Ya'aburnee
Translated: You bury me.
A story by Amelia Lorrimore.
Every morning at precisely 8:00am I walk into the dull Anonymous Cafe and order my usual, dull order of black coffee before sitting down at my usual dull seat by the window, opening my dull laptop and looking at my dull school timetable. In fact, the only thing that isn’t dull about my mornings is my best friend Robin.
With the most uniquely bright orange hair and eyes that aren’t just one specific color but start brown in the centre and then turn to a wondering bluish green color on the outside, there couldn’t possibly be anything dull about Robin’s appearance. “Hey!” Robin bursts into the room, taking a seat opposite me, infusing her joy around Anonymous Cafe. She places one of her trademark sun hats (of which every day she has a different one) on the table. When she sits down her long, grey, Primark jumper reaches down to rest next to her white and black adidas trainers, which are quite possibly the only things Robin owns that isn’t from Primark. Her jeans are stained at the knees from where she slid across the floor in a game of ‘kick the can’ a few days earlier and her floral top, that had been a Christmas gift from her mum a few years ago is tied in a knot at the front to become a crop top. “Ugh! Seriously? You’re still going with black coffee? That stuff will kill you y’know.” Robin says with her long glossy orange locks washing over her shoulders like the soothing waves of the ocean.
“At least I’ll die knowing I consumed my usual black coffee without fail, every day.” I smile at Robin and take a sip of my coffee.
“So, what have you got today?” she asks, knowing the answer already because she has memorised my timetable. “English, Science, Maths, Spanish and R.E.” I release a sigh big enough to blow down Ashdown Forest.
“Ah, man that’s a shame...I’ve got sports studies all day,” Robin mocks me, smiling, raising her eyebrows, releasing a small laugh and taking a sip of her pumpkin spice latte that arrived at our table sometime during our conversation, but I hadn’t noticed because I had been utterly fixated on her outfit.
“You’re just lucky that you were born three months before me, otherwise you would be in Year Eleven enduring the same torture that I do.”
“Oh, come on! Secondary school isn’t that bad” Robin says.
“You’re only saying that because you don’t go there anymore and anyway I’m not like you. I don’t have millions of friends, or the body of a supermodel.”
“Hey, I do not have the body of a supermodel!”
“You so do! All I’m trying to say is that if you don’t have a flat stomach and no boobs then you aren’t worth it in secondary school and you’re known as that fat girl.” I say fiddling with the wrapper on my coffee cup. Robin grabs my hand and looks me in the eyes.
“You are not fat, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” I can feel the tenderness and truth in her voice, but it doesn’t matter how much she believes it, it doesn’t stop others from thinking the opposite.
“Yeah, well let’s get going yeah? I’ve got ‘maths’ to get to” I shut my laptop, stand up and walk towards the exit.
Everything begins to disappear and before I know it I’m left alone in Anonymous Cafe with nothing but whiteness around me, a blinding white light that engulfs my entire surroundings.
*****
Robin has always been like a big sister to me; beautiful, strong, confident and above all kind. She’s the kindest person I know. I’ve never once heard her complain about anything from having to babysit her little sister for free to doing the dishes. She’s effortlessly beautiful, never taking more than ten minutes to put on makeup in the morning and simply brushing her gorgeous locks so they fall elegantly alongside her shoulders. Not to mention her summer-ready bod takes no more than a box of pizza and a tub of cookie dough Ben and Jerry’s to keep in shape. She says she isn’t strong or confident, but I happen to know for a fact that she is the strongest hearted woman around and no one is more good-willed or head-strong as Robin.
I remember this one time where we were shopping in Brighton and this guy flew past like a bullet and grabbed my bag with my wallet and phone in. Without thinking Robin dropped her things and chased straight after him and around the corner out of sight. I sat silently for a few minutes worrying that something had happened to her, until she returned with my bag and an extra £20.
Robin is... sorry, was, the most important person in my life and without her I am empty inside.
*****
This story began on a cold November day. Robin and I were walking in Richmond Park on the way home. The trees were vibrant with bright red and orange leaves dancing from their branches as the foul winter drew closer and autumn began to disappear. I spotted a colossal pile of leaves that were too tempting not to jump in. I decided to play the game that Robin and I had invented. You stand at the edge of the pile of leaves while your partner stands on the other side, you count to ten and then crouch down like a chicken, with your arms bent out at your sides like wings, and you push each other until one of you wins. When you win you get to kick the leaves all over the loser. Robin and I came up with this game after we took up rugby together in secondary school and because of our age difference the only thing we could do together was one on one scrum practice using the ‘tower of power’.
I excitedly ran towards the edge of the pile of leaves, shivering because of the cold however brilliantly excited to play the game that I had been waiting all year for. Robin wasn’t on the other side of the pile, so I turned around. “Come on Robin!” I shouted down the path and turned back around, not realising Robin’s fatigue. She eventually caught up to me and stood on the other side of the pile looking quite pale and weary. “Robin...are you okay?” I was worried because Robin was hardly ever sick, in fact I don’t think she ever had a single day off school.
“Yes, I’m fine. I must’ve just eaten something funny earlier.” I trusted Robin because she wasn’t in the habit of lying to me, but there definitely was something going on because I had been with her all day and she hadn’t eaten anything. I thought that some fun might cheer her up and make her feel a little better, so I bent down like a chicken counting to ten. She gently drooped down and held out her arms. I held her jacket sleeves and pushed her backwards. She didn’t push back. She fell. Collapsed. My heart started racing. Faster. Faster. I didn’t know what to do.
“Robin? Robin?” I knelt next to her. I lifted her head onto my lap. She wouldn’t wake up. I lost all control of my mind and the situation at hand. I finally understood the meaning of an out of body experience. I froze. Staring at her. Her motionless body.
“Are you okay?” A hand fell heavy on my shoulder. My brain switched on and I was back in my own body. I could think again, and I felt terrible. I knew this wasn’t about me and I needed to get Robin to a safe place, preferably a hospital.
“I am but my friend just collapsed, she needs an ambulance.” My heart rate calmed down as I heard the buttons on the stranger’s phone press those three comforting numbers. 999. “You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.” I held Robin’s head in my arms and hugged her tighter than I thought possible. I had experienced the most threatening and frightening moment of my life, I thought nothing could be worse than how I was feeling at that moment, knowing that my best friend wasn’t safe or in control of her own body. Knowing that I had frozen and was incapable of being any true help to her in her time of need was soul crushing. I couldn’t even press three stupid numbers. A screeching siren beamed through my auditory nerve and into the auditory cortexes in my brain, allowing me to process how real this was. The vociferous siren got louder and louder until it was so ear-piercing that it turned into a single-note beep in the back of my brain.
Two men and a woman dressed in dark green uniforms and bright yellow high vis jackets crowded around Robin and me. The woman put her arms around my shoulders as the two men ripped Robin from my grasp and forced her paralyzed body into the ambulance bed. In what felt like a matter of minutes I was sat in the back of the ambulance van alongside her not having a clue how I got there or when I got up from the floor. I couldn’t make out a single word nor letter coming from the mouths of anyone in that ambulance, only muffled sounds like a constant buzzing advancing from a bee.
Sometime during those strenuous hours in the hospital Robin’s parents arrived and were asking a lot of questions. Everything else was a blur until the next morning when I awoke to a rambunctious horn blasting uncontrollably out of a ginormous monster truck. I slowly perched up and hunched over my knees as I re-adjusted my eyes to the light bouncing off the white walls of the hospital after my awful night’s sleep. I was confused. I thought about why I was sleeping on a bench in front of the hospital in the first place. I realised the previous exasperating events were reality and I hadn’t awoken from a horrible nightmare. I suddenly jerked up and rapidly paced through the heavy electric doors of the hospital and over to the front desk to check up on Robin.
“Hello. I arrived with Robin Lamarre. Is she allowed visitors yet?” I could hardly get the words out of my dry aching throat.
“Anna. We lost you last night.” Robin’s mum, Mrs Lamarre, walked up behind me and patted me on the shoulder embracing me in a hug.
“Mrs Lamarre, hi. How’s Robin? Can I see her? Is she awake? Has she said anything? sorry I’m asking too many questions, aren’t I?” Mrs Lamarre stared at me with wide eyes and a forced smile on her face. I was overrun with questions and very low on answers, as I’m sure Mrs and Mr Lamarre were too.
“Robin’s...well...we don’t know at the moment. But the doctors have said not to worry until there is something to worry about. So, we’re staying positive. I’m afraid you can’t go and see her yet but maybe tomorrow when she’s feeling better and more active.”
Mrs Lamarre forced another smile and patted me on the shoulder before returning to Mr Lamarre who was aggressively discussing something with someone on the phone, like he did many days. Today was different. Mr Lamarre seemed more aggressive or upset, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I knew there was something that Mrs Lamarre wouldn’t tell me, I also knew that I simply had to wait to find out what it was when the Lamarre family were ready to tell me. After all, as much as I wanted to be, I wasn’t related to Robin and therefore I didn’t have the right to demand such information.
*****
It was a long and monotonous walk home that morning; without Robin there to entertain and support me I was left alone to contemplate and obsess over that previous afternoon and what went wrong, whether I could have helped Robin in any way at all. The moment she fell repeated over and over in my mind on that tiresome journey home, although that wasn’t the most frequent moment playing in my mind, no, that spot was reserved for my reaction to her fall. Why did I freeze? How did I not realise there was something wrong before? What could I have done differently? And most importantly…What was going to come from Robin’s fall? I blamed myself for not reacting quick enough to Robin’s fall and, although the nurse at the hospital said it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t help feeling that it was. Every single step that I took on my way home was carefully calculated to make sure the precise actions were taken to make each step absolutely perfect. By obsessing over the minute detail in each of my steps I was focused in the present and had no space in my brain for it to wander off back to Robin. I thought about the way the tips of my shoes were scuffed from the harshness of the loose rigid stones that erupted from the pavements like boulders from a volcano. I thought about the way my legs bent like the hands of a clock joint by the knee. I even thought about the invisible marks that my footsteps left on the pavement as I took each step, like the scent left behind after a hot meal. Eventually, however hard I tried to stop it, my mind continued to aimlessly wander back to Robin and what her mother was hiding from me.
I reached the decrepit yet venerable patchy white door that stood firmly, supporting my welcoming home. Turning the handle I prepared myself for what would follow; the endless hugs, the incessant questions about how Robin was doing, how I was doing, mum’s tears, my tears. I knew exactly what was going to follow because it was mum’s philosophy ‘anything can be fixed with a hug, conversation and tears’. Although I sometimes thought a hug was a good idea that was the last thing I was craving; I merely wanted to be left to my own thoughts. The antique door aggressively swung open, crashing on the adjacent wall like thunder in a storm; alerting the household that I was home as the door bounced endlessly off the wall. As my right foot heavily pressed onto the wooden floorboard of the effortlessly elegant entrance hall of my home, I felt a tremendous weight lift off me. What I thought was going to be the hardest thing in the world suddenly became the easiest. I walked blissfully into my home and up the stairs, feeling completely relaxed after the traumatic events from the previous day. I slumped down on my bed with my head arched awkwardly up against the silver velvet headboard that sat between my cosy welcoming double bed and blue grey wall that had specs of silver glitter spread over the top. My feet snuck into the heavy winter duvet that laid triumphant over of the bed as my hands covered my face, allowing me to breathe through the scanty cracks between each of my delicate fingers. I peered over the top of my carefully manicured nails at the soothing sunlight that beamed through the double casement windows that sat surely above my window seat. It was in this exact place that I always felt safe and in complete and utter control of everything around me, I could peak over the tips of my soft fingers and forget about all my worries, however on this particular day it was no use, my mind returned to the sickening image of Robin laying in my arms. The terrifying memory sneaked back into my mind unsuspectingly and didn’t give me a chance to prepare. Again, I was faced with the horrific realisation that Robin was hurt and in trouble and there was nothing that I could do for her.
Three taps on the open white oak door that separated me from reality. “Anna, are you okay sweetie? I heard what happened to Robin.” Mum walked cautiously over to my bedside almost like she was expecting me to bite her then placed her arms comfortingly round me. I leaned into her confining my anger and sorrow in her body’s warmth and the kind touch of her motherly palms against my back. Silence filled the room as I simply sat in mum’s embrace and thought only of Robin.
*****
A few weeks had passed, and Robin was out of the hospital and back to the welcoming warmth of her own bed and Mrs Lamarre’s saintly cooking. Mrs Lamarre had finally entrusted me with the information concerning Robin’s tests and time in hospital. She had had many blood tests, an MRI scan, a CT scan, an ultrasound, and some other tests that had way too complicated names for me to remember, let alone spell. None of this mattered to me though, all that mattered was that finally I was allowed to see my best friend after what felt like a lifetime.
“Anna, I just want you to know going in that Robin is completely different now. Okay? She might not look like the best friend that you remember but she is in there still.” Mrs Lamarre was different from how she normally was. Her eyes had bags under them, they were red and irritated along with her physical appearance being somewhat a lot smaller than I remember from a few weeks ago. My heart began to race, if Mrs Lamarre was that out of shape then what would Robin look like? I knew Mrs Lamarre was leaving something out when she said Robin would look different because of the tests, knowing Robin she probably wanted to tell me herself if it was serious. This only made my heart race faster. I turned the door knob slowly and gently pushed the heavy door open.
Peering around it I saw Robin laying on her side turned away from me on her bed. I walked cautiously towards her, I could hear her heavy struggling breathe as I walked closer and closer. BANG! The door abruptly slammed behind me and Robin turned around to face me. The fat had disappeared from her face, leaving only skin and bone and from underneath her duvet came a large tube that was connected to some sort of a breathing assistance machine, I could hear pumping cold air in her deprived lungs. I stopped a metre away from her bedside and simply stared at her deprived body. What had happened to her? Where was the Robin I remembered? Even her luscious one of a kind orange hair had turned a drained blonde shade that withered into a knotted mess and clearly hadn’t been brushed in those weeks spent at hospital. It was at that moment that I saw her hair I decided I could do at least one thing to make her look a bit more like the old Robin. I snapped out of my trance and walked over to her desk, picked up a hairbrush and began brushing the ends of her hair, gradually working my way up to her scalp. She was so tired I could tell she needed to sleep, but she kept attempting to say something, “Anna, I…” I put the hairbrush down next to the bed and looked at her with the open embracing eyes that I did before this tragic illness hit her.
“I know” I said to Robin, smiling at her and taking her hand. She winced and shook her head then taking my hand with hers on top of mine.
“It hurts” I looked at her hands, they were as thin and shrivelled as a weak old corpse. My heart paused as I saw the loss of energy and life in her that I once saw, realising the Robin I once knew was slowly disappearing. I stood up slowly allowing her eyes to close and drift off into an endless dream, then I walked out and easily closed the door behind me. My heart was heavier than ever, and I felt my legs begin to disappear from under me. I knew that whatever illness the doctors came up with it wasn’t one that could be easily cured, maybe not cured at all.
Mr and Mrs Lamarre looked at me like I was a lost puppy. Mrs Lamarre took my arm and showed me to the living room where I took a much-needed seat. I collapsed into the chair with my head heavily in my hands. I wanted so badly to cry but no tears would come. I felt like I was merely waiting, I still didn’t know exactly what was wrong and needed answers. “Robin looks like a dead corpse in there and I need to know what’s going on.” I understand now that my words were harsh and unsympathetic to say the least, but I was hurting and angry that this all started with Robin and I in the park and was evidently going to end a much different way. “Robin has...has..-” Mrs Lamarre was opening her mouth to let merely a squeal out. Her eyes welled with tears and Her shoulder caved in towards each other. Death was clearly calling on Robin and all of us were traumatised by it, but Mr and Mrs Lamarre knew what precisely it was that was giving Robin to death and I knew nothing. I needed answers.
“Tell me god dammit’! Just tell me, I need to know!” I stood up abruptly and slammed my fist on the coffee table shaking the mugs on top. Mrs Lamarre shuffled back into her seat in fear of my loud and quick actions and I thought to myself, ‘yes she should be scared. Robin’s dying and she’s drinking tea? She should be terrified’.
“Calm down Anna, we’ll tell you. It’s just hard, Robin’s our daughter.” Mr Lamarre always was the one in the family who could give you the clear answer you wanted. I’d never seen him upset before and it looked weird on him. He still didn’t look anywhere near as bad as Mrs Lamarre, even with a runny nose and a bloodshot eye. “Robin has been diagnosed with…” he paused for what could be dramatic effect, which was really unhelpful when all I desperately needed to know was what was wrong with my best friend. My heart was racing quicker than it ever had before. Just say it. “PDAC, it stands for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Cancer.” There it was...The C word. The big daunting word that every tiny life on this planet dreads to hear. The word that kills millions of people and destroys the belief of millions more. Cancer. The thing I had been both dreading and needing to hear was ‘cancer’. Robin had cancer.
*****
I received a call from Mrs Lamarre saying Robin had been admitted to the hospital again after only a week of her being out, and that I could go and see her this time. When I visited, Robin had become a mash of bone and skin, there was absolutely no fat on her body whatsoever and the symptoms I had researched online for PDAC didn’t mention dramatic weight loss. “Robin has had extreme vomiting and loss of appetite, resulting in her losing an obscene amount of weight.” Her dad’s words blurred into one and I lost sight of what he was saying. All I knew was that Robin was my best friend and she was sick, really sick. At this point it wasn’t so much the cancer that was hurting her as much as it was her appetite and the issues that were produced from this. Her body’s nutrients levels went down, and her immune system was lowered immensely. I saw how Robin’s life was being drained from her body and I couldn’t handle the sight of it. My best friend, my soulmate was dying in front of me and there was no way I could personally stop it.
“What treatments are Robin undergoing?” I asked with a clearer mind of what was going on.
“She isn’t undergoing any treatments.” Mr Lamarre stared into my eyes with such sorrow and fear I could almost feel him cracking open my skull and peering at the thoughts and feelings buried deep within my mind. If it wasn’t under such terrible and traumatising circumstances his incessant stares would have felt awkward but in this case I had empathy for Mr Lamarre. “Robin’s cancer is so progressed that any treatments would have a very little chance of ever saving her.” There it was. The answer I was looking for in black and white. Robin was going to die. And the Lamarre family weren’t going to do anything to stop it. I felt angry. Helpless. Distraught. I realised there was no point in fighting with them because after all my attempts at getting into the hospital to see Robin in those first few weeks, I realised I had no power at all.
“How long has she got until…” I couldn’t finish my sentence and I’m sure you can understand why. The words formed in my mind, but I couldn’t bring myself to say them, ‘until she dies’.
“Four months, that gives us till March.” A rush of blood. An aching stomach. Tears forming. Collapsing to the ground. I wept for the loss of my best friend. My agony consumed my body. I was paralysed. I knew I hadn’t lost her yet, but, four months? Was that all I got from her? All the belief I had in any god out there disappeared and I was left with a black hole of emptiness that consumed my heart with questions and no answers. Four months. How am I expected to say goodbye in four months?
*****
Month one. Week one. I saw Robin everyday that week. I took her magazines, even though she rarely had enough energy to read them, so I read them to her. I read all about how One Direction had broken up and how Shailene Woodley was passing on the newest divergent movie ‘Ascendant’. I made sure she had everything she needed in the way of comfy pillows and her special tartan blanket that had sheep wool on the inside to keep her warm. I let her hold my hands, as holding hers made her feel pain. I even made her a knitted jumper from all the time I spent at her bedside. I had been excused from school for one week to help Robin. We had some brilliant conversations that lasted a long while. One especially stood out. “Robin, do you remember Lacy Lynn from school?”
“Yes, Anna my pancreas might have cancer, but my brain doesn’t.” I always winced when she said joked like that. I showed her my phone and a picture of Lacy appeared on it with her skirt tucked over her head and she was wearing a bright pink thong underneath it. Robin burst out laughing. I can’t explain how amazing that bubbly joyful noise was to hear. I had been desperate to hear her laugh since the fall and this was the best memory by far that I had of Robin laughing. Her laugh sounded like a bird’s song and felt like the first time you ever watched Top of the Pops; her laugh was truly inspiring. I saw her mum that week too. She looked somewhat improved from the last time I saw her; her eye bags were less, and her eyes were white again as normal.
“Mrs Lamarre” I said to her. “You’re looking better today.”
“Thank you Anna. Robin’s confidence and bravery through this has really helped me realise that although she is unwell she isn’t scared, and if she isn’t I shouldn’t be either.” I admired Mrs Lamarre’s confidence in Robin and her opinion that we shouldn’t be scared, however, I wasn’t going to change my mind. I loved Robin. I would miss her, and I knew I would. I was terrified of what was going to happen once Robin was gone and wasn’t there to help me anymore, and I wasn’t going to hide it.
Month one. Week two. Robin was back in her own room, but her energy levels had worsened quite a bit, she was barely awake and when she was awake her mind wasn’t in the room. There really was no way to glamorise this. Cancer was and is bad, no matter what Hollywood does in their movies to make it appear like it’s easy until the end they can’t change the fact that cancer sucks. Every miserable last drained moment of it for every person involved, sucks. I took Robin her next magazine to read to her that week but got told by Mrs Lamarre that I wasn’t to wake her, I could go into her room but couldn’t talk to her. To make matters worse I had a cold, and with Robin’s lowered immune system a cold was the last thing she needed, and so I wasn’t even allowed to hug her or kiss her or breathe on her in any way really. Which is the worst feeling in the world when you know that every day could be your best friend’s last. I had a trip planned for the following weekend that Robin and I had planned together months before her diagnosis. I didn’t want to go but Robin said she didn’t want me missing out on the finer things in life just because of ‘some girl with cancer’. I may not have liked how she phrased it but how could I disagree with her, even when I argued with her all she said was, “it’s my last wish.” I mean really Robin? What did she think I was going to say to that? What could I say to that? Therefore, this week was my last chance to see Robin before I went away to Disneyland! I felt guilty for being excited in such a terrible and upsetting moment in time. But I suppose Robin hated that people kept referring to her cancer as a ‘terrible and upsetting thing’, she just wanted to move on. Which I know is silly but to Robin it was the only thing to do, she wanted us to move on before she’d gone, to make it less painful when she really was. I walked into her room on the Thursday before I left to say goodbye and to tell her all about what I had planned and that I would create a series of slideshows for her for when I got back. Robin was asleep and so any plans of conversing with her were desecrated, so I sat down next to her bed slowly and calmly took her hand. Her parents were sat at the bottom of her bed looking at her pure body, wrapped in white bed sheets with purple feathers decorating them. I placed her hands-on top of mine and she winced, then falling back into a trance like sleep. I looked at her gentle frail skin and her neatly combed hair that I had placed at either shoulder. Still being sick with a cold I was forbidden by Mr Lamarre to put my face anywhere near hers. I squeezed her hands and she stirred from her sleep. “Anna?”
“Yes, I’m here. I’m here.” I held her hand and rubbed it lightly, comforting her. “Disneyland?” Robin was trying desperately hard to sound like everything was okay, but I could tell she was having difficulty speaking.
“Yes, I’m going.”
“Good” she fell back into her endless sleep and dreamt of peaceful happiness and like dreamers so often do she smiled and nodded as her wishes came true within her magical dreamland.
Two hours past and mum appeared at Robin’s bedroom door. “Sweetie, it’s time to go now.” I stood up and looked at Robin one last time remembering each detail on her face from her delicate freckles to her perfectly long eyelashes. I stepped out of the strangely calm and peaceful room and into the chaotic reality of the world. Walking back home I tried to ignore mum and just think of Robin, she knew it because she asked no questions and left me to my own mind, which was both a burden and a joy. On the one hand I could think of Robin’s laugh and my trip to Disneyland that would bring more joy to Robin in her final days, but on the other I could only think of Robin’s illness and how long she had left. The next morning, I awoke to a glorious sunrise that was so bright it pierced the eyes of its victims with pricks of pins that pierced through curtains and doors. I had to go back to school today as it was Friday and would be leaving for Disneyland once the school bell rang at the end of the day. I was going with mum because I needed a responsible adult with me to go as I was under the age of eighteen. The school day droned on longer and longer with each second that I wasted in that horrible institution. I merely wanted to escape from that prison be in Disneyland. After all the quicker I was there, there quicker it satisfied Robin and the quicker I could be back to see her.
“Hey Anna, where’s Robin? I heard she was on holiday.” Lacey asked. Questions like these got given to me every day like I was a questionnaire leaflet or something and like I had all the answers. Yes, I was Robin’s friend but why was it everybody else’s business where she was? Was she their friend? No, she wasn’t, she wasn’t Lacey’s friend, and neither was I. “Lacey just bog off, it’s none of your business.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say” Lacey was a patronising girl and one of the ‘populars’ too, which unfortunately meant that she thought she could do whatever she wanted without any consequences.
“Yeah well, you’re not very nice, and Robin is so I’d rather she didn’t get tainted by your snide comments and all-round cruelty. Thanks.” I walked away and decided that was all I could take for one day, so I walked into the toilets, hid away in one of the stalls and stayed there until that horrible disaster of a day was over.
Month one. Week three. I was back from Disneyland and ready to tell Robin all about what had happened. I ran to her house as soon as I got back on Sunday night at eleven o’clock in the evening. My heart was brimming with excitement and my cold was gone which meant that I could finally hug her and tell her how much she meant to me, and all that soppy best friend stuff that we used to do together before this nuisance of a cold came along. I grabbed the door handle, twisting is quickly and attempted to force the door open with my weight, slipping and falling into the door instead. Strange. The door was never locked, the Lamarres always kept it open for me to come in. I knocked on the door for at least two minutes, but no one answered. A pit formed in my stomach and I felt sick, like I did when Robin fell. A strange knowledge formed in my brain, I knew something was wrong. I paced up and down the driveway, waiting for the Lamarre family to return, with Robin. I paced for ten minutes and then sat down on the curb to save my swollen feet from peeling away from my legs. I waited on the curb for an hour before the Lamarres finally showed up at the house with another car behind them, but Robin wasn’t in either. I recognised the people in the other car, they were Robin’s cousins. I knew something was wrong. “Mrs Lamarre where’s Robin?” tears started forming in my eyes as I walked towards her gripping my arms in torment. Mrs Lamarre simply rushed towards the house, avoiding eye contact with me whilst tears escaped her tightly clenched eyes. Mr Lamarre walked towards me and hugged me, which quite frankly was a weird experience by itself because I’d never seen Mr Lamarre hug anyone except his mother, wife and daughter. I began to cry without control. I knew what had happened before anyone need said it.
“Rob...Robin, died last night.” Mr Lamarre released me from his embrace and sorrowfully walked into the house, dragging his feet, following the others. I was left alone on the curb once again, but with my whole life had turned upside down. When before I was an excited girl back to tell her friend about her exhilarating journey I was now an empty body, with a hole in my heart and with nobody to talk to.
“They said four months.” I muttered to myself.
*****
The following weeks were unsurprisingly hard, not only because Mrs Lamarre had been giving me items of Robin’s clothing and asking me if I wanted them, but also because mum consistently without fail asked me about how I was ‘feeling’. I was done with ‘feeling’. I was done with questions. I was done with life. I just wanted Robin back. Since she’d...gone I had no one to confide in, no one to talk to, no one to hug when I was upset. I had no one. The extremely irritating thing that mum would say to that was ‘you have me’. Well I didn’t want her, I wanted Robin and there was no one and no thing that could fix that. The week leading to her funeral I was more distraught than I had ever been, I was binge eating, I wasn’t showering, and I wasn’t talking. I knew Robin wouldn’t like it, but it served her right for ‘abandoning’ me on this god forsaken earth.
I was asked by her parents to do a reading at the funeral. At first, I thought ‘no’ then after a week I came to the decision I would. Not for her, not for Mr and Mrs Lamarre, not for anyone, for me. Mum signed me up to see a shrink, because the way I was living was ‘unhealthy’. I’d call it a process. My first appointment with this ‘shrink’ was for the day before Robin’s funeral. Apparently, mum wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have a ‘mental breakdown’ during my reading and ruin everyone’s day. I didn’t want to spoil it for her, but it was a funeral...everyone’s day would already be ruined, I was hardly expecting to see anyone dancing there like it was a rave, although Robin would’ve liked that and found it amusing, maybe I should have added it to my reading.
The day before Robin’s funeral I turned up to my appointment at the shrink’s office. Her office was stained with the scent of smoke that had been badly concealed by a Madagascan vanilla fragrance. There were three canvases of aesthetically pleasing flowers lined next to each other above a large dark oak desk that sat parallel to a strangely large leather armchair. In front of the desk was the classic leather couch presumed to be in a shrink’s office and another armchair for the shrink. I decided that because she wasn’t there I didn’t have to be either, so I walked towards the door ready to leg it out. “Ah you’re here.” I heard a feminine voice project from behind me. I raised my eyebrows and swivelled around, forcing a smile. “I don’t know what you know about me Ms Higbee, but I don’t appreciate liars, that smile is a lie.” I didn’t think that a shrink would be so forward, the plain irritation was expected, but for her to call me a liar was just rude.
“I’m not a liar!” I was outraged by her accusation and decided I wouldn’t stand for it. “I’m leaving.”
“Yes, I suppose you could, but then you’d never know if you could have been happy again.” the shrink said.
“I’m not happy, nor will I ever be happy. So forget that fantasy that you and my mother have.” I was fed up with everyone telling me I could be ‘happy’ again.
“Why don’t you have a seat and tell me about how unhappy you feel instead?” I found her forward personality slightly cocky and a bit annoying, but I also admired it and thought she was brave for confronting a depressed crazy girl. We spoke for an hour about my friendship with
Robin and the bond that we had created over our time together through our childhood. I spoke of Robin like a sister and the shrink said that sister-like description showed I was trying to connect myself to Robin and her family through language linking to family. By calling Robin my sister I was linking myself to her family. I wasn’t feeling one hundred percent after this meeting, hell I wasn’t even feeling fifty percent, but I was feeling slightly sane. I was ready to talk at Robin’s funeral the next day.
The next day I tuned up to the Mrs and Mr Lamarre’s house in the pink dress that Robin made me buy for her funeral the week she was brought home from the hospital. I hated that day because Robin wouldn’t let go of the fact that she was going to die, it was all I heard. She then told me she wasn’t going to have me show up to her funeral in some kind of depressing black dress. She searched for an hour online for the ‘perfect’ outfit, when I’m pretty sure there wasn’t for a funeral but clearly Robin had an image in her mind of what she wanted her funeral to be like. She picked me a baby pink dress that had long sleeves and a frilly turtle neckline, the dress went down to my knees and came in around the torso. It was the opposite of what I expected for a funeral but completely what I expected from Robin. She was a fun, party animal who wouldn’t have wanted her funeral to be black and depressing, she would have wanted it to be fun and outrageous. There was no denying that I felt completely out of place in a sea of black, but I could feel Robin next to me whispering in my ear about how rocking I looked and for the first time in weeks I felt at peace. I wore a pair of baby pink high heels that I had worn to a club in Rayleigh, Essex that we had both been to together with our fake IDs. I was Penelope Crauel and Robin was Beatrice Watkins.
I had my hair respectably pinned back at the front and very minimal makeup with only a bit of blush and mascara, as I knew I would cry. Mrs Lamarre had spotted me in the sea of mourning very easily in my pink outfit and waved at me, signalling to come over. “Robin would have loved this” Mrs Lamarre rested her hand on my shoulder and embraced me in a thoughtful hug.
“I’m doing this for myself as well as Robin, I hope you know that. It’s important.” I wanted Mrs Lamarre to know that the funeral was important to me too, and it wasn’t just about celebrating Robin’s life, it was about telling her how I felt.
“Yes, I understand that Anna. I’m very proud of you.” Mrs Lamarre embraced me for the last time and let a few tears rest in my dress as they fell from her face, that was concealed by a black veil. She wiped away her tears with a tissue, held by her left hand laced in a black glove, “the hearse is going to be here in ten so get ready sweets.” She walked off and I didn’t speak to her again until we got to the church. The hearse turned up and we all gathered outside to walk behind it, Mr Lamarre decided on walking instead of driving behind the hearse because it was a short walk and driving would have been a waste of parking and cars, also Robin was a stickler for tradition, she would have loved all the bother in walking and not driving. The walk felt like a lifetime, every time we turned a corner I could see her coffin that held her saintly pure body inside. I could imagine her cold pale corpse that lay lifeless inside the coffin and I desperately fought off the need to weep. Every time I thought I was passed the worst we turned another corner and I saw her again. ‘Please be an open coffin’ I thought to myself. I know it’s a strange thought, but I wanted the chance to say goodbye, after all I had my stupid cold that had prevented me from kissing her before. I am aware people look completely different once they’re dead, but it was Robin. I needed to see her, besides she was being cremated which didn’t leave the opportunity to see her grave later in the future. The time that I could confide in her was over, I couldn’t even visit her grave in death. The congregation was beautiful and just what Robin would have wanted. Many people stopped along the way to take their hats off and look down as a show of respect for Robin which only added to the beauty of our movement as a group who had come together to respect and honour Robin. When we finally reached the crematorium, the congregation stopped, and we lifted Robin up the aisle to the front where she was put on a podium. We sang a few hymns and listened to some readings from the priest taking the service. During one of the hymns ‘how deep thy father’s love for us’ was playing the curtain around Robin closed and when I looked up at the end they were open, but she was gone.
Third row. Last seat on the left. I sat. I wept. For my best friend, who disappeared in front of my very eyes. Like a star in the sky she went as quickly as she came. My eyes filled with tears and my lips began to quiver, the tears began to roll off my cheeks like boulders and onto the tissue my brother Freddy had so kindly offered me.
The end of the crematorium precession came and the most unlikely of people had dry eyes. Mrs Lamarre had remained the entire funeral without a single tear. Did she not care? Of course, she cared, I mean, Robin was her daughter. I just couldn’t come to understand why she wasn’t crying. We reached the Lamarre’s Methodist church that they attended every Sunday, which made it the perfect place to hold the public funeral for Robin. It was a very plain building, with white walls and a wooden cross on top of it. I suppose the severe whiteness of it was supposed to represent purity or something like that. There were great glass doors with long steel bars as handles. Once I walked inside there was a waiting room before the church itself. It was a rectangular shaped room with white walls and a great glass window that peered into the church, along with two glass doors on either side of the room, looking welcoming at the church. I walked through the glass doors, which I have to admit felt quite overwhelming. There must have been at least two hundred people there. Two hundred people who Robin’s soul had touched enough for them to want to say goodbye. They were of all sorts of ages ranging from teenage like Robin and I to twenty-year olds, thirty-year olds and some ninety-year olds. Each person had a different and unique story to tell about Robin. I felt truly honoured that she had chosen our story to tell all these people. I walked through the door on the left and down the aisle. All eyes were gazing upon Robin’s parents which I feel dreadfully guilty to say I was pleased about because that meant they weren’t staring at me. I took my seat in the second row of chair next to mum and my brother, Freddy. I had never felt happier to have Freddy next to me than I did at this moment. His lusciously thick, long, brown, curly hair emanated out from his scalp and almost took up a seat by itself. His strong, supportive arm cradled me when I cried, and his hand supported me with a tissue to catch my tears. His crazy eyebrows performed a dance when I needed a laugh, and his loving eyes told me I was loved even at the worst times. He supported me at the worst moment of my life and I will forever be indebted to him. After all, even he too had a story with Robin and was there for himself just as much as he was for me.
We sat and listened to the numerous readings that took place before I was called to read mine. Mrs Lamarre had given me a few suggestions as to readings that could be read out, but I knew that Robin wanted me to do this for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to memorise some reading from a story book like the bible. I had prepared a written reading, but suddenly it all seemed useless and pointless to ‘prepare’ something that should be said from the heart.
When Mr Lamarre had finished his reading, I walked up to the podium shaking, barely able to stand, reciting in my head ‘left leg, right leg, left leg, right leg-‘I got to the podium and was thankful it was sturdy enough to support me, as I leant against it to steady myself. Even though I was going to speak from the heart I had decided to take my original plan up with me to make sure I kept on track and didn’t go off on a rant, however it turned out this piece of paper was useless because the nervous sweat from my head along with my endless tears from my sobbing eyes dropped onto the page and blurred the words. I just had to wing it.
“I don’t really know where to start.” I spoke clearly into the microphone, but fumbled around with my paper carelessly, almost knocking the microphone out of the stand. “Sorry.” I put my hands up apologetically at the tech guy and continued. “My name’s Anna and Robin was my best friend.” As soon as I said the word ‘was’ I relaxed completely and suddenly became unstoppable. “Huh, do you know that was the first time I’ve said ‘was’ about Robin, because of course, I used to be able to say ‘is’.” Silence. “Sorry, that sounded a bit morbid. Robin wouldn’t appreciate me being the cause of a morbid funeral, God forbid someone cry at Robin’s funeral. She’s probably saying right now ‘turn on the music, have a party’.” A few muffled laughs around the room. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’m wearing a baby pink dress at a funeral. Robin picked this. She wanted me to have a piece of light on a very dark day, at first, I thought ‘what is she going on about?’ But now I think I finally get it. In Robin’s opinion she wanted me to be the same light, fun person I was before she had to leave us all, and this dress was a way of making sure I was. Of course, I’m not laughing and throwing raves, but you have to admit it is difficult not to smile when you see a dress this light in a sea of darkness. “Robin was the most funny, beautiful and radiant woman I knew. Every day she had a different sun hat on, from a baseball cap to a giant ‘breakfast at Tiffany’s’ style hat. She brightened up my morning every day, I relied on her to fix my battles and support me when I got hurt. She was the sister I never had. “We had made plans to go to Disneyland the before she got diagnosed, of course once the doctors discovered the cancer she couldn’t go, but she forced me out of my comfort zone and practically pushed me out of the door and onto the plane to Paris. The whole trip I kept thinking, what if something happens? Why do I feel happy without Robin? What’s Robin doing right now? Everything that I did there reminded me of Robin and strangely it was because of that that I knew I had to stay there until it was the very second, we had planned to leave, I did everything to the complete extent of what Robin would do. Little did I know Robin died while I was there. She knew how to make someone feel guilty. “When I saw Robin the day before I left for Disneyland I had a cold and couldn’t kiss her goodbye nor could I hug her or even breathe on her. These last weeks have been torture because I have been obsessing over the last word I said to her, and the fact I could kiss her goodbye and that my last words weren’t, ‘I love you’ because she was asleep and wouldn’t have heard me. I blamed myself, I blamed Mr and Mrs Lamarre because they wouldn’t let me hug her or kiss her in case she caught my cold, I even blamed Robin for leaving before me. See, Robin and I had an agreement: Ya’aburnee. It’s an Arabic word that means I was going to die before Robin because I couldn’t bear to live without her, we even shook on it and signed contracts.” I held up a piece of paper with two signatures and some writing on it that said I was going to die before Robin and if she violated it she would have to go to hell for a week. “I will be suing her once I see her up there” a few laughs dotted the church. “The thing is though I think I finally understand what Ya’aburnee means, see the literal translation is ‘you bury me’. When I heard she had died I truly felt like I couldn’t go on living anymore, then I realised this morning, when we were saying goodbye to her and the curtains around her coffin closed, that Ya’aburnee actually means ‘when you die I die, and a new and stronger me is born’. Robin made me stronger and her strength will carry on through me where is wasn’t able to in her. If you’re listening Robin I love you and I let you go. “I understand that’s a pretty dark thing to end on so I’m gonna tell you about the time that Robin and I snuck into the headmistress’ office and...“
The story about Robin and I went on for another five minutes and the room became an ensemble of laughter and joy, just the way Robin would have wanted it. Everyone retired to the back room where there were tables set up with food and cakes on them, it was extremely cramped and there was less room to move around that there is in the London tube at rush hour. I had a few people who came up to me and complimented me on my reading. After the funeral I felt a sudden surge of relief pump through my body. Finally, I was able to begin my recovery to a normal life again and find my way through the world without Robin. When talking about her in my reading I realised that when we made our agreement of Ya’aburnee we were both so innocent and pure, a lot has happened since then and now. Ya’aburnee had a completely different meaning. I had to let Robin go when I buried her and begin my new life. More importantly, I wanted to. I was finished with all of the goodbyes and the helpless feeling that dug into my heart when I found out there was nothing I could do for Robin.
That day I decided I was going to make a difference in the world. I began studying and studying and studying until finally I became a doctor specialising in Pancreatic cancer at the age of 27. I met an honourable and handsome man named Patrick; he was the first patient I saved and now my husband. I even have my own charity where I speak to young people about making sure they’re aware of their bodies and what goes on inside of them, and I am proud to say that all the success in my life is thanks to my best friend. Robin.
With the most uniquely bright orange hair and eyes that aren’t just one specific color but start brown in the centre and then turn to a wondering bluish green color on the outside, there couldn’t possibly be anything dull about Robin’s appearance. “Hey!” Robin bursts into the room, taking a seat opposite me, infusing her joy around Anonymous Cafe. She places one of her trademark sun hats (of which every day she has a different one) on the table. When she sits down her long, grey, Primark jumper reaches down to rest next to her white and black adidas trainers, which are quite possibly the only things Robin owns that isn’t from Primark. Her jeans are stained at the knees from where she slid across the floor in a game of ‘kick the can’ a few days earlier and her floral top, that had been a Christmas gift from her mum a few years ago is tied in a knot at the front to become a crop top. “Ugh! Seriously? You’re still going with black coffee? That stuff will kill you y’know.” Robin says with her long glossy orange locks washing over her shoulders like the soothing waves of the ocean.
“At least I’ll die knowing I consumed my usual black coffee without fail, every day.” I smile at Robin and take a sip of my coffee.
“So, what have you got today?” she asks, knowing the answer already because she has memorised my timetable. “English, Science, Maths, Spanish and R.E.” I release a sigh big enough to blow down Ashdown Forest.
“Ah, man that’s a shame...I’ve got sports studies all day,” Robin mocks me, smiling, raising her eyebrows, releasing a small laugh and taking a sip of her pumpkin spice latte that arrived at our table sometime during our conversation, but I hadn’t noticed because I had been utterly fixated on her outfit.
“You’re just lucky that you were born three months before me, otherwise you would be in Year Eleven enduring the same torture that I do.”
“Oh, come on! Secondary school isn’t that bad” Robin says.
“You’re only saying that because you don’t go there anymore and anyway I’m not like you. I don’t have millions of friends, or the body of a supermodel.”
“Hey, I do not have the body of a supermodel!”
“You so do! All I’m trying to say is that if you don’t have a flat stomach and no boobs then you aren’t worth it in secondary school and you’re known as that fat girl.” I say fiddling with the wrapper on my coffee cup. Robin grabs my hand and looks me in the eyes.
“You are not fat, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” I can feel the tenderness and truth in her voice, but it doesn’t matter how much she believes it, it doesn’t stop others from thinking the opposite.
“Yeah, well let’s get going yeah? I’ve got ‘maths’ to get to” I shut my laptop, stand up and walk towards the exit.
Everything begins to disappear and before I know it I’m left alone in Anonymous Cafe with nothing but whiteness around me, a blinding white light that engulfs my entire surroundings.
*****
Robin has always been like a big sister to me; beautiful, strong, confident and above all kind. She’s the kindest person I know. I’ve never once heard her complain about anything from having to babysit her little sister for free to doing the dishes. She’s effortlessly beautiful, never taking more than ten minutes to put on makeup in the morning and simply brushing her gorgeous locks so they fall elegantly alongside her shoulders. Not to mention her summer-ready bod takes no more than a box of pizza and a tub of cookie dough Ben and Jerry’s to keep in shape. She says she isn’t strong or confident, but I happen to know for a fact that she is the strongest hearted woman around and no one is more good-willed or head-strong as Robin.
I remember this one time where we were shopping in Brighton and this guy flew past like a bullet and grabbed my bag with my wallet and phone in. Without thinking Robin dropped her things and chased straight after him and around the corner out of sight. I sat silently for a few minutes worrying that something had happened to her, until she returned with my bag and an extra £20.
Robin is... sorry, was, the most important person in my life and without her I am empty inside.
*****
This story began on a cold November day. Robin and I were walking in Richmond Park on the way home. The trees were vibrant with bright red and orange leaves dancing from their branches as the foul winter drew closer and autumn began to disappear. I spotted a colossal pile of leaves that were too tempting not to jump in. I decided to play the game that Robin and I had invented. You stand at the edge of the pile of leaves while your partner stands on the other side, you count to ten and then crouch down like a chicken, with your arms bent out at your sides like wings, and you push each other until one of you wins. When you win you get to kick the leaves all over the loser. Robin and I came up with this game after we took up rugby together in secondary school and because of our age difference the only thing we could do together was one on one scrum practice using the ‘tower of power’.
I excitedly ran towards the edge of the pile of leaves, shivering because of the cold however brilliantly excited to play the game that I had been waiting all year for. Robin wasn’t on the other side of the pile, so I turned around. “Come on Robin!” I shouted down the path and turned back around, not realising Robin’s fatigue. She eventually caught up to me and stood on the other side of the pile looking quite pale and weary. “Robin...are you okay?” I was worried because Robin was hardly ever sick, in fact I don’t think she ever had a single day off school.
“Yes, I’m fine. I must’ve just eaten something funny earlier.” I trusted Robin because she wasn’t in the habit of lying to me, but there definitely was something going on because I had been with her all day and she hadn’t eaten anything. I thought that some fun might cheer her up and make her feel a little better, so I bent down like a chicken counting to ten. She gently drooped down and held out her arms. I held her jacket sleeves and pushed her backwards. She didn’t push back. She fell. Collapsed. My heart started racing. Faster. Faster. I didn’t know what to do.
“Robin? Robin?” I knelt next to her. I lifted her head onto my lap. She wouldn’t wake up. I lost all control of my mind and the situation at hand. I finally understood the meaning of an out of body experience. I froze. Staring at her. Her motionless body.
“Are you okay?” A hand fell heavy on my shoulder. My brain switched on and I was back in my own body. I could think again, and I felt terrible. I knew this wasn’t about me and I needed to get Robin to a safe place, preferably a hospital.
“I am but my friend just collapsed, she needs an ambulance.” My heart rate calmed down as I heard the buttons on the stranger’s phone press those three comforting numbers. 999. “You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.” I held Robin’s head in my arms and hugged her tighter than I thought possible. I had experienced the most threatening and frightening moment of my life, I thought nothing could be worse than how I was feeling at that moment, knowing that my best friend wasn’t safe or in control of her own body. Knowing that I had frozen and was incapable of being any true help to her in her time of need was soul crushing. I couldn’t even press three stupid numbers. A screeching siren beamed through my auditory nerve and into the auditory cortexes in my brain, allowing me to process how real this was. The vociferous siren got louder and louder until it was so ear-piercing that it turned into a single-note beep in the back of my brain.
Two men and a woman dressed in dark green uniforms and bright yellow high vis jackets crowded around Robin and me. The woman put her arms around my shoulders as the two men ripped Robin from my grasp and forced her paralyzed body into the ambulance bed. In what felt like a matter of minutes I was sat in the back of the ambulance van alongside her not having a clue how I got there or when I got up from the floor. I couldn’t make out a single word nor letter coming from the mouths of anyone in that ambulance, only muffled sounds like a constant buzzing advancing from a bee.
Sometime during those strenuous hours in the hospital Robin’s parents arrived and were asking a lot of questions. Everything else was a blur until the next morning when I awoke to a rambunctious horn blasting uncontrollably out of a ginormous monster truck. I slowly perched up and hunched over my knees as I re-adjusted my eyes to the light bouncing off the white walls of the hospital after my awful night’s sleep. I was confused. I thought about why I was sleeping on a bench in front of the hospital in the first place. I realised the previous exasperating events were reality and I hadn’t awoken from a horrible nightmare. I suddenly jerked up and rapidly paced through the heavy electric doors of the hospital and over to the front desk to check up on Robin.
“Hello. I arrived with Robin Lamarre. Is she allowed visitors yet?” I could hardly get the words out of my dry aching throat.
“Anna. We lost you last night.” Robin’s mum, Mrs Lamarre, walked up behind me and patted me on the shoulder embracing me in a hug.
“Mrs Lamarre, hi. How’s Robin? Can I see her? Is she awake? Has she said anything? sorry I’m asking too many questions, aren’t I?” Mrs Lamarre stared at me with wide eyes and a forced smile on her face. I was overrun with questions and very low on answers, as I’m sure Mrs and Mr Lamarre were too.
“Robin’s...well...we don’t know at the moment. But the doctors have said not to worry until there is something to worry about. So, we’re staying positive. I’m afraid you can’t go and see her yet but maybe tomorrow when she’s feeling better and more active.”
Mrs Lamarre forced another smile and patted me on the shoulder before returning to Mr Lamarre who was aggressively discussing something with someone on the phone, like he did many days. Today was different. Mr Lamarre seemed more aggressive or upset, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I knew there was something that Mrs Lamarre wouldn’t tell me, I also knew that I simply had to wait to find out what it was when the Lamarre family were ready to tell me. After all, as much as I wanted to be, I wasn’t related to Robin and therefore I didn’t have the right to demand such information.
*****
It was a long and monotonous walk home that morning; without Robin there to entertain and support me I was left alone to contemplate and obsess over that previous afternoon and what went wrong, whether I could have helped Robin in any way at all. The moment she fell repeated over and over in my mind on that tiresome journey home, although that wasn’t the most frequent moment playing in my mind, no, that spot was reserved for my reaction to her fall. Why did I freeze? How did I not realise there was something wrong before? What could I have done differently? And most importantly…What was going to come from Robin’s fall? I blamed myself for not reacting quick enough to Robin’s fall and, although the nurse at the hospital said it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t help feeling that it was. Every single step that I took on my way home was carefully calculated to make sure the precise actions were taken to make each step absolutely perfect. By obsessing over the minute detail in each of my steps I was focused in the present and had no space in my brain for it to wander off back to Robin. I thought about the way the tips of my shoes were scuffed from the harshness of the loose rigid stones that erupted from the pavements like boulders from a volcano. I thought about the way my legs bent like the hands of a clock joint by the knee. I even thought about the invisible marks that my footsteps left on the pavement as I took each step, like the scent left behind after a hot meal. Eventually, however hard I tried to stop it, my mind continued to aimlessly wander back to Robin and what her mother was hiding from me.
I reached the decrepit yet venerable patchy white door that stood firmly, supporting my welcoming home. Turning the handle I prepared myself for what would follow; the endless hugs, the incessant questions about how Robin was doing, how I was doing, mum’s tears, my tears. I knew exactly what was going to follow because it was mum’s philosophy ‘anything can be fixed with a hug, conversation and tears’. Although I sometimes thought a hug was a good idea that was the last thing I was craving; I merely wanted to be left to my own thoughts. The antique door aggressively swung open, crashing on the adjacent wall like thunder in a storm; alerting the household that I was home as the door bounced endlessly off the wall. As my right foot heavily pressed onto the wooden floorboard of the effortlessly elegant entrance hall of my home, I felt a tremendous weight lift off me. What I thought was going to be the hardest thing in the world suddenly became the easiest. I walked blissfully into my home and up the stairs, feeling completely relaxed after the traumatic events from the previous day. I slumped down on my bed with my head arched awkwardly up against the silver velvet headboard that sat between my cosy welcoming double bed and blue grey wall that had specs of silver glitter spread over the top. My feet snuck into the heavy winter duvet that laid triumphant over of the bed as my hands covered my face, allowing me to breathe through the scanty cracks between each of my delicate fingers. I peered over the top of my carefully manicured nails at the soothing sunlight that beamed through the double casement windows that sat surely above my window seat. It was in this exact place that I always felt safe and in complete and utter control of everything around me, I could peak over the tips of my soft fingers and forget about all my worries, however on this particular day it was no use, my mind returned to the sickening image of Robin laying in my arms. The terrifying memory sneaked back into my mind unsuspectingly and didn’t give me a chance to prepare. Again, I was faced with the horrific realisation that Robin was hurt and in trouble and there was nothing that I could do for her.
Three taps on the open white oak door that separated me from reality. “Anna, are you okay sweetie? I heard what happened to Robin.” Mum walked cautiously over to my bedside almost like she was expecting me to bite her then placed her arms comfortingly round me. I leaned into her confining my anger and sorrow in her body’s warmth and the kind touch of her motherly palms against my back. Silence filled the room as I simply sat in mum’s embrace and thought only of Robin.
*****
A few weeks had passed, and Robin was out of the hospital and back to the welcoming warmth of her own bed and Mrs Lamarre’s saintly cooking. Mrs Lamarre had finally entrusted me with the information concerning Robin’s tests and time in hospital. She had had many blood tests, an MRI scan, a CT scan, an ultrasound, and some other tests that had way too complicated names for me to remember, let alone spell. None of this mattered to me though, all that mattered was that finally I was allowed to see my best friend after what felt like a lifetime.
“Anna, I just want you to know going in that Robin is completely different now. Okay? She might not look like the best friend that you remember but she is in there still.” Mrs Lamarre was different from how she normally was. Her eyes had bags under them, they were red and irritated along with her physical appearance being somewhat a lot smaller than I remember from a few weeks ago. My heart began to race, if Mrs Lamarre was that out of shape then what would Robin look like? I knew Mrs Lamarre was leaving something out when she said Robin would look different because of the tests, knowing Robin she probably wanted to tell me herself if it was serious. This only made my heart race faster. I turned the door knob slowly and gently pushed the heavy door open.
Peering around it I saw Robin laying on her side turned away from me on her bed. I walked cautiously towards her, I could hear her heavy struggling breathe as I walked closer and closer. BANG! The door abruptly slammed behind me and Robin turned around to face me. The fat had disappeared from her face, leaving only skin and bone and from underneath her duvet came a large tube that was connected to some sort of a breathing assistance machine, I could hear pumping cold air in her deprived lungs. I stopped a metre away from her bedside and simply stared at her deprived body. What had happened to her? Where was the Robin I remembered? Even her luscious one of a kind orange hair had turned a drained blonde shade that withered into a knotted mess and clearly hadn’t been brushed in those weeks spent at hospital. It was at that moment that I saw her hair I decided I could do at least one thing to make her look a bit more like the old Robin. I snapped out of my trance and walked over to her desk, picked up a hairbrush and began brushing the ends of her hair, gradually working my way up to her scalp. She was so tired I could tell she needed to sleep, but she kept attempting to say something, “Anna, I…” I put the hairbrush down next to the bed and looked at her with the open embracing eyes that I did before this tragic illness hit her.
“I know” I said to Robin, smiling at her and taking her hand. She winced and shook her head then taking my hand with hers on top of mine.
“It hurts” I looked at her hands, they were as thin and shrivelled as a weak old corpse. My heart paused as I saw the loss of energy and life in her that I once saw, realising the Robin I once knew was slowly disappearing. I stood up slowly allowing her eyes to close and drift off into an endless dream, then I walked out and easily closed the door behind me. My heart was heavier than ever, and I felt my legs begin to disappear from under me. I knew that whatever illness the doctors came up with it wasn’t one that could be easily cured, maybe not cured at all.
Mr and Mrs Lamarre looked at me like I was a lost puppy. Mrs Lamarre took my arm and showed me to the living room where I took a much-needed seat. I collapsed into the chair with my head heavily in my hands. I wanted so badly to cry but no tears would come. I felt like I was merely waiting, I still didn’t know exactly what was wrong and needed answers. “Robin looks like a dead corpse in there and I need to know what’s going on.” I understand now that my words were harsh and unsympathetic to say the least, but I was hurting and angry that this all started with Robin and I in the park and was evidently going to end a much different way. “Robin has...has..-” Mrs Lamarre was opening her mouth to let merely a squeal out. Her eyes welled with tears and Her shoulder caved in towards each other. Death was clearly calling on Robin and all of us were traumatised by it, but Mr and Mrs Lamarre knew what precisely it was that was giving Robin to death and I knew nothing. I needed answers.
“Tell me god dammit’! Just tell me, I need to know!” I stood up abruptly and slammed my fist on the coffee table shaking the mugs on top. Mrs Lamarre shuffled back into her seat in fear of my loud and quick actions and I thought to myself, ‘yes she should be scared. Robin’s dying and she’s drinking tea? She should be terrified’.
“Calm down Anna, we’ll tell you. It’s just hard, Robin’s our daughter.” Mr Lamarre always was the one in the family who could give you the clear answer you wanted. I’d never seen him upset before and it looked weird on him. He still didn’t look anywhere near as bad as Mrs Lamarre, even with a runny nose and a bloodshot eye. “Robin has been diagnosed with…” he paused for what could be dramatic effect, which was really unhelpful when all I desperately needed to know was what was wrong with my best friend. My heart was racing quicker than it ever had before. Just say it. “PDAC, it stands for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Cancer.” There it was...The C word. The big daunting word that every tiny life on this planet dreads to hear. The word that kills millions of people and destroys the belief of millions more. Cancer. The thing I had been both dreading and needing to hear was ‘cancer’. Robin had cancer.
*****
I received a call from Mrs Lamarre saying Robin had been admitted to the hospital again after only a week of her being out, and that I could go and see her this time. When I visited, Robin had become a mash of bone and skin, there was absolutely no fat on her body whatsoever and the symptoms I had researched online for PDAC didn’t mention dramatic weight loss. “Robin has had extreme vomiting and loss of appetite, resulting in her losing an obscene amount of weight.” Her dad’s words blurred into one and I lost sight of what he was saying. All I knew was that Robin was my best friend and she was sick, really sick. At this point it wasn’t so much the cancer that was hurting her as much as it was her appetite and the issues that were produced from this. Her body’s nutrients levels went down, and her immune system was lowered immensely. I saw how Robin’s life was being drained from her body and I couldn’t handle the sight of it. My best friend, my soulmate was dying in front of me and there was no way I could personally stop it.
“What treatments are Robin undergoing?” I asked with a clearer mind of what was going on.
“She isn’t undergoing any treatments.” Mr Lamarre stared into my eyes with such sorrow and fear I could almost feel him cracking open my skull and peering at the thoughts and feelings buried deep within my mind. If it wasn’t under such terrible and traumatising circumstances his incessant stares would have felt awkward but in this case I had empathy for Mr Lamarre. “Robin’s cancer is so progressed that any treatments would have a very little chance of ever saving her.” There it was. The answer I was looking for in black and white. Robin was going to die. And the Lamarre family weren’t going to do anything to stop it. I felt angry. Helpless. Distraught. I realised there was no point in fighting with them because after all my attempts at getting into the hospital to see Robin in those first few weeks, I realised I had no power at all.
“How long has she got until…” I couldn’t finish my sentence and I’m sure you can understand why. The words formed in my mind, but I couldn’t bring myself to say them, ‘until she dies’.
“Four months, that gives us till March.” A rush of blood. An aching stomach. Tears forming. Collapsing to the ground. I wept for the loss of my best friend. My agony consumed my body. I was paralysed. I knew I hadn’t lost her yet, but, four months? Was that all I got from her? All the belief I had in any god out there disappeared and I was left with a black hole of emptiness that consumed my heart with questions and no answers. Four months. How am I expected to say goodbye in four months?
*****
Month one. Week one. I saw Robin everyday that week. I took her magazines, even though she rarely had enough energy to read them, so I read them to her. I read all about how One Direction had broken up and how Shailene Woodley was passing on the newest divergent movie ‘Ascendant’. I made sure she had everything she needed in the way of comfy pillows and her special tartan blanket that had sheep wool on the inside to keep her warm. I let her hold my hands, as holding hers made her feel pain. I even made her a knitted jumper from all the time I spent at her bedside. I had been excused from school for one week to help Robin. We had some brilliant conversations that lasted a long while. One especially stood out. “Robin, do you remember Lacy Lynn from school?”
“Yes, Anna my pancreas might have cancer, but my brain doesn’t.” I always winced when she said joked like that. I showed her my phone and a picture of Lacy appeared on it with her skirt tucked over her head and she was wearing a bright pink thong underneath it. Robin burst out laughing. I can’t explain how amazing that bubbly joyful noise was to hear. I had been desperate to hear her laugh since the fall and this was the best memory by far that I had of Robin laughing. Her laugh sounded like a bird’s song and felt like the first time you ever watched Top of the Pops; her laugh was truly inspiring. I saw her mum that week too. She looked somewhat improved from the last time I saw her; her eye bags were less, and her eyes were white again as normal.
“Mrs Lamarre” I said to her. “You’re looking better today.”
“Thank you Anna. Robin’s confidence and bravery through this has really helped me realise that although she is unwell she isn’t scared, and if she isn’t I shouldn’t be either.” I admired Mrs Lamarre’s confidence in Robin and her opinion that we shouldn’t be scared, however, I wasn’t going to change my mind. I loved Robin. I would miss her, and I knew I would. I was terrified of what was going to happen once Robin was gone and wasn’t there to help me anymore, and I wasn’t going to hide it.
Month one. Week two. Robin was back in her own room, but her energy levels had worsened quite a bit, she was barely awake and when she was awake her mind wasn’t in the room. There really was no way to glamorise this. Cancer was and is bad, no matter what Hollywood does in their movies to make it appear like it’s easy until the end they can’t change the fact that cancer sucks. Every miserable last drained moment of it for every person involved, sucks. I took Robin her next magazine to read to her that week but got told by Mrs Lamarre that I wasn’t to wake her, I could go into her room but couldn’t talk to her. To make matters worse I had a cold, and with Robin’s lowered immune system a cold was the last thing she needed, and so I wasn’t even allowed to hug her or kiss her or breathe on her in any way really. Which is the worst feeling in the world when you know that every day could be your best friend’s last. I had a trip planned for the following weekend that Robin and I had planned together months before her diagnosis. I didn’t want to go but Robin said she didn’t want me missing out on the finer things in life just because of ‘some girl with cancer’. I may not have liked how she phrased it but how could I disagree with her, even when I argued with her all she said was, “it’s my last wish.” I mean really Robin? What did she think I was going to say to that? What could I say to that? Therefore, this week was my last chance to see Robin before I went away to Disneyland! I felt guilty for being excited in such a terrible and upsetting moment in time. But I suppose Robin hated that people kept referring to her cancer as a ‘terrible and upsetting thing’, she just wanted to move on. Which I know is silly but to Robin it was the only thing to do, she wanted us to move on before she’d gone, to make it less painful when she really was. I walked into her room on the Thursday before I left to say goodbye and to tell her all about what I had planned and that I would create a series of slideshows for her for when I got back. Robin was asleep and so any plans of conversing with her were desecrated, so I sat down next to her bed slowly and calmly took her hand. Her parents were sat at the bottom of her bed looking at her pure body, wrapped in white bed sheets with purple feathers decorating them. I placed her hands-on top of mine and she winced, then falling back into a trance like sleep. I looked at her gentle frail skin and her neatly combed hair that I had placed at either shoulder. Still being sick with a cold I was forbidden by Mr Lamarre to put my face anywhere near hers. I squeezed her hands and she stirred from her sleep. “Anna?”
“Yes, I’m here. I’m here.” I held her hand and rubbed it lightly, comforting her. “Disneyland?” Robin was trying desperately hard to sound like everything was okay, but I could tell she was having difficulty speaking.
“Yes, I’m going.”
“Good” she fell back into her endless sleep and dreamt of peaceful happiness and like dreamers so often do she smiled and nodded as her wishes came true within her magical dreamland.
Two hours past and mum appeared at Robin’s bedroom door. “Sweetie, it’s time to go now.” I stood up and looked at Robin one last time remembering each detail on her face from her delicate freckles to her perfectly long eyelashes. I stepped out of the strangely calm and peaceful room and into the chaotic reality of the world. Walking back home I tried to ignore mum and just think of Robin, she knew it because she asked no questions and left me to my own mind, which was both a burden and a joy. On the one hand I could think of Robin’s laugh and my trip to Disneyland that would bring more joy to Robin in her final days, but on the other I could only think of Robin’s illness and how long she had left. The next morning, I awoke to a glorious sunrise that was so bright it pierced the eyes of its victims with pricks of pins that pierced through curtains and doors. I had to go back to school today as it was Friday and would be leaving for Disneyland once the school bell rang at the end of the day. I was going with mum because I needed a responsible adult with me to go as I was under the age of eighteen. The school day droned on longer and longer with each second that I wasted in that horrible institution. I merely wanted to escape from that prison be in Disneyland. After all the quicker I was there, there quicker it satisfied Robin and the quicker I could be back to see her.
“Hey Anna, where’s Robin? I heard she was on holiday.” Lacey asked. Questions like these got given to me every day like I was a questionnaire leaflet or something and like I had all the answers. Yes, I was Robin’s friend but why was it everybody else’s business where she was? Was she their friend? No, she wasn’t, she wasn’t Lacey’s friend, and neither was I. “Lacey just bog off, it’s none of your business.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say” Lacey was a patronising girl and one of the ‘populars’ too, which unfortunately meant that she thought she could do whatever she wanted without any consequences.
“Yeah well, you’re not very nice, and Robin is so I’d rather she didn’t get tainted by your snide comments and all-round cruelty. Thanks.” I walked away and decided that was all I could take for one day, so I walked into the toilets, hid away in one of the stalls and stayed there until that horrible disaster of a day was over.
Month one. Week three. I was back from Disneyland and ready to tell Robin all about what had happened. I ran to her house as soon as I got back on Sunday night at eleven o’clock in the evening. My heart was brimming with excitement and my cold was gone which meant that I could finally hug her and tell her how much she meant to me, and all that soppy best friend stuff that we used to do together before this nuisance of a cold came along. I grabbed the door handle, twisting is quickly and attempted to force the door open with my weight, slipping and falling into the door instead. Strange. The door was never locked, the Lamarres always kept it open for me to come in. I knocked on the door for at least two minutes, but no one answered. A pit formed in my stomach and I felt sick, like I did when Robin fell. A strange knowledge formed in my brain, I knew something was wrong. I paced up and down the driveway, waiting for the Lamarre family to return, with Robin. I paced for ten minutes and then sat down on the curb to save my swollen feet from peeling away from my legs. I waited on the curb for an hour before the Lamarres finally showed up at the house with another car behind them, but Robin wasn’t in either. I recognised the people in the other car, they were Robin’s cousins. I knew something was wrong. “Mrs Lamarre where’s Robin?” tears started forming in my eyes as I walked towards her gripping my arms in torment. Mrs Lamarre simply rushed towards the house, avoiding eye contact with me whilst tears escaped her tightly clenched eyes. Mr Lamarre walked towards me and hugged me, which quite frankly was a weird experience by itself because I’d never seen Mr Lamarre hug anyone except his mother, wife and daughter. I began to cry without control. I knew what had happened before anyone need said it.
“Rob...Robin, died last night.” Mr Lamarre released me from his embrace and sorrowfully walked into the house, dragging his feet, following the others. I was left alone on the curb once again, but with my whole life had turned upside down. When before I was an excited girl back to tell her friend about her exhilarating journey I was now an empty body, with a hole in my heart and with nobody to talk to.
“They said four months.” I muttered to myself.
*****
The following weeks were unsurprisingly hard, not only because Mrs Lamarre had been giving me items of Robin’s clothing and asking me if I wanted them, but also because mum consistently without fail asked me about how I was ‘feeling’. I was done with ‘feeling’. I was done with questions. I was done with life. I just wanted Robin back. Since she’d...gone I had no one to confide in, no one to talk to, no one to hug when I was upset. I had no one. The extremely irritating thing that mum would say to that was ‘you have me’. Well I didn’t want her, I wanted Robin and there was no one and no thing that could fix that. The week leading to her funeral I was more distraught than I had ever been, I was binge eating, I wasn’t showering, and I wasn’t talking. I knew Robin wouldn’t like it, but it served her right for ‘abandoning’ me on this god forsaken earth.
I was asked by her parents to do a reading at the funeral. At first, I thought ‘no’ then after a week I came to the decision I would. Not for her, not for Mr and Mrs Lamarre, not for anyone, for me. Mum signed me up to see a shrink, because the way I was living was ‘unhealthy’. I’d call it a process. My first appointment with this ‘shrink’ was for the day before Robin’s funeral. Apparently, mum wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have a ‘mental breakdown’ during my reading and ruin everyone’s day. I didn’t want to spoil it for her, but it was a funeral...everyone’s day would already be ruined, I was hardly expecting to see anyone dancing there like it was a rave, although Robin would’ve liked that and found it amusing, maybe I should have added it to my reading.
The day before Robin’s funeral I turned up to my appointment at the shrink’s office. Her office was stained with the scent of smoke that had been badly concealed by a Madagascan vanilla fragrance. There were three canvases of aesthetically pleasing flowers lined next to each other above a large dark oak desk that sat parallel to a strangely large leather armchair. In front of the desk was the classic leather couch presumed to be in a shrink’s office and another armchair for the shrink. I decided that because she wasn’t there I didn’t have to be either, so I walked towards the door ready to leg it out. “Ah you’re here.” I heard a feminine voice project from behind me. I raised my eyebrows and swivelled around, forcing a smile. “I don’t know what you know about me Ms Higbee, but I don’t appreciate liars, that smile is a lie.” I didn’t think that a shrink would be so forward, the plain irritation was expected, but for her to call me a liar was just rude.
“I’m not a liar!” I was outraged by her accusation and decided I wouldn’t stand for it. “I’m leaving.”
“Yes, I suppose you could, but then you’d never know if you could have been happy again.” the shrink said.
“I’m not happy, nor will I ever be happy. So forget that fantasy that you and my mother have.” I was fed up with everyone telling me I could be ‘happy’ again.
“Why don’t you have a seat and tell me about how unhappy you feel instead?” I found her forward personality slightly cocky and a bit annoying, but I also admired it and thought she was brave for confronting a depressed crazy girl. We spoke for an hour about my friendship with
Robin and the bond that we had created over our time together through our childhood. I spoke of Robin like a sister and the shrink said that sister-like description showed I was trying to connect myself to Robin and her family through language linking to family. By calling Robin my sister I was linking myself to her family. I wasn’t feeling one hundred percent after this meeting, hell I wasn’t even feeling fifty percent, but I was feeling slightly sane. I was ready to talk at Robin’s funeral the next day.
The next day I tuned up to the Mrs and Mr Lamarre’s house in the pink dress that Robin made me buy for her funeral the week she was brought home from the hospital. I hated that day because Robin wouldn’t let go of the fact that she was going to die, it was all I heard. She then told me she wasn’t going to have me show up to her funeral in some kind of depressing black dress. She searched for an hour online for the ‘perfect’ outfit, when I’m pretty sure there wasn’t for a funeral but clearly Robin had an image in her mind of what she wanted her funeral to be like. She picked me a baby pink dress that had long sleeves and a frilly turtle neckline, the dress went down to my knees and came in around the torso. It was the opposite of what I expected for a funeral but completely what I expected from Robin. She was a fun, party animal who wouldn’t have wanted her funeral to be black and depressing, she would have wanted it to be fun and outrageous. There was no denying that I felt completely out of place in a sea of black, but I could feel Robin next to me whispering in my ear about how rocking I looked and for the first time in weeks I felt at peace. I wore a pair of baby pink high heels that I had worn to a club in Rayleigh, Essex that we had both been to together with our fake IDs. I was Penelope Crauel and Robin was Beatrice Watkins.
I had my hair respectably pinned back at the front and very minimal makeup with only a bit of blush and mascara, as I knew I would cry. Mrs Lamarre had spotted me in the sea of mourning very easily in my pink outfit and waved at me, signalling to come over. “Robin would have loved this” Mrs Lamarre rested her hand on my shoulder and embraced me in a thoughtful hug.
“I’m doing this for myself as well as Robin, I hope you know that. It’s important.” I wanted Mrs Lamarre to know that the funeral was important to me too, and it wasn’t just about celebrating Robin’s life, it was about telling her how I felt.
“Yes, I understand that Anna. I’m very proud of you.” Mrs Lamarre embraced me for the last time and let a few tears rest in my dress as they fell from her face, that was concealed by a black veil. She wiped away her tears with a tissue, held by her left hand laced in a black glove, “the hearse is going to be here in ten so get ready sweets.” She walked off and I didn’t speak to her again until we got to the church. The hearse turned up and we all gathered outside to walk behind it, Mr Lamarre decided on walking instead of driving behind the hearse because it was a short walk and driving would have been a waste of parking and cars, also Robin was a stickler for tradition, she would have loved all the bother in walking and not driving. The walk felt like a lifetime, every time we turned a corner I could see her coffin that held her saintly pure body inside. I could imagine her cold pale corpse that lay lifeless inside the coffin and I desperately fought off the need to weep. Every time I thought I was passed the worst we turned another corner and I saw her again. ‘Please be an open coffin’ I thought to myself. I know it’s a strange thought, but I wanted the chance to say goodbye, after all I had my stupid cold that had prevented me from kissing her before. I am aware people look completely different once they’re dead, but it was Robin. I needed to see her, besides she was being cremated which didn’t leave the opportunity to see her grave later in the future. The time that I could confide in her was over, I couldn’t even visit her grave in death. The congregation was beautiful and just what Robin would have wanted. Many people stopped along the way to take their hats off and look down as a show of respect for Robin which only added to the beauty of our movement as a group who had come together to respect and honour Robin. When we finally reached the crematorium, the congregation stopped, and we lifted Robin up the aisle to the front where she was put on a podium. We sang a few hymns and listened to some readings from the priest taking the service. During one of the hymns ‘how deep thy father’s love for us’ was playing the curtain around Robin closed and when I looked up at the end they were open, but she was gone.
Third row. Last seat on the left. I sat. I wept. For my best friend, who disappeared in front of my very eyes. Like a star in the sky she went as quickly as she came. My eyes filled with tears and my lips began to quiver, the tears began to roll off my cheeks like boulders and onto the tissue my brother Freddy had so kindly offered me.
The end of the crematorium precession came and the most unlikely of people had dry eyes. Mrs Lamarre had remained the entire funeral without a single tear. Did she not care? Of course, she cared, I mean, Robin was her daughter. I just couldn’t come to understand why she wasn’t crying. We reached the Lamarre’s Methodist church that they attended every Sunday, which made it the perfect place to hold the public funeral for Robin. It was a very plain building, with white walls and a wooden cross on top of it. I suppose the severe whiteness of it was supposed to represent purity or something like that. There were great glass doors with long steel bars as handles. Once I walked inside there was a waiting room before the church itself. It was a rectangular shaped room with white walls and a great glass window that peered into the church, along with two glass doors on either side of the room, looking welcoming at the church. I walked through the glass doors, which I have to admit felt quite overwhelming. There must have been at least two hundred people there. Two hundred people who Robin’s soul had touched enough for them to want to say goodbye. They were of all sorts of ages ranging from teenage like Robin and I to twenty-year olds, thirty-year olds and some ninety-year olds. Each person had a different and unique story to tell about Robin. I felt truly honoured that she had chosen our story to tell all these people. I walked through the door on the left and down the aisle. All eyes were gazing upon Robin’s parents which I feel dreadfully guilty to say I was pleased about because that meant they weren’t staring at me. I took my seat in the second row of chair next to mum and my brother, Freddy. I had never felt happier to have Freddy next to me than I did at this moment. His lusciously thick, long, brown, curly hair emanated out from his scalp and almost took up a seat by itself. His strong, supportive arm cradled me when I cried, and his hand supported me with a tissue to catch my tears. His crazy eyebrows performed a dance when I needed a laugh, and his loving eyes told me I was loved even at the worst times. He supported me at the worst moment of my life and I will forever be indebted to him. After all, even he too had a story with Robin and was there for himself just as much as he was for me.
We sat and listened to the numerous readings that took place before I was called to read mine. Mrs Lamarre had given me a few suggestions as to readings that could be read out, but I knew that Robin wanted me to do this for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to memorise some reading from a story book like the bible. I had prepared a written reading, but suddenly it all seemed useless and pointless to ‘prepare’ something that should be said from the heart.
When Mr Lamarre had finished his reading, I walked up to the podium shaking, barely able to stand, reciting in my head ‘left leg, right leg, left leg, right leg-‘I got to the podium and was thankful it was sturdy enough to support me, as I leant against it to steady myself. Even though I was going to speak from the heart I had decided to take my original plan up with me to make sure I kept on track and didn’t go off on a rant, however it turned out this piece of paper was useless because the nervous sweat from my head along with my endless tears from my sobbing eyes dropped onto the page and blurred the words. I just had to wing it.
“I don’t really know where to start.” I spoke clearly into the microphone, but fumbled around with my paper carelessly, almost knocking the microphone out of the stand. “Sorry.” I put my hands up apologetically at the tech guy and continued. “My name’s Anna and Robin was my best friend.” As soon as I said the word ‘was’ I relaxed completely and suddenly became unstoppable. “Huh, do you know that was the first time I’ve said ‘was’ about Robin, because of course, I used to be able to say ‘is’.” Silence. “Sorry, that sounded a bit morbid. Robin wouldn’t appreciate me being the cause of a morbid funeral, God forbid someone cry at Robin’s funeral. She’s probably saying right now ‘turn on the music, have a party’.” A few muffled laughs around the room. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’m wearing a baby pink dress at a funeral. Robin picked this. She wanted me to have a piece of light on a very dark day, at first, I thought ‘what is she going on about?’ But now I think I finally get it. In Robin’s opinion she wanted me to be the same light, fun person I was before she had to leave us all, and this dress was a way of making sure I was. Of course, I’m not laughing and throwing raves, but you have to admit it is difficult not to smile when you see a dress this light in a sea of darkness. “Robin was the most funny, beautiful and radiant woman I knew. Every day she had a different sun hat on, from a baseball cap to a giant ‘breakfast at Tiffany’s’ style hat. She brightened up my morning every day, I relied on her to fix my battles and support me when I got hurt. She was the sister I never had. “We had made plans to go to Disneyland the before she got diagnosed, of course once the doctors discovered the cancer she couldn’t go, but she forced me out of my comfort zone and practically pushed me out of the door and onto the plane to Paris. The whole trip I kept thinking, what if something happens? Why do I feel happy without Robin? What’s Robin doing right now? Everything that I did there reminded me of Robin and strangely it was because of that that I knew I had to stay there until it was the very second, we had planned to leave, I did everything to the complete extent of what Robin would do. Little did I know Robin died while I was there. She knew how to make someone feel guilty. “When I saw Robin the day before I left for Disneyland I had a cold and couldn’t kiss her goodbye nor could I hug her or even breathe on her. These last weeks have been torture because I have been obsessing over the last word I said to her, and the fact I could kiss her goodbye and that my last words weren’t, ‘I love you’ because she was asleep and wouldn’t have heard me. I blamed myself, I blamed Mr and Mrs Lamarre because they wouldn’t let me hug her or kiss her in case she caught my cold, I even blamed Robin for leaving before me. See, Robin and I had an agreement: Ya’aburnee. It’s an Arabic word that means I was going to die before Robin because I couldn’t bear to live without her, we even shook on it and signed contracts.” I held up a piece of paper with two signatures and some writing on it that said I was going to die before Robin and if she violated it she would have to go to hell for a week. “I will be suing her once I see her up there” a few laughs dotted the church. “The thing is though I think I finally understand what Ya’aburnee means, see the literal translation is ‘you bury me’. When I heard she had died I truly felt like I couldn’t go on living anymore, then I realised this morning, when we were saying goodbye to her and the curtains around her coffin closed, that Ya’aburnee actually means ‘when you die I die, and a new and stronger me is born’. Robin made me stronger and her strength will carry on through me where is wasn’t able to in her. If you’re listening Robin I love you and I let you go. “I understand that’s a pretty dark thing to end on so I’m gonna tell you about the time that Robin and I snuck into the headmistress’ office and...“
The story about Robin and I went on for another five minutes and the room became an ensemble of laughter and joy, just the way Robin would have wanted it. Everyone retired to the back room where there were tables set up with food and cakes on them, it was extremely cramped and there was less room to move around that there is in the London tube at rush hour. I had a few people who came up to me and complimented me on my reading. After the funeral I felt a sudden surge of relief pump through my body. Finally, I was able to begin my recovery to a normal life again and find my way through the world without Robin. When talking about her in my reading I realised that when we made our agreement of Ya’aburnee we were both so innocent and pure, a lot has happened since then and now. Ya’aburnee had a completely different meaning. I had to let Robin go when I buried her and begin my new life. More importantly, I wanted to. I was finished with all of the goodbyes and the helpless feeling that dug into my heart when I found out there was nothing I could do for Robin.
That day I decided I was going to make a difference in the world. I began studying and studying and studying until finally I became a doctor specialising in Pancreatic cancer at the age of 27. I met an honourable and handsome man named Patrick; he was the first patient I saved and now my husband. I even have my own charity where I speak to young people about making sure they’re aware of their bodies and what goes on inside of them, and I am proud to say that all the success in my life is thanks to my best friend. Robin.