Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Easton was getting worse. But Bonnie needed him. Hell, I needed him. He was the only other person who understood all this.
But when he was back here, he was thrashing canvases with black paint or out getting hammered.
“I need you to help me load up my truck.” Easton cracked his eye open. I rubbed the back of my head, my chest pulled tight. At every moment, I felt I was only ever one step from falling the hell apart. “I’m taking the instruments to her.”
Easton’s face fell, and I heard him inhale deeply. He knew what it meant. Bonnie was no longer able to come to college. She was no longer able to do much of anything.
“Please, East.” I knew he would have heard the telltale rasp in my voice. Easton got dressed and followed me to the music building. Lewis had given me permission to work with Bonnie at home. We’d gotten far. But now Bonnie could only lie in her bed and listen. If she tried to pick up a violin her arms would fail. If she tried to play the keys of a piano, her fingers would become too numb for her to move. And, the worst part, if she tried to play the guitar she loved so much, her hands couldn’t find the strength to strum.
And her voice. The violet blue. Her passion. Her words…they would fade to a whisper, her short breath making it impossible for her to sing. That was the worst of all. Each day she sang. I would lie with her on her bed, and she would sing. And every day the violet blue grew weaker and weaker, fading until it was a diluted sort of lilac. Until there was no pigment left at all.
When the truck was loaded, we made our way to Bonnie’s home. Easton didn’t talk any more. He hardly smiled. I glanced over at him. He was staring out of the window. I had nothing to say to him. What the hell did I say? We all waited, every day, for the call. The call that a heart had been found.
“Palliative,” Bonnie’s mum had explained to me recently. Bonnie was now officially in palliative care. A nurse would come around every day. And I could see the humiliation in Bonnie’s eyes as she was cared for. The longing to lift off the bed and walk. To sing and to play.
Just to be well.
We pulled to a stop outside the Farradays’ house. Easton didn’t move his eyes from the window. “You okay?” I asked.
Easton turned to me, a vacant look in his eyes. “Let’s get the instruments in to my sister.” He stepped out and began unloading. I followed, carrying a violin, a flute, and a clarinet. As soon as I entered the house, the smell of antiseptic hit me. The entire house now smelled like a hospital.
When I entered Bonnie’s room, it didn’t matter to me that she was lying on the bed, a plastic tube flowing oxygen into her body through her nose; she was still the most perfect thing I’d ever seen. Mrs. Farraday was sitting beside her. Easton put down the drum he was carrying and moved to the bed to kiss Bonnie’s forehead.
Bonnie smiled, and the sight of it split my heart wide open. A drip hung from her arm, fluids to help keep her strong now that she couldn’t eat or drink very well. She’d lost weight. She’d always been slim, but now she was fading before my eyes.
I suddenly couldn’t breathe, tears pricking at my eyes. I turned and went back to the truck to get more instruments. The minute the cool air hit me, I stopped and just breathed it in. Easton came beside me and stopped too. Neither of us said anything. But when he exhaled, his breath shaking, he may as well have screamed it from the rooftops.
Bonnie was dying, and there was fuck all we could do.
When I could move again, I took the cello and sax to the bedroom. This time Bonnie was waiting for me, her eyes fixed on the door. As I caught her eyes, a smile so bloody big it lit up the sky pulled on her sallow cheeks.
“Crom…well…” she stuttered, her voice barely there. I had only left a few hours ago, but when your time is limited, every minute apart is an eternity.
“Farraday,” I said and moved beside her. Her mum was gone, and I’d seen her nurse, Clara, in the kitchen as I’d passed. I brushed back Bonnie’s hair. When her eyes looked around the room, they filled with tears. Her purple lips parted and a wheezy exhale slipped from her mouth. “You…brought…me…” She sucked in a quick breath. Her eyes closed as she fought to simply breathe. “Music,” she said, her chest rising and falling at double speed as she managed to push out the final word.