The Last Leaves Falling (5 page)

INTERESTS

There it is. The boy I’d like to be. The boy I
am
, beneath it all.

For three whole seconds I stare at the message “Post Successful.” I almost hit return, delete my entry, but I force my hands steady. I want this. I don’t want to be alone.

To distract myself, I scroll down the list of open chat rooms. There’s HomeworkChatz, and CollegeWorriez, and below that StReSsBuStInG, OMGAnime, and ILoveArnieSchwarzenegger. I log in to the first one, MondayTalk, an open forum, and watch the conversation unfold.

KittyL<3ve:
What’s a girl to do?

KittyL<3ve:
I mean, I have to choose, right? I can’t have both.

RaindropsOnKittens:
Why not?

KittyL<3ve:
Because that isn’t what you do. You choose. It’s like, you would not have more than one boyfriend, would you?

BlossomInDecember:
Of course not.

Vixeninety6:
Well . . . *giggles*

Meekkat:
I wouldn’t even have ONE. I’ll take poster boys, thanks. Much. Less. Scary.

BlossomInDecember:
You would not, Vixen!

BambooPanda:
Aw, why so shy, Meekkat? We have got to get you over that. Right, GuitarGirl?

Vixeninety6:
Okay, no, but I would think about it, and I don’t see why you can’t live out the fantasy and love BOTH bands. It’s not like they’re real boys you’re ever going to meet.

GuitarGirl1:
She might! She might go to a concert and be asked backstage. One of them might ask her to MARRY HIM.

Vixeninety6:
Oooooh.

GuitarGirl1:
Yes, Bamboo, we do. Meekkat, u so pretty. And fun!

RaindropsOnKittens:
Kitty and a Hot Boy sitting in a tree . . .

KittyL<3ve:
Hush!

KittyL<3ve:
You lot are so uncultured. It’s not about the boys, it is about the music.

Vixeninety6:
Oooooh.

KittyL<3:
No, seriously.

Vixeninety6:
Sure. It’s not their perfect spiky hair and nice clothes? That whitewhite shirt? Those jeans?

KittyL<3ve:
NO!

Vixeninety6:
Well, if it’s not about the boys, I don’t see what the problem is. WHY can’t you like both?

KittyL<3ve:
Because you don’t! You can’t!

SUSHIKING:
Hi everyone. *scrolls up*

BambooPanda:
Hey everyone, where did Meekkat go? Did we scare her off? )-:

BambooPanda:
I’m sorryyy! I didn’t mean it. You can have all the poster boys you want, and I won’t even make you TALK to a real boy. I’ll tell them all to go away. I’ll be like your bodyguard!

Vixeninety6:
Why NOT? I have a shelf full of manga, and I like them all. And shoes! I love all my shoes!

KittyL<3ve:
Not the same.

Vixeninety6:
But it IS, unless you buy into the corporate brand loyalty thing, AND think of the bands/their members as things, not as people. It’s WEIRD.

KittyL<3ve:
It’s not!

SUSHIKING:
Whoa, people!

SUSHIKING:
Don’t insult a girl’s musical tastes.

KittyL<3ve: Thanks, Sushi. <3

SUSHIKING:
And yeah, you scared her off, Panda. *shakes head*

Vixeninety6:
That’s just it, she hasn’t GOT any! She’s letting herself be steered by a stupid preconception. I’ve had more than one best friend since I was ten, and music is the same.

SUSHIKING:
Aw, leave her be.

0100110101100101:
But rock stars burn out before you even know they were hot. Next week NEITHER of them will be popular, and she’ll have wasted all her energies.

SUSHIKING:
No. She will have witnessed something beautiful.

I watch the words appear, one line at a time, so ordinary and significant. I talked like this, once.

I almost join them. My fingers hover over the keys, as I think the word “hello,” over and over, but I cannot bring myself to type it. I do not know what would come next.

So I sit there, a voyeur on normal lives, and in my little room, in my chair, alone, I enjoy their company.

•  •  •  •

There’s a knock at my door.

“Time for your medications, Sora.” My mother walks in and places a glass of water and a handful of pills gently on the desk beside me. “Do you need some help to get ready for bed?”

“No thanks. I can manage.” I may be growing weaker, but I can still undress myself.

She sighs, then kisses the top of my head. “Good night, then.”

“Night, Mama.”

She pads out quietly, closing the door behind her. And there’s a pause; I know she’s standing there, waiting, as though she does not know whether I can really manage. It is several minutes before she walks away.

Reluctantly, I switch off the computer monitor and scoop up the pills—all in one go. It’s better to get it over with. As they hit the back of my throat, I raise the glass and pour half of the water in behind them. I swallow, hard. Done.

At first, I imagined this cocktail of drugs working miracles, sewing up the broken parts of me. But this is no cure, it merely buys me time, alleviates some of the pain. I
wish
it were a cure.

My head aches, dully, as though I’ve thought too much today. My mother is right, it’s time for bed. I spin my chair around to face my clothes drawers, pull out an oversized T-shirt, and wheel myself across to the bed.

I turn down the duvet so I won’t have to caterpillar my way under it, and lay the shirt out flat across the end of the mattress. Then, with one arm on the bed and the other on the arm of my chair, I heave my weight up and over, swaying briefly on my feet as I turn. I land with a heavy
plumph
upon the bed, breathless from that one movement.

Useless
body.

The worst bit done, I let my breath slow and the shaking in my arms and legs subside before I reach up to pull the shirt I’m wearing up over my head.

It’s a T-shirt. I’ve given up wearing buttoned shirts. I do not think my mother’s noticed yet, but it will not be long. It won’t be long before she bustles in here morning and night to help me with all the tricky things. Buttons and zips first. Then this, the simple act of pulling off a shirt. At first she’ll do it because she wants to make things easier, but then, because she has to.

I imagine her fingers, too close as she rids me of my jeans. Her perfume, sweet and sharp at once, clouding the room, settling on my skin and in my hair.

She should not have to do this.

And she doesn’t, yet.

Having changed my shirt, there’s one more thing. Jeans. I force the buttons open with my thumb. It’s awkward, but I manage; one, two, three, four. I push the top of my jeans down, edging the fabric beneath my buttocks so that if I were to stand, the jeans would fall, and then, shifting my weight from left to right, left to right, I work them down a little at a time. Left—tug, right—tug, left—tug, right—, until the waistband hangs around my knees. I let go and my jeans fall to the floor. Sometime in the night my mother will come in and fold them neatly over my chair, or put them in the laundry pile.

I scoot back into the center of my double bed and swing my legs around, and finally, lean back until my head hits the pillow.

The fabric is soft and cool against my cheek, and I inhale the freshness of it as every muscle in my body sighs with relief, and I relax.

Sleep, so comes the end

of a long and winding day.