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Fucking understatement of the century. Even though they told me this is what they suspected I had when I was in the hospital, I never let myself believe it. Hell, I would have taken a brain tumour because at least they can cut that shit out. This was probably the worst case scenario, and so of course it came true.
“Idon’t hear your ass getting out of bed,” Lucy shouts again, pulling my brain out of the darkness that seems to be consuming me. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop reliving that moment. The moment my life changed, and since then, darkness has overwhelmed me.
I’ve spent most of my time wallowing in my room, refusing to answer the phone, simply sending texts every so often to let people know I’m okay. They sent me an appointment with the MS nurse, but I cancelled it. I told them I would rebook when I’m ready, but I’m nowhere near there yet. I know she’s going to want to talk about me accepting where I’m at, but I don’t accept it. All I can think is why the hell did this have to happen to me?
After over a week of radio silence, my best friend turned up on my doorstep and refused to leave until I let her in. She’s been here for two days now, and I can tell she has a plan. We’ve been best friends since the first day of school at five-years-old. I know her, and I can read her every move. When she first arrived, it was all about showing me sympathy. Holding me while I cried, eating ice cream with me while we watched movies that made us cry even more.
Lucy hoped that having me cry it out would work, but when it didn’t she’s now moved on to tough love. Sadly for her, she’s rubbish at being tough. I’m the tough, bitchy one. She’s the nice one out of our little duo. So when she tries her best stern voice, I almost want to laugh. She comes stomping through, her long ginger hair flowing behind her and she cocks her hip when she reaches my bedroom.
“I’m serious, Em. You need to get your ass out of bed and have a shower. You stink,” she snaps, before the guilt creeps in as it’s not in her nature to be nasty. “Sorry, I just mean it would do you some good to shower and go outside.”
I narrow my gaze at her and try my best not to be an asshole, but it feels like it’s the only mode I have at the moment. “I will shower because even I feel icky, but I’m not going outside. If you’re not happy with that you can fuck off.”
My best friend flinches at the harshness of my words, but she holds her ground. “I will take the shower as a win, and we can work on the rest. I know you’re struggling, Em. You need to talk to me, or if not me then someone.”
“Talk about what?” I snap. “About how my life is over. About how I have to shower with a fucking old people’s chair because I can’t even stand up in my own fucking shower. Talk about how I’m too fucking scared to go to sleep because I don’t know what state I will be in when I wake up. Talk about how I know I’m going to have to give up my dream job because people who are disabled can’t work as nurses. Or talk about the fact I miss the one person in the world that I can’t ever have.”
She walks over slowly until she reaches the bed, where she perches on the edge. She moves slowly, so I can see what she’s doing, and she reaches out with her arm to wipe away the stray tears I didn’t even notice were falling. I’ve cried so much the past few days, they’re almost like a permanent feature.
“Oh, Em. Most of those things are way out of my ability, and I think a specialist would really help you. But there is one of those I can help with. Why don’t you just send him a text. He asked you to message him when you felt ready, so why don’t you do it?” she asks, her face suddenly looking very naive.
“We both know that’s a stupid fucking idea,” I shout, the anger rippling just under the surface where it always is at the moment, forces me to lash out. “He didn’t want a relationship with me before, so he really isn’t going to want one now. I’m far too fucking broken to ever be in a relationship.”
I didn’t mean to say that aloud, but it’s the truth. I genuinely believe nobody will ever want me knowing the condition I have. I don’t know when, it could be soon, or it could be years in the future, but one day I will become a liability. I might lose the ability to care for myself, or even lose control of my bladder and bowel. I don’t want a partner who has to be my carer too.
Even just thinking about all the ways my life will change, causes the darkness to descend. Going to the shop will no longer be a fun outing, it will result in unimaginable pain. Getting out of bed every fucking day will feel like a chore, one I’m not sure I want to complete. Even going on a night out won’t be the same. I will need to prepare for it days in advance, and accept it will knock me out for a few days afterwards. Little things people take for granted are now big tasks for me. I don’t want to become stuck in the shell of a body that continues to fail me.
No matter how many medications I take, no matter how much I try to fight it, this is my future. Well… it should be my future, but there’s no way in hell I will ever allow myself to get that bad. I will not become a burden on anyone. I will end things long before they ever get that bad.
The more I think about ending things before they get worse, the more that idea becomes appealing to me. I’m at the start line now, and I have no idea how long it will take to get to the end, but I know it’s not going to be a pleasant journey. I just don’t know if I can keep going knowing that things are going to get a lot worse.
The more these thoughts circle through my mind the more the darkness begins to descend. I get up, and with the help of Lucy, I shower and get myself freshened up, but it’s like I’m just on auto-pilot. I don’t even remember doing half the things I did that day. It’s like I’m just going through the motions, just existing.
When I get into bed that night, and I hear Lucy’s light snores from the room next door, I pick up my Kindle and start reading the book I put down earlier. I lose myself in a world of shifter wolves, vampires, and a whole lot of sex. A world where there’s no disease or depression, and where the main character isn’t rejected by the man she loves.
I keep reading long into the night, not only desperate to escape the world I’m living in right now, but also because of the fierce need I have to stay awake.
The way multiple sclerosis happens, most of the relapses will occur while you’re asleep. When your immune system should be protecting you, instead it’s working overtime and has got confused, resulting in it taking out healthy parts of the brain that you need. This causes the white matter of the brain to become scarred, and the nerve pathways stop working.
Meaning, whatever bodily function that part of the brain controls, it won’t be working anymore. No clue as to whether that will be permanent or temporary. I will just wake up that morning and MS will have taken something else from me. This relapse was the vision in my right eye, and the strength in my right leg. But who knows what will be next.
Although most of my sight has come back, my eye is definitely weaker. Same goes for my leg. I also have damage in my hip caused by walking funny for a couple of weeks. You see, when you do something your body doesn’t like, you feel pain telling you to stop doing that, but when my leg was numb, I didn’t have the pain receptors telling me what to do, and so it caused damage.
If I thought this relapse was bad, I can only imagine what the next one will bring. I know it’s not sound logic, but it’s all I have at the moment. My brain is a mess, clouded by darkness, and so even though I know I’m not thinking straight, it’s all I have.
All I keep thinking is that if I don’t sleep, I can’t wake up with another relapse. You know you’ve hit rock fucking bottom when you’re too afraid to even sleep.
When my fiction books don’t keep me awake any more, I pick up my phone, and scroll all the way back to that first ever message with Carlos, AKA Lee. I read every message we ever sent each other, and I laugh at all the jokes and fun times we shared. My heart breaks a little more with each message I read, but I can’t stop. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, or maybe I want to embrace the pain.
Or maybe it’s just that I miss him so much I will take him any way I can get him. Either way I keep reading until my body gives out. As I feel sleep start to grab hold of me, I shed a tear. This time not for the life I’ve been dealt or my diagnosis. No, this one is for Lee. Because I think I’ve just realised that I’m in love with him, and we can’t ever be together.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
LEE
“For fuck’s sake, Lee. I’m sick to death of you moping around. I’m bored,” Craig moans as he picks up a random sock sitting on the side of my bed, rolls it into a ball and throws it at my head.
I’m sitting on my computer chair, just looking at my phone. I created a folder with all the pictures I ever took with Emmaleigh, and over the last few weeks, I’ve just been looking at them on repeat. I can’t even begin to describe how much I miss her. If I thought the two weeks we had apart when we didn’t see each other was bad, it’s nothing compared to this.
