"MILDRED!!!!" I cry out as I run past everyone to her room. Rushing through the door without checking who's in there. "I'm dying. The doctor said I'm gonna die." I say tears blurring my vision. "now Sarah we both know that's not what he said." she coos, a knowing look flashing across her face. "Why don't you sit down and tell me what happened." She gestures to the chair with a patchwork quilt draped across it. Handing me a napkin as I sit down. "he said I have something called 'Viral Cardiomyopathy' I have an infection in my heart and it's killing me." I say wiping the tears streaming down my face, if I ever bothered with makeup it would be a mess right now. "So basically, I'm Fucked." I continue. "Oh Sarah, I know this is going to be a difficult time. But you're strong, I know you'll turn out alright." she soothes me as I cry, wrapping myself in her blanket.
"I just don't understand how they can say I'm going to die and they don't think there's anything they can do." I stammer, getting angrier the longer I think about it. The doctors always told me it would be bad if my heart got infected but I always thought I could avoid it. If I was safe enough and diligent enough then maybe I could live an almost normal life. Graduate, find a job I can tolerate, maybe even fall in love, just live life. But now all of that is gone. I always told myself I wouldn't plan for a future I would never get, but I hoped I hoped I could live a normal life. "Sarah…" Mildred starts talking but I interrupt her. "Seriously Mildred, my name isn't Sarah. You need to stop calling me Sarah my name is Lilac! Fucking Lilac, not Sarah." I jump out of the chair screaming at Mildred in her bed. "I... I'm sorry Sar... Lilac. Really I am, it just gets confusing for me sometimes, so many things going on it's hard to keep up with what's happening around me" she says, barely keeping eye contact with me. I immediately feel guilty she didn't do anything wrong. She calls me the wrong name, but so what she's an old woman and in the hospital. I still can't help but feel angry though. First I found out I'm dying and now Mildred can't remember my name, what's next my mother barges in to tell me she plans on donating all my organs as soon as I die and that she planned to do so as soon as she found out I had CVID.
"I'm sorry Mildred, I should go." I say, already heading to the door. Before I can grab the door handle it swings open, Dr. dick on the other side. "Hello Mildred, how are you… Oh, Lilac I didn't know you were here." he says facing Mildred but looking at me. "Oh hello, Doctor" Mildred says, a cold demeanor she reserves specifically for him settling over her. "Im doing very well today, thank you for the new medication it seems to be doing wonders." she continues. Dr. Dick now turns to face me "And Lilac, I know the news I gave you today could be troubling but I assure you we're doing everything we can to help you." a stupid smile growing on his face, probably in an attempt to appear hopeful. Just looking at his stupid face fills me with rage. Everything that happened today boiling back to the top of my mind. As I think about his stupid face, my immanent death, red seeps into my vision. "Fuck you, Dr. Dick! If you thought I was gonna live I would be hooked up to all kinds of I.Vs and having hundreds of tests ran already." I scream at him inches from his face. "You and I both know this damn infection is a death sentence so cut the shit and stop lying to me." I keep yelling, droplets of spit splattering onto his scrubs. "Lilac, please calm down, I know this is a difficult time but I assure you we will do everything we can to help you recover." he keeps that dumb smile on his face but I can see the sadness behind his eyes. I see right through his idiotic expression, he knows I'm dying and he knows I have no chance of recovery but he wants me to calm down so he doesn't feel uncomfortable. Well fuck that! And fuck him. If I'm going to die I'm going to be as angry as I want and no one can stop me.
"Lilac darling, you might want to calm down…" Mildred says. "Emotions are running high right now and I don't want you to say or do anything you may regret," Mildred says to me but was looking at my hair. I look over at the mirror above the sink and my hair is standing straight up, almost like there is electricity in the air. Neither Mildred nor Dr. Dicks hair was standing up, it was only mine. As I looked in the mirror I noticed my hair starting to fall. It was as if as I calm down my hair would also lower slightly. "Whatever, I don't need to deal with this." I spit and push past Dr. Dick to head toward my room. I start shuffling to my room trying to figure out what was happening in there. Why was my hair acting like that and why didn't their hair look the same? Was it the air conditioning? No that doesn't make any sense why would air conditioning make my hair stand on end? Was it me? Did I do something to cause it?
As I think about how I could have caused my hair to go all dark and stormy night I remembered something. In fourth grade I had a bully, he constantly tormented me for having CVID. Sometimes he would taunt me, telling me he could do all the things I couldn't. Eventually, he got bored or annoying so he graduated to outright assault. That's how I ended up in the hospital for a week, the little rat threw me to the ground and shoved dirt in my mouth. But there's one time specifically that stuck out, the last time he bullied me. On the last day of school, I was walking down the hallway to math class and he walked up next to me. "Hey plague rat" he laughed, he'd been calling me plague rat since he found out I had CVID. "off to go infect the school? Don't get me sick ill pound you so hard you won't get sick again." he kept up. He wasn't the most creative kid but he was insistent in his stupidity. "it doesn't work like that Damien." I roll my eyes trying my best not to look at him. "don't talk to me like that Plauge rat, maybe you need me to show you what happens to little rats that talk back." he says, raising his fist at me ready to punch me for the third time this week. "NO!" I screamed at him, loud enough to shock him and when I looked him in the eyes for the first time today I noticed something. As I screamed I saw his glasses crack, right down the middle of the lens. A perfect spiderweb radiating from the initial crack. It was like my voice was powerful enough to crack the lenses in his glasses but it wasn't until right now I realized that it wasn't just my voice that cracked his glasses, it was me. My emotions, my voice, my very will that commanded the glass to break.