constellations

“do you think God wants people to be in pain?”

me and anaya were sitting cross legged on her bedroom floor, rearranging the cars for their fifth race around the obstacle we’d made throughout the carpet.

“i don’t think so. my mummy told me people that are in pain are taken away and go to heaven and help God as angels. it cant be that bad, being an angel.”

“why do they have to go through all that pain just to become angels?”

“i don’t know. i don’t want to be an angel, i want to be a pigeon, flying around and swimming in ponds all day and chasing the little kids around.”

anaya stared at me for a moment, thinking. then she picked up her car and started racing it over my head and zooming around the room, making engine noises while she worked her way around the obstacle.

“that’s not fair! we didn’t even start the race!”

“I WIN YOU LOSE I WIN YOU LOSE!”

and so we played this silly game over and over again. sometimes we’d paint pictures or act out our favourite cartoons, and sometimes we’d run away to our treehouse spending all day there till our mothers called us home.

we were inseparable. almost.

-

when we were 16 years old, anaya met tommy. you could say she was starstruck by him, as all teenagers are when they experience high school love. he was her oxygen, her water and her food, and she spent every waking moment bathing in her title as tommy dwyer’

tommy was anaya’s first & last heartbreak. it ended with a crash and a burn, and the wistfulness never left her eyes when he was within her eyesight.

it is the most tedious experience in the world to be in love with your best friend. platonically, you will always be first, but romantically, you’re nothing.

but it’s a comforting feeling, being first in some way. especially when your best friend turns up at your window one winter night at 3am, with a haunted look in her eyes.

i opened my window and looked at her. she didn’t move. didn’t speak. opened and closed her mouth. but no words came out. eventually i pulled her in and sat her down.

“where have you been?”

it took a while for her to relapse into the world. her eyes were wide, pupils dilated and her face was the colour of freshly washed white sheets.

we sat together, me staring at her, her staring at the stars.

eventually, tears started rolling down her cheeks.

“do you think God wants people to be in pain?”

her words were broken. her voice was wobbly and raspy, as if she had been screaming for someone to save her.

“what happened, anaya?”

slowly, she took off her top, gasping and crying. bruises in all shades of yellow and purple and blue were covering her once flawless skin. there were scratches on her neck, and her bra was torn.

“do you think God has a plan for me, chase?”

she stood up and lifted her skirt. there was blood all over her underwear. her legs shook as she struggled to put her shirt back on.

she didn’t speak anymore, just howled into my pillow while i rocked her to sleep.

she barely came to school anymore. tommy was arrested. i started to lose her in every sense possible. i saw her locker in the hallways, her empty seat in classes, her name on the roll. everyday, i’d walk past the slides and imagine us years ago when we would run to them to live out another remake of our cartoons.

-

“hey chase.”

she looked so wan. so thin. so tired.

i smiled.

“hi anaya.”

she sat beside me and quietly watched me fiddle with my circuit board.

“i’m getting better, chase. they’ve declared me as being in remission.”

“how’s rehab?”

“it’s really good. i’m gonna try my best to stay clean this time. i owe it to everyone.”

i looked at her properly. she searched my eyes while i searched hers.

“owe it to who?”

“you.”

she was lying in her room, face down and lifeless.

“anaya, wake up.”

i shook her shoulder. nothing.

“anaya!”

i turned her head. her eyes rolled into her head and vomit was trekking down the side of her mouth.

there’s many ways to identify an addict. finding them motionless with a needle in their arm and on the brink of death is one of them.

i put down my wires.

“how long did you know?”

“know what?

“about the cancer?”

“a few days after my seventeenth. that’s when i started to use.”

“why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“about the addiction or the cancer?”

she had a playful smile on her face. i shoved her gently.

“i thought you’d died, anaya.”

“i’m sorry. you didn’t deserve to go through that.”

she sat down beside me properly.

“you see that star, chase?”

“which one? there’s millions of them.”

“the one that looks like a butterfly”

“oh yeah”

“that’s the constellation i saw before my overdose. and the one i saw before my last round of chemo. i requested a window bed so i could stargaze. it gets awful lonely in that sad little bed and in all these sad little clinics i spend my life in now.”

“i’m sorry i haven’t visited much.”

“it’s okay. i talked to God a lot. or to the stars for that matter. isn’t that ironic? my only comfort was the one thing putting me through so much pain and suffering. i’ve decided i hate God. how can i justify something so intangible thats caused so much shit to happen to me?”

“yeah.”

“it’s like i’m just a fucking puppet in this god awful world, living my silly little life doing my silly little tasks and playing along to everyone’s silly little commands. it’s horrible.”

i look at her. she’s so full of passion. and i’m so in love with her.

“chase?”

“yeah?”

“i’ve missed you”

“i missed you too”

i hold my gaze on her. she turns to me. in that moment she looks ethereal.

“when i’m out of these stupid clinics and hospitals can we go to the slides?”

we were eighteen. grown adults. yet i couldn’t say no. how could i?

“of course anaya.”

she beams at me, kisses my cheek and flurries away inside, where our parents natter away into the night.

-

it’s 6.47pm.

“chase?”

anaya lies on a bed with a million wires slithering in and out of her body. i hold her hand while she struggles her way through her breathing.

“hi”

“hi”

“how you feeling?”

“i’m at peace, weirdly.”

she has no idea the commotion that entails her when she is unconscious to the world. every second is another mission to keep her heart beating, to keep her fiery soul alive.

“that’s good. what are you thinking about?”

she has these soulful eyes that are always in another world. anaya’s world.

“chase, do you think God wants people to be in pain?”

and this time, it’s my turn for the tears to run.

“i don’t think so anaya.”

“yeah, i agree. i think he wants the best for me chase. and i did my best. didn’t i?”

“you’re so strong.”

she’s already fading. her being is kept alive by substances. she once used them to escape being in reality, to alternate into different universes. now she depends on them to help her survive. so much irony. she’s drowning in it.

“i have a question”

i wipe at the tears.

“ask away.”

“can you let me go?”

i look long and hard at her. she holds my gaze.

“please chase. i don’t want to fight anymore.”

i’m so selfish. but she’s in so much pain. she’s swimming in it.

“i love you anaya. i always have. i always will.”

there it is. that winning smile.

“tell the stars i love them, chase.”

“i will.”

“especially the butterfly one.”

“everyday.”

“and tell God i’m not angry at him anymore.”

“okay.”

“i’m ready to be his angel.”

she squeezes my hand. i kiss her forehead and release my hold. she smiles at me weakly, and i don’t break my gaze until my feet are out the room and the door separates us once again.

i turn and i run. she’s beside me, her wings flapping wildly and her mischievous laugh echoing as we run out the building.

i can almost feel her right next to me, head on my shoulder.

“i’m not in pain anymore, chase.”