There’s no trace of lightness.
‘I… well, um…’ Her gaze jerks back and forth between me and the paper in her hand.
I could run away.
But I don’t want to anymore. Not after I imagined earlier where staying might lead me.
Again I remember what Nyla said yesterday about the pain outside the moment. That perhaps it isn’t the pain itself, but only the idea of it, that is destroying my life.
I wish that were true. That I could, that I were able to find peace with the memory of Camee.
‘That’s not your list.’ Nyla’s voice is so quiet I can barely hear it, yet goose bumps break out all over my body.
I shake my head as I try to figure out what to say to her and how. How I’m supposed to find words for something that has been unspeakable for so long.
Whose list is it?That will be the next question to leave her mouth, I’m sure of it. Even though she now pointedly falls silent, sets the sheet down on the sheet beside her and gets up from the bed, she’ll want to know. Because just from my reaction she can tell how significant this piece of paper is to me.
Now she comes toward me, her expression full of unease. She’s just as afraid of my answer as I am. And that even though she has not the slightest idea what this is really about.
Only when she is directly in front of me does she stop. Her chest touches mine, rises and falls in the same rhythm. Her eyelids flutter, then she fixes me with an intense look. Every part of her is trembling.
‘This is Lilly’s list.’ Strangely, she sounds as if she knows who Lilly is, or at least suspects it. ‘They’re her wishes, hopes, and dreams.’
Lilly’s wishes, hopes, and dreams, echoes inside me, and by now nothing makes sense to me anymore.
Does she actually know Lilly?
From where? Why? How?
Was she her doctor?
I gasp for air but don’t get any. I want to say something, but I don’t know what.
Nyla’s gaze grows intent. ‘What do you have to do with Lilly’s bucket list?’ she asks me, tearing open a wound inside me from which the past pours out unstoppably.
Her head looks so small on this pillow. Deep shadows lie beneath her eyes as she looks at me, tired. With every breath my heart grows heavier, but I just keep talking anyway. I tell her about the party last night, about how bright the orange of the morning sky was when I stumbled out of the bar, and that I couldn’t find my key anymore. How I hammered on the door I’d just been thrown out of, wanting to go back in, just back, to get something back that I should never have lost.
‘Back?’ Her gaze drifts absentmindedly to the window behind me.
‘I found it, Camee, it was still there,’ I say quickly.
The corners of her mouth lift imperceptibly.
I get up from my chair and pull the key out of my pants pocket. The chain I attached it to jingles softly. ‘Here it is, and look, there.’ I show her the carabiner with which I’ve fastened the chain to a belt loop on my jeans. ‘This way I can’t lose the key again.’
With a sad expression she looks at the carabiner, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing I am. That you can’t protect everything from getting lost this way. That there are things you can’t chain to yourself, that you can’t hold on to, that you can’t force to stay.
People.
Moments.
Life.
Deep in my chest burns the pain of this truth that I cannot speak.
‘Yes,’ she says, forcing a smile. ‘The necklace is a great idea.’
I take her hand, as careful as if her bony fingers were made of glass. ‘As soon as you get out of here, I’ll make you a necklace like that too, then you can party through the nights without a care.’