Teach Me to Please | Please Me #1 - Chapter 26: Chapter 26

When you walk into a hospital with a large bag full of things that clatter, it's safe to say people give you looks. Working in that stupid storage room was the devil of hell and that bitchy woman at the front desk never failed to make some sort of annoying remark.
"This is your own fault."
"You should think about what you did."
"If you can't pay the time, don't do the crime."
I considered snapping back but the first time I did that got me with the ridiculously large stack of papers that never failed to make a reappearance every time I went to that room.
I didn't get dinner at the refectory this time though, but instead managed to sneak my way to the exact place I wanted to be. Upstairs. Room 8.
I didn't know what this place was for but all I could say was that these rooms were built to be lived in. They weren't the classic, small, sterile, plain white rooms, but instead the beds had real duvets covers on and the walls on each different room were plastered with personalised designs such as posters or lights, even plants.
I found my way to Room 8 and self-consciously knocked on the door, holding the bag close to my body.
"Come in!" a voice chirped behind it. I nervously gulped. I could be in serious trouble for this. But what was life without a little trouble? I pushed the door open to reveal to the room. The walls had shelves stacked with cards and flowers but the odd souvenirs from random countries stood out too. There were posters of singers like Selena Gomez, Lana Del Rey, and Halsey stuck to the walls as well as sketched pictures of frogs and rabbits for some unknown reason. However, laying there on the bed with a light blue duvet cover with pictures of puffy clouds and delicate butterflies on them, was exactly who I wanted to see.
She was colouring in a colouring book, the picture of a bird, before she looked up and smiled brightly, excited to see me.
"Sienna!" she exclaimed and hopped off the bed, running over to her desk to put the drawing down and rushed over to me before flinging her arms around my neck. I was taken aback at the sudden embrace but didn't mind it.
"You came!" she pulled away, still smiling like mad. I had met this girl a matter of two times and she was already treating me like a friend. "What's in the bag?" she then looked down and furrowed her brows at the huge, clunky tote bag weighing down my shoulder.
I awkwardly coughed and pulled the bag off my shoulder. "You said the hospital staff refuse to buy you new paints." I walked to her bed and placed the bag down, I pulled down the top to reveal several colourful paints, vibrant with shimmer blues and pinks, fluorescent greens and yellows, and glossy purples and reds. I watched as her eyes lit up and a little squeal left her lips.
"OMG!" she jumped up and down and rushed over. Her eyes flickered around like flames dancing between each vivid emulsion.
"They're not technically new, but they're not so old that you can't use them –"
"Thank you!" she cut me off and threw her arms around me once more. This girl was definitely a hugger. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she squeezed me tightly and shook me around. She was tiny but had the strength of a freaking polar bear.
It's always the small ones who are the most vicious, aren't they?
"Can't.... breath..." I choked out as she squeezed me so tight, she was cutting my air supply. This girl was bony too and the skinny bones of her fingers clawed into the back of my neck.
"Sorry!" she chirped. "It's just.... It's been so long since a friend gave me a gift and... and..." she was she excited she couldn't finish her own sentence. Was this girl on crack or something?
"Friend?" I questioned. Wow, slightly mean, Sienna. What?! I had met this girl twice!
She turned to look at me and smiled, "Well yeah. I mean, I don't really have a lot of friends – actually none for that matter unless you count the old lady downstairs who gives me the almonds the nurses try to get her to eat – so I'd consider us friends."
How long had she been in hospital? Better yet why was she in hospital? I couldn't physically see anything wrong with her. There were no tube hanging from her, she wasn't sickly pale. All she wore was a pair of grey leggings and an oversized hoodie with daisies on. She looked... fine.
I wanted to ask, I really did, but it felt wrong. Especially since she was calling me friend. What is it with me becoming everyone's friend at the moment?
"What's your name?" I had to ask. Last time her name was Henrietta, but she said she changed her name. I wanted to know her real one.
"Today my names Poppy. Like the flower. They're my favourite – also daisies," she gestured to her hoodie. "But poppies are a bit more of my favourite if I'm being honest."
"No." I shook my head. "Your real name."
"Poppy." She replied again.
"No," I shook my head once more, slightly frustrated. "I mean like the name on your birth certificate."
Poppy – whatever the hell her name was- sighed. "Where's the fun in that? A name is just something you call someone by, why can't I be called a different name every day?" she had a point. A weird point but, nonetheless, a point.
I gave in and witnesses Poppy take the paints out the bag and stack them onto her desk. She pulled out a sketchbook from under her bed and turned back to face me.
"D'you want to paint?"
I looked between her and the book then at the paints. "Right now?"
"Yeah." She nodded.
"Erm sure." Nothing could go wrong with painting, right? Besides, it was painting or sitting down in the refectory eating their weird food.
But you don't really know this girl.
We're in a hospital and my week isn't going the best. This Poppy girl gave out an aura which made you forget about all your troubles and that was something I needed at the moment.
After half an hour or so, Poppy laid on her bed, painting as I sat in one of the chairs. I was safe to say I was a shit painter but hey, it was a lot more enjoyable than I thought. So far, my flower was looking like a mushroom but that didn't matter. There was nothing wrong with mushrooms.
"So, Sienna." Poppy then spoke. "What's your story?"
I snorted a laugh, "My story? Isn't that something said in a fanfic or something?"
She laughed and shrugged. "I guess so, but who am I to judge?"
I shook my head with a smile and dipped my brush into green paint. "Well... you could say I'm... popular in school."
"Like Regina George?"
"Kind of but I'd rather not be hit by a bus in the near future."
Poppy chuckled at that.
"I don't know. I guess you could say that I've always wanted to be those mean girls in those movies."
"That's fair. I wanted to become a fish after watching Finding Nemo which – by the way – is the best film in all cinematic history – but go on."
I chuckled and dipped my brush into the red paint. I thought for a few minutes about what I wanted to say. I felt like I could say so much to this girl, reveal all my secrets and I somehow knew she wouldn't tell a soul. She had that way about her that made you want to tell her everything and anything.
"D'you ever feel like you've made this version of yourself that everyone knows, and it's gotten you so far, but then one day it's the thing that's dragging you down?"
Poppy clicked her tongue and hummed. I could only see the outline of what she was drawing, and it looked like meadow in the middle of nowhere. It seemed so peaceful. It seemed so trustworthy. "Trust me, you're talking to the right girl."
I was glad someone could feel what I felt. I was popular, loved to party, loved to be reckless and mess around, and there wasn't anything wrong with that, but now it was the one thing that was dragging me down and this whole persona I was following that used to be the only power I had, now as my biggest weakness.
"Sometimes I feel trapped." I confessed. "It feels so stupid to complain. I'm the popular girl with the designer clothes, tonnes of friends, a gorgeous ex-boyfriend. I can get away with so much, but at the same time I feel so locked into what people expect me to be that I feel like I've lost myself along the way."
"And who were you before that girl came along?" that was a good question. Who was I then? I could barely remember. My silence did all the talking. "You strike me as someone who has a lot more to them than they admit. You're a girl with secrets, Sienna. You're scared to tell the true — let people in."
Damn, that hit like a tonne of bricks. I mean, she wasn't wrong. I did have secrets. Tonnes of them. So many they could change the way people viewed me within seconds. However, that was my problem. Even though I felt trapped in who I was now, being someone else – God forbid being myself – was what more of a terrifying prospect.
Roman once said he could see what I was trying to hide and that he wasn't afraid of it. But he didn't know exactly what I was trying to hide and no matter how brave he thought he was, I'd be different in his eyes if he knew.
I wondered what he was doing now. I wondered if he was doing homework or playing that video game always on his computer. What was it? The Legend of Gargoyle. I don't even know how the hell I remembered that. There were plenty of things I remembered about him, some of the things he hadn't even told me himself, I just picked up on them. It was weird because my mind had never been like that with anyone before. I couldn't help but wonder why.
"What about you?" I changed the subject.
"What about me?" she cocked her head to the side.
"Well, what's your story?" I mockingly asked the question.
She laughed and scrunched her nose as she focused on her painting. "You mean how did I end up in here?"
"I –"
"No, it's fine. This isn't a psych ward if that's what you're wondering, I'm just naturally this weird." I laughed and she glimmered a smile. "I'm sick." She then said.
"You don't seem sick." The was a bit of a stupid comment, Sienna. Luckily, she didn't seem to take it personally.
"My sickness, it's not... well, it's different to most, but it's terminal."
I froze from painting anymore. Terminal? I'd only heard that word a few times in my life and it was mainly watching 'The Fault in Our Stars'. "What d'you mean by 'terminal'?"
I watched as Poppy sighed and crossed her legs in the air. "There's a fifty percent chance of full survival and it's become pretty clear that I'm not in that fifty percent."
"And how d'you know that?"
"Because I'm not getting any better."
I suddenly felt a tinge of sadness pain my chest. I didn't know how old she was, but she was definitely younger than me and the idea of being so young and knowing they didn't have much time left seemed heart-breaking. Despite that, I looked at her and saw no heartbreak or sorrow, not even a sense of fear in her demeanour, and I realised, she wasn't scared of it.
"What about your family?" she must have family, but I didn't see any pictures of them anywhere in her room.
She frowned and looked back down at her painting. "They visit. Not as often though."
I couldn't help but ask, "Why's that?"
"They're scared of it." She answered. "My illness. But I think they're more scared of that fact I'm not scared of it, and what do you do when you're scared of something? You avoid it."
"That's horrible." I muttered but she shook her head to disagree.
"I think it's what happens when you love someone too much. My dad took it the worst out of everyone. He's used to saving people and so the fact he can't save his own daughter makes him feel guilty. He wants to fix me."
"And can you be fixed?" I focused back on my painting, brushing the pink and red colours across the petals of my flower. It was looking more flower-ish now.
Poppy looked back at me and furrowed her eyebrows. "No because I don't think I'm broken. People look at the sick girl and think 'oh, there's a sick girl', they don't think 'oh, she looks happy' or 'oh, I like her sweater' or 'oh, I wonder if she had a Hunger Games obsession when she was eleven' – which I did, by the way." She sighed and looked back at her painting. "What I'm saying is, people think sick people are broken, especially character-wise. They act like being sick is a personality trait. Sometimes I wish my dad would take me to an art museum or watch a movie with me, even paint like we are right now. But no. It's all about fixing me and he can't do it and it frustrates him. It frustrates everyone. I'm not a sickness, I'm a person, a happy person. However, no one cares enough to see it."
"I do." I spoke up. "I see it."
She looked my way, slightly surprised but let a smile shimmer on her lips and creep up to her shining eyes.
She hopped off the bed and ripped the paper she was painting on off the pad. She then walked over and handed it to me.
It was gorgeous to say the least. A stunning meadow filled with soft, vibrant flowers and a sky that swirls in all colours of mesmerising blue with sweet, puffy clouds. In the distance I could see a small cottage flowing with warmth and glowing with light.
"Woah." I gasped as my eyes studied every detail. "It's amazing."
"Thanks." I could tell she found compliments awkward as she blushed a little. "It's yours."
I stilled. "It's... mine?" she was giving it to me?
"Yep." She popped the 'p'. "You'll take mine and I'll take yours. It's a pretty mushroom."
"It's a flower." I protested.
"Oh." She studied it, squinting her eyes. "I thought the colours were an artistic choice." I laughed and shook my head.
"Thank you."
She smiled once again. A smile that reached her full expression and lit up her eyes like thousands of beaming fireflies. "You're welcome."