Living on Borrowed Time Read online

  Living on Borrowed Time

  Copyright 2017 Samie Sands

  Published by Samie Sands at Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Epilogue

  About Samie Sands

  ONE

  I shouldn’t be here.

  No, not here, in the hot, sweaty kitchen of this rundown diner—although, to be honest, I highly doubt I should be here either.

  No, I shouldn’t be alive.

  I was supposed to die eighteen months ago. That was supposed to be it for me.

  I was ill for a very long time, so getting that final diagnosis of six months to go was as reliving as it was devastating. To be honest, my emotions about it were completely mixed. I didn’t want to die necessarily—not that I think anyone does really—but I was so sick of the constant round of doctors, hospitals, tubes, pills, sickness…it was exhausting, and the thought of escaping that was something of a relief.

  I just wanted an end to it.

  Of course, not everyone felt the same. At least, not at first, but once my family and friends got used to the idea that I was dying, that I was going to be relieved of my suffering, they were intent on making my final months amazing, and boy did they succeed! I went travelling, I had parties, I did everything that was on my bucket list—except bungee jumping. I bottled that at the last second. It was fabulous, a real whirlwind of fun and excitement. Of course, there was the odd interruption with my health, but somehow we managed to work past that. Sure, we were all acutely aware of where it was heading but it didn’t taint the mood. Not really.

  “Lara what are you doing just standing there? I pressed the bell about five minutes ago…these burgers aren’t going to take themselves to table twelve.” The grumpy head chef, Alfie yelled at me. He didn’t care about my internal struggle. He had no idea what it was like to know that you should be dead. All he cared about was getting this disgusting, fatty food out as quickly as possible so he could return home, to his sad middle-aged man ‘bachelor pad’ to smoke and drink his wages away.

  I snatched the plates out of his hand and stalked moodily over to the table, where a couple were sat there smiling intently at each other. This could have been their first date, or they could have been married for years—that wasn’t what I noticed. It was the light that was shining in their eyes, as they gazed at one another. Happiness. An emotion I couldn’t even begin to understand anymore.

  I shoved the food on the table in front of them, asking them if there was anything else they needed in the flat, monotone sound that had somehow become my voice. They didn’t even acknowledge my existence, they simply waved me away. I was nothing to them, just as I was nothing to everybody.

  I’d been that way for a very long time now.

  Once my deadline had passed, and the high started to wear off, I wondered what was happening, why I was still alive. Confused, I took myself to the doctors and after a whole range of invasive tests, they told me something unexpected, something miraculous—that I was actually starting to get better. Against all odds, I was somehow surviving.

  I felt numb as he said those words. I know he expected me to celebrate, to be happy with the news that I would get to live longer, but I wasn’t. I’d gotten so used to the idea that I was going to die. I’d even adjusted to it, become comfortable with it, that to hear otherwise was utterly overwhelming. I had become so used to living in the moment, not worrying about the future because I was never going to have one, that with a long, black emptiness stretching out in front of me, I felt terrified.

  What was I supposed to do? I had no future, no dreams, no plans. I had no idea where I was supposed to go next, how could I? How was I supposed to craft a new beginning out of zilch? It seemed like a ridiculously impossible task, that I couldn’t even begin to overcome.

  Then again, I still had no prospects, no real education, no interests, no desires…nothing, and I no longer had any excuse for that. A year and a half had passed. There was so much that I could have done with that time, but I hadn’t.

  I’d done absolutely nothing with it, I’d merely existed.

  Every day it hit me how I would have been better off dead. I might as well have died, because since my positive diagnosis I was just living on autopilot, going through the motions aimlessly.

  My friends and family couldn’t understand how I just seemed empty after I got the good news, and as I continued to improve, to get better, they got more and more frustrated by my increasingly negative attitude. One-by-one they became annoyed by me. I did something to piss all of them off and now, none of them bother with me anymore.

  Not that I bother with them either. I feel like too much has passed; there’s too much negative water under the bridge to even think about repairing those fractured relationships.

  When my mum eventually asked me to move out because I was putting too much pressure on everyone else in the family, I left quickly and got an apartment in the nearby city. I couldn’t stay in that little, suffocating town anymore, where everyone knew absolutely everything about me. I had no excuse to remain there anyway; it didn’t hold anything for me anymore, except for memories and bad feeling. I desired to be anonymous so I could wallow in my own misery in peace, without anyone trying to cheer me up. I didn’t want anyone else to feel responsible for my own happiness, when it was so clear that nothing could be done about it.

  So I upped and left, without even glancing backwards.

  I got everything that I ever wanted—a tiny, albeit grotty apartment that was just for me, a job in a diner where no one bothers to try and find out more about my life, and no one to speak to. Perfect.

  Yet, of course, I still wasn’t happy.

  “Got much planned over the weekend? You have tomorrow night off, don’t you?” Amy, the eighteen-year-old waitress, who was constantly chewing gum and nosing about in other people’s business, asked me in her typical over-the-top fashion.

  She didn’t care about me of course, not at all. To her I was just another loser waitress, but she always tried to rile me up for some reason, and she quickly discovered that my non-social life was a sore point for me. I don’t know whether I was just a game to her, if she really wanted to piss me off, or if she just wanted to make herself feel better by commenting on my sad existence. Either way, it drove me crazy.

  “I dunno…not really.” I kept my eyes fixated on the floor as I spoke, praying that she would take the hint and leave me alone.


  “Why are you so boring? You never seem to do anything!” She laughed, genuinely thinking she was joking.

  I looked up and smiled blandly at her, hoping that she would assume I took the joke in light humour, but the look she was giving me suggested that she might just be able to see the vulnerable weakling behind the cold exterior mask I gave myself.

  The thought of anyone seeing any of the real me filled me with an intense fear that gripped tightly onto my heart, so I instinctively turned away from her, trying to discretely wipe the frustrated tears from my eyes before they fell onto my cheeks.

  Idiot! I thought to myself. What the hell are you doing?

  Hiding emotion was something I thought I’d become particularly good at, but with one look, Amy—a girl I barely knew—had managed to revert me back into a blubbering mess.

  “I’m going out to that new club tomorrow night with a group of friends. Do you…would you maybe want to come?” She asked, with a kindness to her tone that I hadn’t ever noticed before.

  Pity. It had to be.

  Normally, I would have shot her down right away. Even the thought of going to a club filled me with fear—the drinking, the dancing, the socialising…it all felt a little too much for some like me. I’d never really done anything like that before, and it was intimidating as hell. Even at all the parties that had been held for me, I’d avoided alcohol due to the medication, I’d been too tired for dancing, and socialising hadn’t been too much of an issue because it was with people I’d known my whole life. Plus, my best friend Daphne had always been there to protect me if things got too much.

  Daphne.

  I instantly forced myself to shake the image of her from my mind, in the way I always did when she cropped up. Daphne was a no-go now, there was no point in even giving her a seconds thought. I didn’t want to upset myself over nothing.

  “Sure.” I eventually replied, distractedly. I wasn’t really thinking about my answer, I just wanted the conversation done, and it was a shortcut way to achieve that.

  “Oh…” Amy sounded incredibly shocked—understandably so. “Okay cool. We’re meeting up at about eight-ish so…” She looked at me strangely, as if she was wondering what the hell was going through my mind. “I’ll see you there I guess.”

  As she wandered off, a sinking feeling set in. Why the hell had I agreed to that? I didn’t want to go out to a club! Keeping my existence simple and straightforward was the only way I managed to get through everyday life. Now, I’d just agreed to something that threatened to send me into an anxiety meltdown, just to shut her up.

  I was an idiot!

  No, I would have to phone Amy tomorrow with a plausible excuse. I needed to get out of going. Disrupting my routine with something so terrifying could only have negative results.

  TWO

  As I walked home from work in the early hours of the morning, activity burst loudly all around me. Having lived in such a small town my whole life, it never ceased to amaze me how busy the city always was—even at a time like this, when it really should all be peaceful. The noise was annoying, it infiltrated my brain, but in a weird way it also blocked everything else out. If I was concentrating on the constant humming, then I couldn’t think. When I started to think, it could quickly get dangerous. My brain would take me to the places that I actively tried to avoid, the ones that threatened to bring on the all-encompassing depression that I spent my time trying to fight against.

  I climbed up the endless stairs of my apartment building, my legs feeling like I’d been working for forty hours, rather than nine. I still got tired and achy from time to time, but it was nothing compared to the way I’d been before. That was the one real positive of not dying—at least all the side effects from being sick had virtually gone. I wouldn’t have been able to cope if I still had the soul destroying chronic pain.

  As I pushed the door open to my home, I let out a sigh—not so much one of relief. It was more an escape of air from a breath that I couldn’t quite seem to stop holding.

  What a fucking mess.

  Not just the apartment—although it certainly wasn’t as tidy as I’d like it—more my life. Even the thought of having to ring Amy tomorrow was overwhelming. I was on the edge of my capability as it was, and adding that one small task felt like too much.

  It was ridiculous. I must have been the least able-to-function adult possible.

  I lay down in my bed, just staring at the small crack in the ceiling, wondering if there was any chance that it could be getting bigger. If it was getting larger, did that mean the whole ceiling might come crashing down at any moment? If so, would that kill me, or would I just end up hurt?

  I couldn’t recall the last time I properly slept. Most of the time I just lay there, staring at that same crack, worrying about it, thinking about it, concentrating on it so hard that I didn’t have to think about anything else. Every so often, a little memory would shake through—the trip to Spain, the final party, skinny dipping in the freezing cold ocean…just because—and I had to turn over onto my side, just to force them away. Reminiscing, remembering the past, it always brought a horrible black hole of sadness with it.

  I didn’t want to think about the old me, I didn’t deserve to. When I was going to die, I was more alive than I’d been, and that cut me deep. Now that my whole future stretched out in front of me, I had no idea what to do with it, so I didn’t do anything. I was cold, numb, alone, and I didn’t even care enough to change.

  What people couldn’t understand was that I knew how to die. I understood that. It was living I still couldn’t wrap my head around.

  For a second, I wondered what would’ve happened if I’d had a normal life that wasn’t plagued by illness. Would I be at university, would I be an artist, would I be a banker? I just had no idea. By the time it had come to making that sort of decision, my future was already in jeopardy, and what I was left with now was a whole lot of nothingness.

  I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, calling out for the sweet release of sleep—at least in my dreams I could be someone, something. I didn’t have to continually be this empty, pathetic shell of a person. But of course, my mind was whirring too rapidly to even consider switching off. Sleep had never come easy for me, and it got worse the more exhausted I became.

  Everything about this existence was exhausting.

  ***

  As the light started to shine through my curtains, and my eyes flickered open, I quickly realised that I must have fallen asleep at some point—probably on and off throughout the dark hours. My head pounded, my body ached, and nausea swam around in my stomach, making me want to throw up.

  This was how I woke up every single day.

  Since my positive diagnosis, I hadn’t woken up in a happy, carefree mood, even once. I always started the day feeling like utter crap. And the belly full of fear—that was always there too. That didn’t leave me either, it stuck with me throughout the entire day, clinging to me like a bad smell. I didn’t even know what exactly it was making me anxious, so to make it even worse there was no reassurance, nothing I could do to cure it. I just had to accept it I suppose, as a part of who I had become.

  I padded across the floor, straight from my bedroom and into the kitchen. I switched the kettle on and poured myself some cereal, as if on autopilot. The same routine I had every single day. Then, as always, I crunched the cornflakes, feeling the spike as they slid down my throat. I didn’t even taste what I was eating, I never did. I just ate it out of habit, to keep myself going. Even when hunger growled fiercely behind my ribs I never craved anything, I never felt an incessant need for anything in particular.

  I just ate to stay alive, to keep this empty little life going.

  My phone bleeped shrilly, alerting me to a notification from Facebook, but I resolutely ignored it. I’ve had my social media account from before and even though I never paid it any attention, I still had it activated. Just in case.

  Being totally honest, I did check it now and again when I was feeli
ng particularly weak, and I wanted a glimpse of back home, but it always just ended up making me feel gut-wrenchingly awful to see all my family and my old friends moving on without me. It wasn’t exactly like I expected them to freeze-frame their lives because I made the unexpected choice to leave my home town, but it still hurt to see how unnecessary I was.

  If I’d been dead, things like that couldn’t affect me. Things would be exactly the same for them, but it wouldn’t scar me internally, I wouldn’t have to witness it. They could move on, without my shadow looming in the background.

  It bleeped again, the noise feeling louder than it really was in my fragile mind, so I picked up the phone to turn off the Wi-Fi. Being reminded of my pointless existence was not what I needed at that moment. But that was when I noticed, it wasn’t an update from someone from my past, but a friend request from someone from this life.

  Amy Acton.

  Curiosity got the better of me, and without really thinking about it, I accepted, taking a few moments to read her status updates and see her most recent photos. I couldn’t help but wonder how someone managed to look so damn glamorous all the time, even when she’d clearly had a few to drink. I may not have had much time for the girl, but looking at her life online, it was clear to see that she really knew how to have a good time. In every photo, every update, she was happy, enjoying herself, living life to the full.

  As if she had no idea what true misery looked like.

  Tears unwittingly filled my eyes, and started to fall, wetting my cheeks as they dropped. I wrapped my arms tightly around my body, as if I was trying to hold myself together, as the emotion overcame me. I felt pathetic, useless, terrified, and sad all at once—a horrific combination. With the jealousy added in, for the first time in a very long time I felt something new. The desire to change.