“You’re mad.” One of Sophie’s aunts, Monique, visited briefly yesterday with two bodyguards (Sophie said they were unnecessary for safety but necessary for her narcissistic tendencies). She gave me a look I’m familiar with and was usually accompanied by them thinking I’m weird regardless if they say it out loud.
Seconds before that Monique exclaimed, “Jesus! It’s raining cats and dogs out there!” I peeked outside the window of Sophie’s bedroom and voiced that there was not a single animal falling from the sky. It would’ve been chaotic with all the screeching and barking.
Monique turned to Sophie in what I could assume as exaggerated and unnecessary horror. “Sophie, your friend is mad.”
The bedridden blonde only laughed.
I could not feel any anger at that moment. I remember feeling neutral, other than wanting her to leave so I could sit back in peace with the book I was reading before she came. “No, I’m not.”
“I mean, you’re mad…like crazy, you know?”
“Why do you say so?”
“Because!”
That does not explain why she thought of me as mad. Is “because” a substitute for the lack of explanation or is it the difficulty of articulating the surge of overwhelming explanations? But I have observed that the definition of mad is ambiguous and inconsistent. Madness varies in particular settings, sometimes it’s arbitrary. As a woman, wearing pants during the 18th century would’ve caused an outrage and funny looks unlike if you did in the 20th century. What is perfectly sane in one era can turn out to be insane in another.
Where sanity end and insanity begin is a shifting boundary that is perhaps based on the always changing social norms.
To appear sane, therefore, is to be in the right environment, right time, right context, wearing the right clothes, and saying the right things. What those right things are is up to you to figure out.
“Sabby.” Sophie’s hoarse voice brought me back to the present. Sophie’s bedroom, mahogany chair, beeping medical machines, and a certain distinct odor.
Glancing down, my hands were occupied holding the blonde’s cold ones. “Please miss me when I’m gone.” Sophie had been bedridden two days ago. She couldn’t walk without the assistance of the nurse, barely had the appetite, keeps on interchanging words, and forgetting about the conversation in the middle of it.
There were times when she’s alert, making me forget about her condition for a couple of hours. I liked those times, especially when she remembers my name.
She wanted me to miss her. I understood missing someone was wishing they’re with me at a certain point of time, and so I thought. “I will for a while.”
Sophie tilted her head slightly with her eyebrows furrowed. “After a while?”
“I’ll probably forget about you in a couple of years if I’m still alive by then. It’s how it usually works.” A frown appeared on her face and I recognized it as sadness most likely. The tips of her lips were too stretched down to be an expression of anger. “Why does it matter anyway? Once you’re dead you won’t know whether I’m missing you or not.”
“Still. I’d feel a little bit better if I know that I won’t be forgotten.”
“Even if it’s a lie?”
Sophie turned her head away from me. “Never mind then. I don’t want you to lie to me.”
A churn in my stomach made me shift on the chair. I did not like this. “I’m sure I’ll remember you when I see one of those hideous scrunchies.”
Laughter erupted from the girl beside me, which quickly turned into a cough, but I heard it. I heard the sound of happiness and it was enough to make me smile. I smiled without forcing myself to. I smiled not because it was appropriate. “Or when I see the ugly but warm sweater you knitted for me.”
“Hey!” She slapped my arm but it was too weak to hurt me. It seems like the slightest movement required all her energy.
The calming silence that followed except for the constant beeping of the machines allowed me to think, something I’ve been doing even more over the past few days.
I never really cared if anyone remembered me. It doesn’t matter anyway. Regardless if I fought hard to be remembered, it’ll only last long enough after I die. In a hundred years, could be more, could be less, it’ll be as if I never existed in the first place. Not even Einstein will be remembered, because when the sun explodes, no one will be alive to remember anyone.
“Sabby,” Sophie breathed, my eyes gravitating to her forest green eyes that glistened. “Do you love me?”
Love? This word again?
My hands started sweating. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. How would I know?
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” When I opened them, Sophie held a smile but a tear fell down her pale cheek. She wiped it off before I could.
My throat felt tight and a feeling of heaviness in my chest was apparent when I looked at Sophie. It seems like my chest pain and heartburns occur whenever I’m near her. Was there a correlation? But then it wouldn’t make sense. How could a person induce heartburns?
For the following week, I spent every day at Sophie’s house, just sitting beside her bed, keeping her company while she’s awake. I have notified the manager about my intent to resign and it went well without any unnecessary hurdles. It wasn’t as if I needed more money seeing as it has already been past one year. The initial deposit from Finn was already used as a down payment for the cabin-like house I’m planning to buy completely once this is over. Seeing as Sophie can’t even stay awake for an hour straight, it looks like I wouldn’t have to wait for long.
“Do you think there’s an afterlife?” Sophie’s lips barely moved but I was able to understand.
“No. There’s nothing after. This is it.”
Death is the absence of presence. It is annihilation.
But what if? What if we continue to exist as a corpse, slowly rotting away as food for worms until we cease to exist? Merely lying down the earth, unconscious, waiting for the ultimate annihilation.
“I feel very weak.” I looked down, realizing that I have been in my own mind for a moment. Sophie looked terrible. Still beautiful, but terrible.
“Because you are.”
“I think this is it.” She gulped, painful and loud. “Tell me something?”
Was this goodbye? But how does a person know if they’re about to die? A general feeling or a guess?
My throat suddenly felt like someone was choking me, like my voice would immediately crack once I spoke. Sighing, I watched over her. Her blonde hair that has become messy from lying down the whole day, her cheeks that easily turned red, her lips of which I could still remember how it felt against mine, her eyes…I could stare at them all day if I could. “I like your eyes. When I look at them I feel like I’m in the forest surrounded by life. I like that.”
Sophie smiled and her eyes twinkled. “What else?”
“Your hands were warm. I liked it when you hold mine tightly.” My hands were always colder. Sophie’s hands provided me warmth during our walks, but now, now hers were colder than mine.
She took my hand on hers, clasping them together and squeezing with a struggle. “Like that?”
“I little bit tighter, but yes.”
Sophie closed her eyes for a while but I knew she was awake. I could still feel the minimal grip pf her hand. I don’t think grip is even the right term. Regardless, I wanted to see her eyes again. If what she said was true, that this is it, I want to see it one more time. “Can you open your eyes?”
She did as I asked, and I released the breath I didn’t know I held. My hands went cold and the back of my neck shivered. My stomach churned. The discomfort I felt at the moment was foreign to me. Nevertheless, I focused on her eyes on mine because one day it’ll all be gone. She’ll be gone and I wouldn’t have any chance to gaze at them again. If this was the last time, I wanted it to last as long as it could.
I ran my hand through her hair, trying to tame it without looking away. I brushed away the stands of her hair that fell on her face, tucking it behind her ear, that way I could see her face clearly.
I find my free hand clenching.
I did not want her to die.
“Thank you.” Sophie reached for my cheek, resting her hand on it and I felt myself leaning.
“For what?”
“For looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
Sophie only grinned, her eyelids drooping before completely drifting off to sleep without explaining what she meant.
Carefully, I placed her arms beside her, pulling the covers up until underneath her chin. I wondered how long before she wakes up again.
Stroking her head softly, I leaned and placed a kiss on her forehead, remembering how many times she asked for one before. “I hope you don’t get any nightmares, Sophie.”
Author’s note
Updates have been scarce because of online uni. So many requirements, it’s kinda draining. Anyway, I hope you guys are coping with online classes. Don’t forget to take breaks once in a while (I take too much breaks tbh). Have a good day!
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