They need to learn to trust me, so I’ll consider this another horizon-expanding experience for them, in the same way Spencer has worked me up from kissing, to fingers, to mouths. He expands my horizons, so to speak.
My face flushes hot as I push Marcie through the door and into the hall.
We slow when Doctor Rhett watches us with a lifted brow. He’s bent over the nurse’s desk, writing something into a file. Back bent, one foot resting over the back of the other, a pen firmly clasped in his left hand, he watches us as though we’re his biggest source of shenanigan stress.
“Behave, ladies.”
“Aw, man,” Marcie whines. “And I was totally planning to hit up a party and get pregnant.”
She’s so much more outgoing than me, despite our age difference, so while she laughs and Rhett glowers, I squeak and practically push her at a run to escape the giggles of the nurses who constantly check out their superior.
“Marcie!” I hit the elevator button and step back. “Why are you such a troublemaker? No wonder he calls your mom all the time.”
“He’s a wet blanket,” she laughs. The elevator doors ding open, and once we step in, we turn again while she finger-waves to her watchful doctor. “He’s the sweetest man I ever met, I swear. Except maybe Mitchell. How is he, anyway? Did you tell him to call me?”
“No!”
When the elevator stops on the ground floor, I push her through the lobby and straight out the doors at the front of the hospital. This place isn’t large when compared to big city hospitals, but it’s large enough to warrant segregated wards; maternity and gynecology, oncology, radiology, cardiology, and all of the other -ologies that administration could think up.
The sun is perfectly warm, though the wind carries a slight chill. It’s a pleasant sixty-five, and for as long as the sun stays out and the clouds stay away, it’s the best sun-tanning weather this side of summer. We walk in silence for a couple minutes and let the birds sitting high in the spruce trees sing for us.
The grassy grounds on the north side of the hospital are mostly empty but for two or three other sets of people. Lovers, friends, siblings.
I’ve walked these grounds with my brothers in the past. With my mother and father. With my doctor, even, in a rare minute he had when no one else was keeping him busy. This is where we go when we need to escape the monotony of inside. It’s where we need to go when we can’t seem to catch our breath, or stare at a bland, cream wall for a second more.
I slow as we approach a wooden bench beside a tall spruce. The tree shades the bench in the afternoons, but right now, and for another hour or two, the sun beats down to keep us warm.
I know Marcie will want to stand before she even kicks the footrests up. It’s nothing more than a small rebellion, an act of control when we want to escape the institution and feel free again, so when she kicks the rests up and grabs onto the armrests, I help her up and try to swallow my grunts when hers seem so much more pain-filled.
I don’t know whether to be terrified for her, or to cheer her on. I thought she was getting better, but being in here again is a setback she was never supposed to know.
Shuffling closer to the bench, I help her lower down, then I sit down so close beside her that we touch from shoulder to feet. I fold my arms to fight off the little chill in the breeze, but Marcie lays her head back and opens up her chest to absorb as much of the sunlight as she can.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
She grunts, but her smile twitches. “This place sucks. I’m ready to go home.”
“I bet you are. What’s Rhett saying?”
She shrugs. “They did an X-ray yesterday, but the mass… isn’t getting smaller.” She sighs. “We do the chemo and radiation to make it smaller, right? That’s the point of all the pain. We’re told to hang in there, because the pain is for a good reason.” She pauses for a moment. “Kinda lost my shit at Rhett yesterday. Like it’s his fault it isn’t better.”
“We’re sticking to the plan though, right? More radiation, more chemo?”
“Mmm. Story of my life. The plan is to let them keep poking at me, burning me, poisoning me, and next time they scan, we’ll hope it’s stopped growing.”
I want to hold her, to hug her, to tell her I’m sorry for this horrible injustice life has thrown at her, but before I can, a bright blue butterfly flutters toward us and slows down. It’s not huge, but not small either, and when it lands on Marcie’s leg, she opens her eyes and looks down.
We’re struck mute for a moment as we study the beautiful creature. It expands its wings and feels its way around on the end of her knee. With slow movements, she inches her hand along her thigh and stops so her fingertips lay just a half an inch away.
“I wonder if he’ll jump on?” she whispers.
I don’t say a word. I’d regret it if I was the reason he got spooked and flew away, so I only watch her move her fingers closer and closer, until eventually, she touches his long legs, and he walks onto her hand.
“Wow…”
The look in her eyes is… well, amazed. Like a butterfly stopping by is magical, something only the gods could conjure.
She brings him closer to her face and smiles like a giddy child. “Did you know butterflies are believed to be a loved one dropping in to say hello?” She moves her hand a half a foot away, then closer again as though to test his trust.