FicWad

The sun was behind her now, casting a burnt-orange glow over the crumbling sidewalks and buildings that made up downtown. It tricked her into thinking the place wasn't a complete dump. At that point, Tessa Port was seriously considering finding a ride home with anyone who would take her.

Instead, she took one last drag on her smoke, exhaled slowly, and dropped the butt to the ground. She furiously crushed the dying embers with her boot heel. No one paid her any attention, they never did. She only received a sideways glance from a prepubescent-looking high school kid. Oh, and the raccoon digging casually through the dumpster for its dinner. The rings encircling it's eyes were too similar to her own, still visible through the concealer she used.

A piece of her wig cascaded over her shoulder, the auburn highlights glinting in the paling light. She probably looked like a regular bombshell right now, making the boys a few yards away gawk. But there was no way she felt like one. She never had, not since the chemo. It was as if the disease itself had stripped her of anything and everything beautiful. And that was something not even the best drugs could cure.

Not that it mattered. Not that anything mattered. It didn't matter that she was so sick, she was missing a full year of college. No, of course it didn't. Everyone said it just mattered that she was alive. She, on the other hand, was currently wondering what she had to live for. What future did she have to look forward to? More agonizing tests and procedures, hair loss, the sterile smell of operating rooms and doctors' offices? The answer, she realized, was just entirely elusive. No wonder no one remotely sane ever figured anything important out.

The hammering of a bass inside the club left the thought dangling in her head like an unfinished stitch. Pushing herself off of the faded red brick of the building, Tessa brushed at her clothing nervously. She made her way to the club's entrance to purchase what she hoped would be a cheap ticket.

The noise she made clearing her throat sounded somewhat like the roar of the train that passed by her window every night. She pulled out her wallet, in search of a twenty.

She parted her lips. "I'd like to buy--"

"You're bi?" came from a curiously pretty girl behind the ticket counter, her hands obnoxiously on her hips. Something in her voice made Tessa roll her eyes. This chick didn't look hard of hearing.

"No. I said 'I'd like to buy a ticket.' Please."

"Oh, sorry. That'll be fifteen." The other girl's green eyes found her own brown ones. "Not that it would've mattered."

Tessa faltered for a second, then took the ticket from the girl's outstretched hand. A grin playing on her lips, she nodded. "See ya inside then."

Maybe it wasn't something that she had to look forward to that would make her life worthwhile, Tessa realized. No, maybe it was the moments that seemed too rare to even be possible. Things like a sunset or a stranger. Instead of wasting time searching for something to live for, maybe she should just start living.

Making her way towards the stage, she thought about what the other girl had said, pausing slightly. It was true, there were some things in life that mattered, if only because they made up who you were as a person.

But nothing mattered so much that it should bar you from other people, or from yourself. Tessa anchored the feeling the realization gave her into her gut. It was like tying the knot off on that stitch she had left waiting in her head.