Mum doesn’t say a word to me all drive. She doesn’t even look at me. Her eyes are fixed directly ahead of her, her hands on the steering wheel, trembling slightly. She cries at one point, and her mascara smears across her face. She hates crying, she says it’s wimpy, but here she is now, tears dripping down her cheeks. They make me feel good, somehow. Like she’ll miss me. Like she wants me.

The ride goes by in silence. I wrap my arms around my knees and stare bitterly out the window, swaying slowly from side to side. I keep hearing the words of the song playing again and again. If I die young...sink me in the river...sing me away with the words of a love song…. I don’t want to hear that song. Don’t want to think about the horrible person that sang them. But it keeps playing again and again, each word haunting me, mocking me with fallen hopes and shattered dreams, telling me that I’m not worth it and I’m going to lose everything. Funny when I’m dead how people will start listening.

The tires screech and I jerk my head up when I find that we’ve stopped. My whole body is shaking, my muscles tense with fear. I can’t bear to look. I squeeze my eyes shut, shoving the horrible memories out of my thoughts and forcing myself to lift my head up. To look.

Everything is exactly the same. The grass is the same dry brown color. The plastic gnome with its paint peeling is still there, although now it has toppled over. The garage is the same huge size that Mum used to joke about. And the house. I choke, my voice cracking. “Mum,” I say softly, my voice barely a whisper. “Mum.”

“I know, Alyssa,” she says abruptly, cutting past me. “Welcome back.”

Memories shoot through my mind. A blur of racing thoughts, colors, feelings, memories, each one strange and detached. I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask for this. I want to be back at school, to be with Marya, to be away from Mum. But no, Mum’s looking at me with her dark, cold eyes. My heart flutters sharply against my chest, I think I’m going to vomit. I’m home. I’m really home.

I stumble after her, the wet grass squishing beneath my feet. The orange glow of the streetlight glistens on Mum’s face; I can barely breathe. I manage to put one foot in front of the other, my hands shaking wildly, and my fingers close over the door handle. Mum is watching me carefully, her eyes narrowed, I want to say something to her, but the words wither off my lips and into the still night air. I’m so tired. I want to swing open the door and run up to my room and sleep on my bed tonight. My bed. But somehow, the thought is too bitter to think about for long.

I fling the door open, and a loud creak shatters the silence. The room is dark, I can barely see, but light glows from the door and the room slowly takes shape. The rose-colored sofa smashed into the corner. The grandfather clock that I notice she finally fixed. Trash littered everywhere. The spiral staircase that I always used to trip on. The faded blue rug and the too-glossy wooden table in the center of the room. My hand flickers over the doorway, I turn around and meet Mum’s eyes, barely able to stop myself from falling over.

She pushes past me with her hand, her heels clunking against the ground. She flips the light switch and light flood the room, my eyes begin to burn. Mum strides briskly over to the couch, pushing aside several cans of beer and handing me a warm coke can. I reach to grab it, but my hands are shaking too hard; it slips out of my hand and white foam spills out of it, little bubbles popping on my feet.

She sighs, and bends down to the ground, her forehead creased. She looks up and me, and shakes her head briefly, dipping her finger in the sticky liquid, chewing her lip hard. “Typical,” I hear her say under her breath, and my heart lurches. I hope that she will say more, but she doesn’t, she just stands up and gestures towards the kitchen. “Mop it up, will you?”

I nod and walk slowly into the kitchen, my brain fuzzy like a grey carpet has settled over it. I grab a rag from the drawer and slowly go back to the living room, stumbling to the floor and bringing the rag slowly over the dark juice. I set the can on the desk next to me and take a sip, but I can barely choke it down.

Mum walks out from the other room and plops down on the couch, waving her hand for me to sit down next to her. I put the wipe down on the desk and slip across the room onto the couch, clasping my hands together with all the strength I can muster. “Yeah?” I whisper slowly, my heart thrashing within me. I fall back against the couch, wrapping my arms around my knees and staring up at her, wanting, wishing, dreaming.

She puts her head up, and meets my eyes, and I see fear shining out of them. I pull my head away and stare down at my knees, twisting my hands together with my whole body shaking violently.

“Alyssa,” Mum says softly, reaching a bony white hand out and grabbing my hand. I let my fingers curl around her hand, resisting the urge to pull my hand away. “Alyssa,” she says again.

I don’t say anything, just letting my hand rest in hers and waiting for her to say more. Somehow, I’m not in any hurry.

“So,” she says, and she lifts her hand up and brushed the hair out of my eyes like she did when I was younger. She wraps her arm around my shoulders and looks me directly in the eyes. “I want to hear exactly what happened.”

“Well, I went to get the results from the bone marrow test, and he said that I had leukemia. There. That’s it.”

Her eyes narrow, she shakes her head slowly from side to side. “What bone marrow test?”

I sit up straighter, my spine rigid in shock. “The one that I called you to tell you about last week.”

Her mouth slowly opens, and then closes, she falls back against the couch and presses her lips thinly together, her eyes slicing into my skin. “I didn’t think you were serious. I thought you were- I mean, I thought-"

“I know what you thought,” I cry, standing up. My whole body is screaming for her to recognize it, to acknowledge it, but she doesn’t, just sinks her head in her hands and cries. She’s sad, hurt, but she still hasn’t taken the time to ask me how I feel, to give me the hug I so desperately need. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her, but she hasn’t even told me that she missed me.

“Fine,” I hiss under my breath, and I plop back onto the couch and slam my back into the chair. “I had these little red dots all over my skin, and I kept getting all of these weird bruises and bleeding and stuff.” I hold up my arm, and she slowly runs her finger along the little red specks. “I went to the doctor, obviously.” I suck in a deep breath, managing to turn my head to look at her. There’s concern written on her face, she’s staring at me attentively, but her eyes are full of fear.

“Oh yeah?” she prompts me slowly, each word slow and heavy, like struggling to balance a heavy weight.

“The doctor did a bunch of tests and stuff to test for different things When I came back, he said that my white blood cell count was extremely low, and asked to feel my armpits, which were apparently swollen or something. He said he thought it might be leukemia.”

She sucks in a deep breath, her face twisted in pain. A part of me doesn’t want to continue, wants to save her from hearing the end, but then I know I don’t want that. Somehow I want to see her pain when she hears the whole story. “So he took a test. He numbed my hip and gave me this thing to make me really drowsy and kind of forgetful, and then he ejected this stuff out of my bone.”

“Did it hurt?”

I don’t answer, instead tilting my head away and studying the ceiling fan. “Duh,” I say finally, twisting my finger around my hair.

She chews her lip thoughtfully and raises her eyebrows. “Oh.” She gives a weak laugh, but I know that it’s fake. Everything is fake. She looks like she wants to say more, but she shuts her mouth again, just staring at me with her face twitching slightly. “Oh,” she says again.

I grit my teeth together and desperately try to cry, but my eyes are still dry. I don’t say any more.

We sit there in silence for a moment. I clasp my hands together and stare at my lap, pressing my lips together. She taps her finger against the couch and leans over me to to look me in the eye. “What then?” she asks firmly.

“I already said that,” I hiss under my breath.

She sinks back against the chair, muttering something under her breath. “They came back positive.”

“Yeah,” I say softly.

“Sooo…”

I pucker my lips together, feeling strangely cold. “So what?”

“So what are you going to do now?”

I rub my arms roughly, but no warmth spreads through my body. What I do now won’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter what kind of crap I pursue, what kind of future I jump after, because in the end, I will be just another gravestone, just another statistic on a list of victims. I say nothing. Silence is enough.

“Thought so,” she says softly, and I take a small sip of coke, holding it in my mouth for a while before swallowing it. “Don’t make too many plans, anyways.”

I manage to choke out a small nod, and stand up from the couch, refusing to continue this conversation any longer. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

She smiles weakly, and closes her hands over the coke can, setting it down on the table besides her. “Go to bed now.”

“I will,” I say, and I don’t wait for her to answer, just running towards the staircase and clinging to the grainy wooden railing with all of the strength still left in me.