Out

"Honestly, I'm fine." Mum looks at me through narrowed eyes, and dad watches me, his expression blank. No anger or worry or any of those things in his gaze; simple fear and love, for me, in his eyes.

Lance, beside the bed I lie in, sitting in a chair with his elbows on his knees, hands open and empty, head bowed, takes a breath that sounds more like laughter, or a sob, but halted in its tracks.

"Lance." I reach over the side of the bed, and he takes my hand in his, looking down at it. By the expression on his face, I imagine he can still see the blood. At least he cannot feel it, there, slick and wet and forever ingrained: a memory.

"I'm s-"

"Don't say you're sorry, Syl. Not for this," he says. His voice is soft and low, rough in his throat.

"What, exactly, happened?" mum asks. Disapproval is clear in her voice, but so is the fact that she's using it to stop herself from crying.

"We were just driving, and talking. And then I started to cough. No one caused this, mum. It's no one's fault. You know what the doctor said." That there is fluid in my lungs. That the thing in my head is bigger than we ever thought it would be. That this aching in my head is no normal headache. That I have not got long left; I am dying. That we knew this for a long time.

The door opens with a soft sigh, and we all look; everyone but Lance. It is Marcus, a worried, familiar look on his face, his cheeks slightly flushed, chest heaving as if he has run here. Which, judging by the shoes on his feet, he has.

He kisses mum on the cheek and hugs dad and rests his hand on Lance's shoulder for a second. "Hey," he says. Lance dips his head in acknowledgement. I feel a small smile curve my lips, because he is trying, for me. Because I know he doesn't exactly love Lance, I can tell, but he is being civil, and I love him for it.

Marc grips the rail by my bed, watching me for a moment. "Is she ok?" he asks, turning to mum, and I roll my eyes.

Lance's fingers slip from mine as mum explains in a halting voice, and he stands. And he leaves the room.

Mum stops talking. We all watch him leave, like we are puppets, and the strings for our heads are attached to him. The door closes, and the strings break with a snap. And everyone is looking at me, but I am looking at the door.

I look up at Marcus. Pleading. Because I'd go after him, if I could. But I can't.

He sighs heavily. "Really, Syl?" he asks.

I widen my eyes, and he sighs. Smoothes my hair from my face and kisses my forehead. "Only for you," he says, sounding tired.

I smile. "Thank you," I say. He shakes his head and leaves at a light jog, after Lance, out the door.

Dad looks at me for a moment. "You have far too much control over all of us," he says, finally.

I smile. "I never asked for it."

Lance is gone from sight, as if he simply disappeared. I stand in the corridor for a moment, debating with myself whether or not it is worth it, to look for him, or if I should just go back inside. But Syl asked me to. And he didn't exactly look happy.

I sigh and walk to the desk, smile at the nurse on duty. "Hello, Margaret," I say, my smile in my voice, where I always keep it, even when I don't quite feel like smiling.

The woman's face brightens when she looks up, her cheeks dimpling. Margaret is in her late forties to early fifties, and she's one of my favourite nurses. She has the kind of face that looks both old and young at once, and it is always warm and welcoming, a smile brightening her face and crinkling the corners of her eyes. She's always told me that I remind her of her son, and she's treated me as if I was one of her own. She's a lovely person. And she also has the capacity to catch more than most security cameras, a trait that can never be disadvantageous.

"Hello, love. Visiting Miss Sylva?" she asks. I nod. Rap my knuckles on the bench.

"Yeah. Sorry, but you wouldn't have seen a guy run past, would you? Tall, with dark, short hair." I must look helpless, because she takes pity on me.

She smiles and points over to a door beside the elevator.

"He went that way, dear. Back stairwell."

I thank her, promise her a box of chocolates next time I come, and jog over to the door.

When I open it and walk through, letting it shut behind me, I almost trip over Lance. I stop, leaning on the rail of the stairs to steady myself.

He is sitting on the bottom step, legs stretched out on the floor, elbows loosely bent on his knees, head bowed. His shoulders are high and tense. He looks up at me, and his eyes are amber and startling and even brighter without his usual mop of hair to cover them, and the dark birthmark on one side of his face, a slim crescent beneath his eye, is startling, too.

He stares at me, and I step back. He looks back down. Says nothing.

"Hi," I say, a little awkwardly. Because I did not exactly think of what I would say, when I found him, and now that I have I am lost for words.

He is silent. After a moment, I take a seat beside him, against the wall and two steps up. I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them; stretch them out, my feet on the floor, and then settle on putting them on the first step, beside Lance.

"Syl sent you," he says, finally. I nod, then realise that he can't see me, because I'm behind him.

"Yeah," I say. We're quiet. "She's worried about you."

Lance laughs, and I am startled by the sound: only Syl has ever made him laugh, but I've never really heard the sound. It is soft and a little breathy, like he doesn't want people to hear it. It is also bitter; cynical.

He turns to the side, leaning against the rail on the stairs, tilting his head back against the bar behind him. He looks at me through half-lidded eyes, as if they are too heavy for him to keep open. A slit of amber shines through, bright and unsettling. "She's worried about me, and she's-" He stops, closes his eyes.

"Dying," I finish.

He swallows. "How can you say it like that? Like you accept it, that it's going to happen?"

"It's going to happen to everyone," I tell him, looking down at my feet on the stairs, at the shadow my body throws, elongated and disjointed by the zigzagging lines of the stairs. "I don't accept it. I hate it. I don't want it to happen, ever, to anyone, especially not Syl." I pause, push my hair out of my face. The lace on one of my runners is looser than the other; I tug at one end, and the bow comes undone. I re-tie it slowly. "But I can't stop it. There's nothing I can do about it. And it feels like everything's unravelling and I can't do anything to slow it down. You can't blame yourself for this. For something we all feel."

He takes a breath and opens his eyes, tilts his head to the side and looks up at me. "You've been spending too much time with Syl," he says.

I smile a little. "I grew up with her. She was more of a mentor than a friend. But she's a friend, as well. A sister."

"She's everything," Lance says. I hum in agreement. "Except a sister. To me. Because that would be weird."

That startles a laugh from me. Lance looks at me, considering, and I feel, somehow, as if this is some sort of test. I hold his gaze for a long moment, and he nods. "Alright," he says.

"Ok," I say, though I'm not sure what I'm saying ok to. He stands and holds open the door, and I look at him unsurely.

"Come on," he says, sounding a little amused, with that same undercurrent of omnipresent sadness. I stand and follow him out.

Mum and dad left to get coffee, a few minutes ago. I lie alone, in the bed, twisting the charm on my necklace between my fingers. One of my neighbours gave it to me, before she passed away. I was only nine or ten, and we were very close; I'd help her in the garden. Which means that, most of the time, I basically watched her do things and sat in the dirt, running my fingers over the impossibly soft flower petals.

"What is it?" I'd asked. Mum stood at the door to her room. Beth was old, very old, and sick. She'd been in bed for weeks, but the doctors said she didn't have much time left. Beth and I both ran against a speeding clock, but she could not run fast enough. She was going.

"It's infinity," she'd said, pressing the silver charm into my hand, the chain dangling from between my fingers like liquid metal. "It never ends. It will remind you of me, when I'm gone."

"But I don't want you to go," I'd said, tears blurring my vision.

She'd smiled, her frail, papery hands fluttering anxiously against the bed sheets, like trapped moths. "It's time for me, now. But remember that. Infinity. Love is infinity. It will never go away, never end. And I love you, Sylva. I love you, infinity."

"I love you, infinity," I whisper, holding the charm as the memory fades. I know what she means, now. I haven't forgotten Beth, or that love. It has faded, as all things do with time, but it will never be forgotten.

Lance and Marc walk back into the room. I didn't realise how anxious I was feeling til the relief hits; I smile at Lance so widely it hurts, and he tries to smile back; sits on the chair by my bedside and takes my hand. "What's that?" he asks, and I follow his eyes to the charm in my other hand. I drop it to my chest.

"Infinity," I say, simply, and he nods as if he doesn't quite understand, but he does not mind not understanding, because if I wanted to explain, I would have.

"Where have you been?" I ask. I look at Marc, and he grins as he sits on the edge of my bed.

"Talking," he says.

"About what?" I probe.

"Secrets," Lance says. I raise my eyebrows, and he looks at Marc and then looks away. Marc shrugs but says nothing.

"Secret boy stuff," I say. "Ok, clearly I'm not wanted," I joke.

"You're always wanted," Lance says, his eyes bright and piercing. I swallow. Marcus coughs, and I force myself to look away from Lance; I see the beginnings of a smile flickering around the corners of his lips, and in his eyes, but I refuse to look, because then I will be ensnared, and I will not isolate Marc.

"I am going to procure some coffee," he says slowly, walking backwards with measured steps towards the door. "You guys want anything?"

Lance looks at me, and I shake my head. "We're good," he says, turning to Marc. Marcus nods, and then turns and leaves, closing the door softly behind him.

Lance sighs and leans forward a little, letting go of my hand and crossing his arms on the rail of the bed. "You and Marc could be friends," I say, a little randomly.

Lance smiles at me, a lopsided, sarcastic thing. "Are you setting me up with a boy?" he asks. He sounds amused.

"You need more friends," I tell him.

"I have you," he says. Not for long, we both think, but don't say.

"More than one," I tell him. "You and Marc could have heaps in common."

"We don't. I can already tell."

"Well, you don't need to like the same things to be friends. I hate yellow lollies, and you love them, but I don't let that keep us apart." Lance smiles softly, a real, gentle smile.

"We do have one thing in common," he says, leaning closer, standing up from his chair.

"What's that?" I ask.

He brushes his fingers lightly across my cheek, along my neck. "We both love someone," he says, leaning down and pressing his lips lightly to mine.

"I knew you loved Tom just as much as I do," I whisper against his lips. He laughs, startled, his breath hot and fanning across my face. I hold him in place, my hands around his neck as he looks down at me. "I never thought I'd love someone like I love you," I say, wonderingly. He is something to marvel at. An anomaly. A miracle.

"Most people would say this is a teenager thing. Raging hormones, indecision. That's most likely what your parents think."

"That's what Greg thinks. I heard him say it, the other day."

Lance's eyes are warm and bright. "Stop making me laugh," he says.

"Don't tell me what to do," I reply. He kisses me again, controlled but somehow not; his fingers tangling in my hair, his other hand bracing him, beside my shoulder on the bed. His teeth graze my lip, and I sigh as he draws back, carefully unwinding his fingers from the silver tangle of my hair.

"This isn't just hormones," he says, quietly.

"It's partly hormones," I correct, and he holds back a smile and shushes me, brushing his fingers across my lips as he sits back in his chair.

"This is something else." He looks at me seriously.

"This is different," I agree.

"I never believed in all that 'true love' crap, and I still don't. But I believe in energy," he starts. "The idea that everything started as one massive gathering of it, and it split into thousands. Into souls. And the smaller pieces split in half, and they were meant to be together. Made for each other. And they'd find each other, they always will, even after hundreds of thousands of years. They are always searching for each other. They are drawn together."

The quiet of the room is odd, after the sound of his voice, deep and quiet, filling it. "Do you really believe that?" I ask.

"No," he says. "That's a complete bunch of crap." I laugh, and his eyes spark. "But, if I did believe that, I'd think we'd be that for each other. I think we could be that."

"I think so, too," I say, softly. I twist the infinity symbol between my fingers, unused to it. When I was younger, I wore it all the time, but mum and dad were scared of it choking me in the night, so I always took it off before bed. After a while, putting it on and taking it off became tiresome, and I simply left it alone. But now, I think I'll wear it again. Even through the night. Infinity. I say it aloud.

"Infinity," Lance repeats, his voice a little rough. I hold out my hand, and he slides the rail on the bed away, scooting his chair closer. He takes my hand in both of his and looks down at it, small and frail between his strong, lean fingers.

"When are you going under?" he asks. I look at him closely, worried, but he continues to stare down at my hand.

"I have a few hours," I tell him.

"Can I come up?" he asks.

I nod. He stands and carefully lies down beside me, sliding the rail back up behind him. He settles on his back. "Help me," I say. He puts his arm around my shoulders and helps me to settle myself against him, on my side, my head on his chest. His arm is warm and strong around me.

"I hate all this, Syl," he says. He doesn't need to explain what he means: I know. "I hate all of it."

I feel the infinity symbol, cool against my skin, resting in the hollow of my throat. Lance's heart beats beneath my palm, strong and steady where his voice falters. Strong and steady, just like mine. "Me too," I say.

I close my eyes, and I listen to his breathing even out. I am not sure who falls asleep first, but there, in the hospital bed, before my operation where they will empty my lungs and explore my body for more endless faults, we both sleep. When I wake, I feel more rested than I have felt in days.