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Daisy Coulson didn’t consider herself an optimist. This had always suited her. When one has swung between remission and recurrence for their entire 17 years of life, hope doesn’t come easily.
She sat on the floor, knees tucked up to her chest, watching the night shift nurses rush back and forth, carrying papers or patients. The stark, sterile white walls were painted with varying shades of blue waves, flowing gracefully along the halls of the pediatric center. Daisy quite liked the design. It was calming.
Nights in the hospital weren’t so bad, she guessed. While the beds weren’t exactly the most comfortable and the aching loneliness of an IV drip chased away sleep, there were always people around. Sometimes, this grated her nerves more than it comforted her. But tonight she couldn’t stand the silence in her room. She texted Fitz, her “hospital bro” as they called each other, wondering what room he was in this time.
Daisy - 21:42
im in 616, you?
Fitz - 21:46
- When did you get here?
Daisy - 21:47
this afternoon. meet me at the nurses station?
Fitz - 21:49
Fine, I guess.
He shuffled up a few minutes later, his oxygen backpack slung over one shoulder. He waited for her to say something. She shrugged, pointing at the spot beside her.
“Long time no see,” He said in his light Scottish accent. One bonus of being at one of the best hospitals in the world: lots of interesting people come from all over to get treatment.
Daisy turned to look at him. “Yeah. That’s a good thing, I suppose.”
Fitz smiled sadly. “What’re you in for?”
“Some new experimental chemo. Dr. Cho got me into a clinical trial, so hopefully no one will be poking around in my brain with knives for the foreseeable future,” She answered. “You?”
Fitz coughed, inhaling deeply through the oxygen nose piece. “Bronchitis. Nothing too serious, but with my transplant coming up, you know…” He trailed off, his knitted brows giving away his thoughts.
Daisy lightly shoved his shoulder. “Let’s go do something.” She hated seeing him like this. At only fourteen, he had spent just as much time between hospitals as she had, just as much time listening to parents’ hushed arguments and worrying over new treatments. He was just a kid, just like Daisy. He needed someone who understood.
He sighed. “I’m not taking the stairs again. That was a total disaster.”
Laughing, she stood and held out a hand to help him up.
“Ice cream sound good?”
Jemma Simmons was a realist. She put her faith in facts. Science relied on formulas and logic. So, naturally, she understood that the chances of her living to see 18 were slim.
She poked at the meal on her plate. Both of her parents were working, and she knew no one at this hospital, which meant she was sitting by herself, looking sadder than the poor excuse for fried rice in front of her.
There weren’t many people in the cafeteria at this time. She knew her self-consciousness was unfounded. The spotlight effect. Psychology A-levels for the win, she guessed.
Jemma looked up as the doors burst open suddenly. A girl with short, dark purple hair and a boy, slightly shorter, with curly blonde hair came in giggling, their arms full of mini ice cream containers. She watched in curiosity as the lady at the register rolled her eyes, smiling. The two looked around for a seat, deciding on a table not far from hers.
She noticed the boy’s oxygen line and backpack, a mask clipped to the side with a blue carabiner. Cystic fibrosis, maybe, or some sort of lung cancer? She had read that one of the oncologists (her oncologist, she reminded herself), Dr. Helen Cho, had treated a small boy diagnosed with primary pulmonary adenocarcinoma.
She checked the time. 22:14. She had promised herself she would stick to a semi-normal schedule. Dinner didn’t count, she had slept through the day after a particularly tiring moving-in process. Her routine started tomorrow, along with her new medication. She had forty-six minutes before she needed to be in bed drifting off to sleep.
As she left, she caught a snippet of the pair’s conversation:
“Are you nervous?” The boy said, Scottish accent coming through. Jemma smiled. She missed home.
The girl was silent for a moment. “It’s just a clinical trial. Worst comes to worst, I end up back on an operating table.”
The boy’s response was muffled as she threw away her still-half full plate.
Jemma wondered as she brushed her teeth later if the girl with purple hair was here for the same reason as she was.
“Fuck blood work,” Daisy mumbled, still half-asleep. Her favourite nurse, Mack, had come into her room at the ungodly hour of 7:30 to take her vitals and check her IVs, and, apparently, jab a needle into her veins.
“I know,” He said. “I’m almost done.”
She dared a glance at the med cart beside her bed, promptly being hit with a wave of nausea. He had already filled four vials with blood, and had one empty one left.
“Too early,” She complained.
Mack laughed quietly in response. “Early? I’ve been up since four.”
“Are you sure you want to be a nurse when you grow up?” She asked jokingly. Mack laughed loudly at this, wrapping a neon pink bandage around her forearm and untying the plasticky tourniquet from her upper arm. He collected the vials, calling a “good night, sleepyhead” over his shoulder as he left. Daisy felt another wave of nausea hit as she thought about the blood and needles and the blood flowing through the needles—
Stop. She took a deep breath, rolling onto her side and grabbing for her water bottle. She sipped, unlocking her phone and scrolling through her notifications. This was definitely the healthiest way to start her morning.
She shot off a couple texts, sending Fitz a sarcastically sunny good morning text, as well as replying to her Dad’s messages.
She got bored rather quickly, deciding to go over her shiny new med cart and set alarms for each. This took less time than she thought it would, and she groaned in frustration as the clock hit 8:15. Fitz didn’t get up before nine on good days, and Dr. Cho kwouldn’t be around to check in until two.
Daisy grabbed a cherry pop-tart from her suitcase, figuring she might as well get up and do something productive. She had finished the week’s schoolwork on Wednesday, which left working out or getting ahead in classes.
She ended up in the quiet, plant-filled atrium, sitting next to a bubbling rock fountain as the sun cast long golden shadows across the space. No, she did not work out, and no, she was not doing schoolwork.
She tapped her pen against her journal. Her journals were full of messily-scrawled entries or bullet-pointed lists of places to see, people to meet, things to do or her routine for the day. Sometimes she would draw, though she was far from an artist. Her ever-evolving list, ‘things to do b4 i Kick the Bucket’, stared up at her.
‘things to do b4 i Kick the Bucket’
- [x] learn french — j’apprends
- [x] go to disney world — best twelfth bday evaaa!
- [x] adopt a senior cat and love them forever — rip Seraphina <3
- [x] keep a plant alive (edit: for three months.) — aren’t snake plants supposed to be easy?
- [x] visit China — dream come true. see journal #6
- [ ] try every coffee item on the Stella Cafe menu
- [ ] ride the ferris wheel at the county fair
- [x] stay up all night and watch every harry potter movie — Dad makes the best popcorn
- [ ] write a masterpiece
- [ ] take a painting class
- [x] knit a sweater — the sleeves were uneven :(
- [ ] first kiss under the stars
- [ ] turn 18
Daisy chewed on her lip, the cup of coffee beside her growing lukewarm. She glared at the last one. Seven months. The clinical trial ended two weeks before her birthday. It would all be fine. It had to be fine. For her Dad, for Fitz, for the future she imagined for herself — a cosy house, a cat and a dog, a garden by the sea. She would work from home, coding and writing, and have tea and dinner with her friends every Friday night.
She closed her journal with a snap, suddenly angry. She had no guarantee that she would even turn eighteen, let alone live long enough to buy a house and have pets and a garden and dinner parties.
Her phone buzzed beside her. She silenced the alarm, digging through her bag for her meds. She swallowed them down with coffee and shoved her journal in beside the collection of blue, green, and orange containers.
She just needed to eat.
Jemma woke abruptly, a vague memory of a nurse coming in to do labs playing at the back of her mind as her alarm clock buzzed 9 a.m. She sat up, looking around her bare room. One wall was completely blue, the rest painted with the same gentle waves as the hallways. Overhead, the ceiling was divided, a wavy black drop covered in pinpricks of lights and the rest plain white tiles.
Jemma changed into a sweatshirt and comfortable shorts, getting ready for the day. She set up a small pin board beside her bed; notes, a timetable of her medication schedule, and a few photographs of her and her Mum at various points of her life spaced cleanly and carefully on the yellow surface.
One month. She had to get through one month, then she would be back home, only coming to the hospital for treatments.
She stretched. Time for yoga. She packed a small bag with all her meds, a sweatshirt, and earbuds and headed for the meditation room.
The room was just big enough to fit about ten people doing yoga or meditating with space to breathe. There were potted plants and windows draped in colourful gauzy curtains, yoga mats stacked in the corner and a tabletop zen garden sitting on a small desk.
She took a seat in the corner of the room, dragging a yoga mat into position aligned with the two walls.
Jemma enjoyed yoga. The practice soothed her racing mind and aching body. She came out of a flow feeling refreshed. For a while, she could forget she was terminally ill and just breathe .
The room was totally empty for the entirety of her practice. As she laid on the mat, gathering the energy she needed for the rest of her day, the door opened.
And someone screamed.
She shot up, glaring in the direction of whoever jolted her out of her headspace. It was the girl with purple hair. She had dropped her bag, contents spilling out. She bent over, hands on knees, breathing hard.
“Are you okay?” Jemma asked awkwardly.
“I thought… you were dead!” She panted out.
“Do you walk in on many dead people in the meditation room?”
The girl with purple hair looked up and glared, slowing her breathing. Jemma scooted towards her, starting to pick up the seemingly random assortment of things that had tumbled out of the bag. She reached for a medication bottle, recognizing the label. The girl snatched it away from her, shoving it into her bag, which upon a closer look had artwork of skeletal hands crossing over the other like a ballerina mid-dance.
Jemma stopped picking things up, instead opting to study her. She was pretty. Her purple hair waved softly. She had great skin, and warm eyes, and she wore the hell out of a tattered, faded Bon Jovi tee and running shorts. She stood hastily as she finished gathering all of her things, swaying slightly.
The girl with purple hair turned to leave. Jemma swallowed her nerves, taking a calculated guess.
“You’re in Dr. Cho’s ependymoma clinical trial,” She said, not asking. She was 98% sure.
“Um, yeah,” She replied.
“So am I.”
The girl stared for a few seconds before sitting down in front of her.
“I’m Daisy.”
“Jemma.”
There was an awkward pause as the two each thought of something to say.
“So…” Daisy said, drawing out the ‘o’. “How about these brain tumours we’ve been having?”
Jemma laughed. Like, genuinely laughed. She wondered when the last time she had properly laughed was.
“I like your hair,” She complimented.
Daisy tucked a piece behind her ear, looking everywhere but Jemma.
“Thanks. I like your freckles. They look like stars.”
Jemma wrinkled her nose, but grinned nonetheless. She liked stars.
“Want to get coffee?”
“I drink tea.”
Daisy smiled playfully. “Nevermind, then,” She said, getting up. Jemma felt her her heart drop, but it lifted again as turned around, offering Jemma a hand. She took it, letting Daisy help her up.
“Kidding,” Daisy said, as if reading her thoughts. “But I seriously need caffeine. Let’s go.”
Daisy ordered a hazelnut cappuccino from the good coffee cart outside the atrium. Jemma got an Earl Grey tea.
Daisy hated small talk. This could be the reason she didn’t have many friends. But, this girl was very pretty, and nice, so she’d try.
“What’s your favourite colour?” She asked.
“Midnight blue.”
“Why?”
“Well,” Jemma said, knitting her brows. “It’s the colour between the stars, right? It’s the colour of everything between.”
Daisy giggled. “You sound like a poet.”
She shrugged. “I’m not really a fan of poems, actually. They can be a little romantic. I like science,” Jemma stated matter-of-factly. “I’m a fan of music, though.”
“Favourite song? Album? Artist?” Daisy asked, leaning forward intently. Jemma laughed, not unkindly.
“I take it you like music?”
Daisy grinned. “I’m in love with music. Next to computers, it’s my favourite thing in the world.”
“You seem like a rock girl,” Jemma said, taking a sip of her tea.
“Oh, really?” Daisy challenged. “How do you figure?”
“You’re wearing an obviously well-worn Bon Jovi tee,” She observed. “Though, it could be a thrift, or a hand-me-down.”
“Impressive, detective. My dad got me into classic rock. Bon Jovi is his favourite. Him and his boss are always arguing over Bon Jovi versus AC/DC. However,” Daisy took a deep breath, eyes sparkling. “I don’t stick to any genre. I love indie, and rock, and Motown, and sometimes pop because let’s be honest there are some pretty good bops on the Top 40. I have this really bad habit of hoarding playlists, like I’ll save them or make them. Something about it is just so soothing. I have, like, one hundred. My favourite artist is either between HAIM or Taylor Swift, though. HAIM has such a unique sound, like Mitski but not. Taylor’s lyrics are just absolutely beautiful. So are Phoebe Bridgers’, and— I’m rambling.”
Jemma had been listening rather attentively, but Daisy still felt sort of embarrassed.
“No, it’s okay,” She said. “I enjoyed listening.”
Daisy felt her cheeks heat up. She covered her blush with a sip of coffee and pretended to look for something in her bag.
Clearing her throat, she said, “So what about you?”
“Oh, well, it depends. If I’m in the lab or studying, classical or covers are pretty great. But if I’m just relaxing, dodie is always good, or Laura Marling. And beabadoobee has the most soothing voice. I don’t know. I sort of just listen to what makes me happy. I like Taylor’s new album,” Jemma said. “Bilateral panning is also good for when my brain is loud.”
Daisy nodded so hard Jemma thought her neck might crack. “Bilateral panning, my beloved <3.”
Jemma smiled at her and launched into a science-y explanation of neurobiochemistry and how music affects brains differently. Daisy sat and listened, enjoying every moment.
Maybe being in the hospital wouldn’t be as lonely as she had come to expect.