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This is some unedited original thing that I may edit later or not. It's sad. And a little spooky.
When she checked out from the hospital there was no one there to pick her up. It wasn’t as odd as much as it was sad, to finally be well but have no one left to come get her. But all hospitals have some kind of bus access around here, and she still had some money in her purse that they returned after her admittance.
There was only a couple people at the bus stop, old and forgotten, one who gave her a mostly toothless grin and the other who looked at her warily. The single person near her age had on headphones and the expression of someone that was existing anywhere but in front of her.
“Do you know if the 5 is coming soon?” she asked the mostly toothless one. They pointed an arthritic-gnarled finger at a sign on the bus shelter.
She nodded. Right. Of course.
Her phone was probably still with her mother; for as long as she was in there and how little she could use it, it made sense to not even have it. It almost hadn’t occurred to her that the bus stations had paper instructions. But considering her contemporaries, that made sense, right?
The 5 wouldn’t be due for another half an hour. It figured. Big hospital like this, one of the few that had a couple routes come to it and the only way home wasn’t going to be for a while. But she was used to waiting.
At least this time when she was waiting it wasn’t for a trip in the kind of machine that only brought her right back to a hospital bed. At least this time she was actually going somewhere. She spent most of the half hour avoiding any reflective surfaces; like she had the past three months.
What she could see in her immediate vision didn’t look too bad. That was something to be thankful for.
Mostly toothless left ten minutes on the 56 Express before the Crosstown 5 finally showed up. She was the only one left and the bus driver didn’t even ask for her student ID; she probably was used to students so much that she didn’t bother to check anymore.
The back smelled a little like gasoline farts and spilled soda pop. It was welcome compared to the sterile non-smell she’d been used to for the past, was it a year? Maybe longer. Hospitals have a terrible smell not because of death and pestilence, but because they covered it up so often. Anti-septic was the new plague warning, after all.
She liked the way the city looked in a vehicle in motion. Even the dead parts looked alive like this, spurred on by the very act of getting around, getting through, getting somewhere. Someday someone was going to replace all the busses with trains or self-driving cars and no one would have a view like this again. The lurching stops meant you never really could get lost in your own thoughts.
Still, she almost missed her stop, philosophy be damned.
What struck her first was the way the lawn looked; browner than this time of year should have been. She sort of remembered a nurse saying something or other about a drought, but Mom had always kept the lawn nice despite their neighbors. Somehow it made her sadder than no one being there to pick her up.
There were more cars than she expected to see in the driveway, and a couple that were obviously parked in the street for her house. Had they arranged some kind of surprise party? Maybe Mellie had done it--after all she was sure that at least she would be there when she got released.
She’d let them keep their surprise, because there was only one place Mellie would be.
They had both been Freshmen when she’d shared the only real Secret a kid from a decaying suburb in the Midwest could share with the first girl she’d been brave and independent enough to love. Mellie had thought it kind of quaint that she could argue what a dick Hemingway was and still come home on the weekends so she could do her Mom’s laundry with the machine that sometimes needed a swift kick to get started. She didn’t quite get how this sort of city kept you in arm’s reach until you embraced it back.
You weren’t supposed to climb crab apple trees when you were over the age of 12, but it was the only secret way into the backyard, after all. And Mellie knew it, because she’d whispered stories to her when everyone else was off drinking Mad Dog 20/20 and pretending like that had it all figured out.
“Mellie?”
She looked like she hadn’t been eating right; her hair was stringier than it was supposed to, and there was a distinct sallow tone to her skin. But it was the red rims around Mellie’s eyes that gave her cause for alarm.
“Alisha?”
They were hugging, so everything was going to be fine, right?
“I knew you weren’t really gone, Alisha. I knew it. Because you’d never leave without telling me, you’d call at least. You wouldn’t just give your mom your phone because that would be dumb.”
“What? I just got released from the hospital. I wasn’t gone anywhere. You visited me and everything.”
She could almost see herself reflected back in Mellie’s glasses, and it wasn’t what she knew she was like the past three months in particular. It was an entirely too colorful image, something that almost made her want to check a mirror if she hadn’t avoided them for so long.
And Mellie didn’t answer her, just looked guilty and so sad and god, she didn’t want to live this cliche sad queer story. She wasn’t going to live it at all.
“Mellie, you have to talk to me.”
She took her hands, and it didn’t feel like hands. It felt like the cold marble of the library or dipping her toes into a freezing stream in February because someone dared her to. She had to come to realize that it wasn’t right, wouldn’t be right.
Mellie was going to have to let go if anything was going to got the way it was supposed to.
“I just wanted you to stay.”
“It’s really not up to me, is it?”
Mellie hadn’t been there when he lungs gave out. No one had. Mom had gone to grab a snack and Mellie had finally gone off to class after a several days vigil. It wasn’t any of their faults that the timing had worked out like that. It had been shitty but ghosts didn’t linger in hospitals for a reason; she had known she was going to die before the machines, the doctors, the nurses had put it into words.
“Mellie, we’re going to have to let go. I don’t want to be the ghost that never leaves. I don’t even know what’s next but it can’t be this. I can’t hang around my own funeral and feel ice and knives when I want to touch you.”
Mellie nodded, releasing a few tears that had been held in reserve after all the others that had been spent before.
“Don’t ever let some asshole tell you to read something you hate. And tell Mom I’m sorry that we were out of time.”
The real bus had come now, no half an hour wait. Ghosts only lingered because the living refused to let go.
When she checked out from the hospital there was no one there to pick her up. It wasn’t as odd as much as it was sad, to finally be well but have no one left to come get her. But all hospitals have some kind of bus access around here, and she still had some money in her purse that they returned after her admittance.
There was only a couple people at the bus stop, old and forgotten, one who gave her a mostly toothless grin and the other who looked at her warily. The single person near her age had on headphones and the expression of someone that was existing anywhere but in front of her.
“Do you know if the 5 is coming soon?” she asked the mostly toothless one. They pointed an arthritic-gnarled finger at a sign on the bus shelter.
She nodded. Right. Of course.
Her phone was probably still with her mother; for as long as she was in there and how little she could use it, it made sense to not even have it. It almost hadn’t occurred to her that the bus stations had paper instructions. But considering her contemporaries, that made sense, right?
The 5 wouldn’t be due for another half an hour. It figured. Big hospital like this, one of the few that had a couple routes come to it and the only way home wasn’t going to be for a while. But she was used to waiting.
At least this time when she was waiting it wasn’t for a trip in the kind of machine that only brought her right back to a hospital bed. At least this time she was actually going somewhere. She spent most of the half hour avoiding any reflective surfaces; like she had the past three months.
What she could see in her immediate vision didn’t look too bad. That was something to be thankful for.
Mostly toothless left ten minutes on the 56 Express before the Crosstown 5 finally showed up. She was the only one left and the bus driver didn’t even ask for her student ID; she probably was used to students so much that she didn’t bother to check anymore.
The back smelled a little like gasoline farts and spilled soda pop. It was welcome compared to the sterile non-smell she’d been used to for the past, was it a year? Maybe longer. Hospitals have a terrible smell not because of death and pestilence, but because they covered it up so often. Anti-septic was the new plague warning, after all.
She liked the way the city looked in a vehicle in motion. Even the dead parts looked alive like this, spurred on by the very act of getting around, getting through, getting somewhere. Someday someone was going to replace all the busses with trains or self-driving cars and no one would have a view like this again. The lurching stops meant you never really could get lost in your own thoughts.
Still, she almost missed her stop, philosophy be damned.
What struck her first was the way the lawn looked; browner than this time of year should have been. She sort of remembered a nurse saying something or other about a drought, but Mom had always kept the lawn nice despite their neighbors. Somehow it made her sadder than no one being there to pick her up.
There were more cars than she expected to see in the driveway, and a couple that were obviously parked in the street for her house. Had they arranged some kind of surprise party? Maybe Mellie had done it--after all she was sure that at least she would be there when she got released.
She’d let them keep their surprise, because there was only one place Mellie would be.
They had both been Freshmen when she’d shared the only real Secret a kid from a decaying suburb in the Midwest could share with the first girl she’d been brave and independent enough to love. Mellie had thought it kind of quaint that she could argue what a dick Hemingway was and still come home on the weekends so she could do her Mom’s laundry with the machine that sometimes needed a swift kick to get started. She didn’t quite get how this sort of city kept you in arm’s reach until you embraced it back.
You weren’t supposed to climb crab apple trees when you were over the age of 12, but it was the only secret way into the backyard, after all. And Mellie knew it, because she’d whispered stories to her when everyone else was off drinking Mad Dog 20/20 and pretending like that had it all figured out.
“Mellie?”
She looked like she hadn’t been eating right; her hair was stringier than it was supposed to, and there was a distinct sallow tone to her skin. But it was the red rims around Mellie’s eyes that gave her cause for alarm.
“Alisha?”
They were hugging, so everything was going to be fine, right?
“I knew you weren’t really gone, Alisha. I knew it. Because you’d never leave without telling me, you’d call at least. You wouldn’t just give your mom your phone because that would be dumb.”
“What? I just got released from the hospital. I wasn’t gone anywhere. You visited me and everything.”
She could almost see herself reflected back in Mellie’s glasses, and it wasn’t what she knew she was like the past three months in particular. It was an entirely too colorful image, something that almost made her want to check a mirror if she hadn’t avoided them for so long.
And Mellie didn’t answer her, just looked guilty and so sad and god, she didn’t want to live this cliche sad queer story. She wasn’t going to live it at all.
“Mellie, you have to talk to me.”
She took her hands, and it didn’t feel like hands. It felt like the cold marble of the library or dipping her toes into a freezing stream in February because someone dared her to. She had to come to realize that it wasn’t right, wouldn’t be right.
Mellie was going to have to let go if anything was going to got the way it was supposed to.
“I just wanted you to stay.”
“It’s really not up to me, is it?”
Mellie hadn’t been there when he lungs gave out. No one had. Mom had gone to grab a snack and Mellie had finally gone off to class after a several days vigil. It wasn’t any of their faults that the timing had worked out like that. It had been shitty but ghosts didn’t linger in hospitals for a reason; she had known she was going to die before the machines, the doctors, the nurses had put it into words.
“Mellie, we’re going to have to let go. I don’t want to be the ghost that never leaves. I don’t even know what’s next but it can’t be this. I can’t hang around my own funeral and feel ice and knives when I want to touch you.”
Mellie nodded, releasing a few tears that had been held in reserve after all the others that had been spent before.
“Don’t ever let some asshole tell you to read something you hate. And tell Mom I’m sorry that we were out of time.”
The real bus had come now, no half an hour wait. Ghosts only lingered because the living refused to let go.
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