We were wondering how it got so serious, so in dire need of love and attention that it was all we could think of. We were young and stupid. Our parents didn’t teach us right, bestow us with enough common sense so we could figure life out for ourselves. We quit before we had started, whether we had a choice from birth, who knows? Our foundation was weak and it was not our fault that it got to this point of pathetic cries from the boy next door and sad looks from our peers. As we sat across from each other, my browns gazing into her royal blues, we sat in silence and wondered if we were next to jump off a twelve story building to get just a little attention. We called ourselves the Unfortunate Four.
Tyla was the first unfortunate soul of our gang. She was the best of us. She was diagnosed with Stage III brain cancer at the age of eleven. I can barely remember what she looked like these days but she always wore a smile, a jean jumpsuit with a yellow ribbon on it and she was full of words of wisdom and bravery.
“It’s for the hope my parents lack.” She used to tell me. “They have no hope, just fear so I turn to my ribbon for hope I will get better.”
We were in the middle of math class and she seemed more mature than the rest of us. It could have been a side effect for terminal illnesses, who knows? We grew up two houses apart from each other. Her father was a door to door man always on the run trying to sell as many boxes of product as he could before the end of month. I remember many doors being slammed in his face, my door included. I heard my mother gossiping on the phone one day, saying Tyla’s dad disappeared and ran out on his family. He had debt to pay and he couldn’t come up with the goods so he packed up everything except his family and left town. I tried to talk to Tyla about it, but all she wanted to talk about was the daisies Mrs. Laurens had planted in her yard across the street from my house. She would sit there for hours looking at the daisies like they would speak to her if she focused harder. I sat there with her in silence, keeping her company.
On May 15, Tyla died. She almost made it to twelve years old. Her birthday was tomorrow and I know this sucks but I had gotten her the perfect present. I had handcrafted it myself in art class. I was really proud of the yellow daisy themed bracelet I had made for her. It is terrible she had never gotten the chance to open it, never got the chance to have her first kiss, never got the chance to graduate high school, never got the chance to yell at her mother for the damage she may have caused.
We were playing with My Little Ponies in Tyla’s yard. Her time outdoors had become limited as well as her attendance at school. I was forced to hang out with my less interesting classmates who knew nothing about daisies, hope or the pretty princess of the year. I was bored to say the least. On May 15, I went to see Tyla. I missed my best friend and to my surprise she was on Mrs. Laurens lawn sitting near the daisies and clutching her yellow ribbon. I remember walking over to her, hearing her crying. She forced her best smile when she turned to face me.
“Hey, you okay? You’re not supposed to be outside.”
She laughed as if I had told her the best joke in the world. Then she paused, and said. “You promised you wouldn’t do that! Treat me like a sick girl!” She cried. “You were supposed to be better than them!”
I nodded. I did promise. It was a few feet away over in my yard that I made that promise, but my mother told me she’s sick and nothing would ever be the same again. My mother told me to give her the space she needed to heal because she didn’t have much time left.
I shouldn’t have listened to her. I should have listened to my friend because my mother was right about one thing, we didn’t have much time left together. I wish I knew then what I knew now.
Tyla’s face lacked color and her lips were blue like she had been licking a blueberry lollipop. Her golden brown hair was non-existent, it was fragile. She was fragile. The steps she had made towards me were small but she managed to pry my hand open, leaving her yellow worn down ribbon in it. Some strings were coming undone and it was light in my hand, cold to touch just like Tyla.
“Hope for the best. Be better than your mom and my parents, have hope.” She whispered before collapsing to the ground.
