sad. She looks so fragile and I didn't expect to see her like this. She doesn't look like she was from work, but the stress just hangs on her face.
When she walks back to the dining room, her personality just changes, like she's a different person from earlier. The way she just beams at me is full of energy and light. She prepares the table and sits as I put the chicken and rice on the table.
"I'm not lonely, though. I don't get why they want me to have a friend." She just randomly babbles.
My spoon is waiting halfway to my mouth. I forgot to shove it into my mouth because of the words leaving her mouth. I close my wide mouth open, hanging in the air.
She seems she is not yet finished, so I cut her. "What do you mean?"
"Like what I've told you, I'm dying."
I thought we were finished on that topic, but she just wants to talk more about it.
"Are you really dying?" I ask her.
She looks so bubbly, talking about it as if it's the greatest thing that ever happened in her life.
"Yes, definitely. The doctor confirmed. I have my life on a pedestal." She replies that it seems she's proud of it.
"And... you're proud of it?" I ask.
She glares at me; annoyed by my stupid question. Her bubbliness comes to an end as I ask her that stupid question about her attitude moments earlier. But the way she delivered the words seconds ago feels like she's proud that she's dying.
"Do you think that I'm happy living with my illness or that I'm dying? Didn't you?" She asks.
"What's your illness? If that's not intrusive enough."
"Cancer." She mumbles.
"I'm sorry for what I've said. You don't seem sad about it, besides you show up happy." I explained.
"You don't have to explain."
I wait for her to go on.
"You know what, I don't know how to make friends. I never have one, so this is hard for me and you seem like a dick now. If you don't like me, you better not invite me for supper. I never push people to like me." she replies.
She puts the spoon and fork on the side of her plate and pushes her chair before she stands. I hold her hands. She looks at me, the gloom in her eyes comes to a light lingering behind her eyes. I made this girl sad in a matter of thirty minutes after she just pushed her sadness into the dark to show up happy. Looking into her eyes made me realize that her bluntness and bubbliness may show in her bold characteristics, but her eyes tell a distinct personality of hers.
"I didn't mean to offend you, it's just…" I try to say but got cut.
"It's just because I don't seem to be depressed about my illness. I have no right to fake it?" she sighs, then goes on. "I'm done obsessing with loneliness in fear of dying tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. When I was 10, I didn't expect my life to be a teenager, and when I was 16, I stopped hoping to reach 20, and now I don't know if I won't reach 30. Simply like that. It's just the doctor gave me a lifespan now. Do you know what's great? I now appreciate morning wake-ups and have learned how to live my life to the fullest as best I can." She sighs.
"You're the liveliest human in this dying world."
She smiles at me. "I just don't want to romanticize my illness anymore. I'm done with it. When I was young, I didn't want to celebrate my birthdays, but now I realize it's exhausting to be sad. I have never had fun all my life and I think it's time for me to have one. Dude, you don't know how it feels to never look for the future that you don't have. You don't know what it's like to have a life not sitting on your palm, not like normal people… like you."
"You mentioned that your mother died last year?"
"Mom had HIV/AIDS."
I thought she had cancer. Did she just lie to me? I feel sorry for her. I've never met someone so unlucky as her. How unfair could life be for everybody, for it to be fair to everybody?
"My mom got it first…" she forces sad chortles to me. "when she got her second tattoo."
"Do you mean that you have it?"
"What do you mean 'I have it'? Dad loves my mom so much that he doesn't care about her illness." She takes a deep breath. "So, they decided to have me, even when they both know that it's a bad idea." She shakes her head, looking at the plate. "Love is not a piece of fucking cake!" she stabs the chicken using the fork, then she points at me. "So, that's how I was made." She smirks and then shows the fork to her mouth.
"Aren't you mad?" I ask. "You know, they're infected. Then they'd decided to have you?"
She laughs so loud I can almost see her throat. "Why would I be mad at them? I mean, I have rich parents for hella sake. I never asked for rich parents. They love me with all their goddamn hearts, and I have great parents everyone can ask for. I know it's partly because they're guilty of this product but they just love each other and, want to have a normal family like others. I'll admit I never had a normal life until now, but, they tried their best to raise me as normal as best as they could. And I love them and I can't hate them for their decision."
She called herself a 'product'. Is that what she feels? I never call myself such because I always feel like a son, a child, a kid. Moreover, she is so mesmerizing by her story that I develop the urge to know her more.
"Oh, by the way, just throw these utensils I'm using right now if you feel disgusted. Honestly, I already ate, but when I saw the chicken and it smells good, I really couldn't say no."
She looked sad when she showed up at my door, but she didn't mention it. I wonder what happened to her.
"What about last week?" I smirk.
She chuckles. "I ate that night as well. I'm sorry for lying that I had no time."
"But I burned my dinner that night." I laugh. "Don't apologize for lying."
"That's fine. I love eating burned food."
She smiles widely, showing her teeth, and her eyes sparkle. She's being bubbly again. Despite her illness, she's still cheerful. Her life differs from the other people whose life seems perfect. Her positive vibes echo all around the house. I want to ask her more questions but I'm afraid to push her buttons.
"Well, I don't mind." I say. "I'm not disgusted at all. I'll keep my utensils."
She doesn't look offended. She thanks me for the food as I walk her to her apartment with Peach. I'm thinking about her right now while I'm washing the dishes.
I can say that my life is greater than hers, though she appreciates everything in her life and ignores the bitterness of her life. Not like the rest of us who are doing the other. She can be a role model because of her optimistic characteristics. I had only known her for two days, but she already sat in an empty seat in my heart.