by
SalsaCarlion
@ Thursday, 12. Jul, 2007 - 07:45:24 pm
Ok. This is probably going to be a very angsty post. But I need to get some shizzle off my internet chest.
The september before last I was in ottakers (now waterstones) and saw an advertisement for a children's book group. Of course, being the book worm I was i thought it'd be really cool. and it was, there were lots of hyper children bouncing around with 2 hyper adults. One was person running the bookgroup, Jaime. And another women who worked in the shop. She looked exactly like moaning mertle. At the time I didn't know her name, so I referred to her as mertle.
About a month later we do the book, Percy Jackson and the olympians, now this is a fantastic book. It turned out to be Mertles favourite book of all time. And I was in the shop one day and she started chatting to me about it. And she mentioned a forum dedicated to the books. So being a kid with no social life and a love for the internet I joined up straight away and was happily chatting away to them all. Soon after the author of the book came to our shop to promote his new book, and Mertle was dressed up as a Greek goddess. In glasses.
So after that our friendship blossomed. Her username on the forums was Starlightdreamer, and everyone caled her star for short. I, being the pink obsessed cutesy freak, called her Starywary.
But she soon started hating that, so it was just plain Star.
I had developed a friendship with another member of the book group, a boy named Phillip, who was also a member of the forums. I called him Pip because it annoyed him. Kids eh?
So me Pip and Star would go out and have random fun together. But Pip started becoming busy with his girlfriend, so me and Star started going round on our own. I started to really look up to her. I mean, she was awesome, she was a geek freak, uber hyper and really nice. And she was MY friend. I guess part of me found it cool that a 22 year old was friends with me. I was 13 at the time. Now 14.
I soon found out she had cancer. That hit me. Hard. She was always so cheerful and wonderful. How could it happen to her?
I cried. Lots. But I got on, and we were tighter then ever. For her birthday she flew over to America to see some really close friends of hers she made through the forums. One of them was a man named Topher, who was kind of like her hero. One of them was a man named Tommy. A man she fell in love with. A whom fell in love with her.
She came back, and we became even closer friends. I only went round to her house once though. We generally hung out in town. she moved house shortly after anyways.
I started looking at her like an older sister. I hated seeing her sick. I'd see her throw up blood and nearly be in tears.
She introduced me to another forum for my favourite book series. Cherub. Obviously I got addicted. And always had mini lil arguments with her. Which I enjoyed.
I never got to see her in hospital, she always said she hated people seeing her in that way.
One time I was at pips house, and we had just put monopoly away. And we ended up tickling each other and rolling around on the floor. I ended up pinning him and our faces were so close. And I leaned in, and kissed him. I'll never forget that kiss. It was just amazing. We stayed that way for what seemed like a couple of minutes but then my phone rang and I was half an hour late for my mum to pick me up. He soon dumped his girlfriend and we started going out.
About 4 months ago star texted me to tell me to bring my camera to book group and that she needed to talk to me and pip. I was scared. Really scared. I took the camera and we got some really nice pictures
[img]http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w90/SalsaCarlion/2007-04-05029.jpg[/img]
She bought that top that day. Notice it says lil miss star?
So, after bookgroup, we walked together, me pip and her, in silence. Then she said "Ok, guys. The doters say I've got a month to live". I felt dead inside. My stomach just dropped out my butt. But I have one of those nervous smile things, so that's what I did, I smiled. And we just went on talk about random stuff.
After about 10 minutes it hit me I guess. I started breathing really fast, and she gathered me up into a hug and wispered "I know, it's ok to cry" while I shook with uncontrollable sobs. She had to leave soon after to talk to someone else about it.
I hung onto pip and nearly went into hysterics. I couldn't handle it. I needed her. I wasn't exactly the most popular person. She was the friend that I'd yearned for, the kind you see on disney programmes. Loyal, funny and love you no matter what.
That was a depressing month. I spent as much time as I could with pip, but star was busy. One day, I had organised meeting up with pip and I was waiting outside his house for him. He walked up to me looking solemn he kept about 3 feet away from me. And mumbled "Look, sally, I duuno"
"what?" I ask, a bit scared
"the thing with Star" he shakes his head " i think we should, you know, just be book sharing buddies"
Ouch. Seriously, ouch. I needed him. I needed him more then ever. I started to cry. He led me inside and I cried into his sofa cushions. My mum picked me up soon after. I was quite angry at him. I mean, how dare he abandon me when I needed him most?
I got to see her one last time. We had a frescato in Costa coffe and chatted. She looked so frail. So tired. She couldn't walk very far without taking a break.
3 weeks later, I was pming with Topher (the guy in america, Stars hero. Remember?) and I was expressing how sad I was about her dying. The first line to his reply was "You talk as though you don't know she passed"
No. I reread it so many times to try and make it not true. She was gone. My big sister. My friend. My idol. Was gone.
I picked up the phone and called Topher (he had sent me his email in a letter a while back), I sobbed my heart out to him because there was no noe else. Apparently she had written an email before she died, and has asked her cousin to send it when she died. This was what it said.
but at least rachel kept her word and used my email acount to send this to you.
I love all of you and over the last year youve all made such a diffrence to my life.
Blue tridey crew continue the good work with percy ideas and theorys be good to each other walker sasha zoe natalie tess sally you kids are the greatest continue to be so. Chritine thanks for such an amazing site
ceci becky anne you three are amazing and the real strenght behind everything so thank you
Rick Topher Tommy yor my heroes my strenght and so much more saying by to you is the hardest thing i have to do. "goodbye though it hurts in your heart is the o nly way for destiny. but dont you cry true love never dies" plus leprcauns are always fun to spend time with
Love forever be watching from the stars the lost huntress Toni Davis
It was titled "if you're reading this then I'm sorry." My name is Sally by the way.
She had died on the 26th of april.
I tried my best to find out about her funeral, I really wanted to pay my respects. But no one really knew her family. The people at waterstones were frustrated as well, they had known her and wanted to go. But no one could find anything out.
The people in america held a memorial service. I waited until 2 in the morning to call them and listen to extracts from the diary she'd sent them. It was more of a celebration of her life.
But then a woman called Sarah joined our forums, the ones dedicated to the books Star was obsessed with. She left a comment saying how much star had loved us. It was her cousin. I pmed her to ask about the funeral. Apparently it was a family only thing in west ham. Which is in greater london. And star had lived in cornwall. I was so pissed off. Star didn't get on with her family, in no way was it fair they all had the chance to say goodbye and none of her friends didn't. I never said it to Sarah though. That would be disrespectful. So I pmed Topher with my frustrations. He pmed me back saying, "call me immediately"
So I did. I started complaining about it and this is how it went
"Sally. Sally, listen"
"Yeah?"
"Ok, look, do you remember that she would never let you visit her in hospital?"
"yeah?" What was he getting at?
"You wanna know why?" he didn't give me time to answer. "Star isn't dead sally" I blinked. Lots. I thought, I bet he's going to say she'll live on in our hearts or something corny like that, which is cruel.
"W-What?" was my reply.
He went onto explain that he had checked the obituaries all over Britain. She wasn't in them. You have to file a death certificate 5 days after the death. It was 6 days after the death. There was no death certificate.
Someone who's children were friends with Star read on Rick Riodens blog(the author of Stars favourite books, the third in the series was actually dedicated to her and topher). And then saw her working in mcdonalds. Apparently she had gone up to her and said "What are you doing? people are grieving for you. What do you think you're doing?" Stars reply was something like-
"go away, I just wanted to die in peace, leave me alone" then started ignoring her.
The woman pmed Topher. I guess you would've expected me to not believe it. But I did. I can't explain why. But I did. The next day was book group. Where Jaime(the person who ran book group) was going to announce her death. I couldn't let that happen if she wasn't dead.
So I decided that I was going to go into waterstones instead of school. Even though I had never been the most well behaved student, I had never skipped school. But it was necessary. I put a change of clothes in my bag and got up extra early to put lots of make up on. The last thing i needed was to be stopped for skipping.
so I went into school, went to the toilets, changed and walked out of school. I was wearing a really short skirt and dolly shoes. It was hot. My thighs got really chapped and my feet bled. But I made it to waterstones, I was hoping Jaime would be at the children's desk but he wasn't. Jennie was there instead. I told her what I knew. I could tell she didn't fully believe me. But she took me upstairs and made me explain it for Clair as well. We then called Nic, who was Stars closest friend at waterstones. I told her my suspicions and she was silent for a moment, then said
"nothing would surprise me with Toni(stars real name)"
A bit later Clair phoned up the Mcdonalds star was supposedly working at and asked if she was there, apparently the persons reply was
"No, she's not here at the moment but she's next working on saterday" When Clair told me that I guess something snapped. I'm not sure weather it was hysterics or hyperventilating, I just couldn't breath. I was crying so much. It all became so real.
She rang them back and said that there was a rumour going round that she had died, and she was worried, the Mcdonalds person replied "No, she's not dead, she's about to start her second bought of chemo" Jesus christ. It was all getting a bit scary. We managed to get her home number from them (I didn't have it because she moved, I only had her mobile, and we weren't sure she would still answer it), we called it, it didn't work. It was a fake number. That scared me. That scared me a lot.
They called Jaime in and told him about it, he managed to take my mind off it a lil. Clair then said to me
"Now, Sally," she rubbed her mouth "you don't think this Topher guy could've had anything to do with it do you?" Oh god. No. He couldn't have. No way. I shrunk back.
"No. Defiantly not." It scared me a lil though. I know he had nothing to do with it, but I mean, I guess my trust was all out of whack.
I went back to school. My mum had to pick me up to take me back to waterstones to go to bookgroup
So I nearly fainted walking back. I was wearing a whooly zip up jumper on a hot day. And I hadn't drunken anything all day. Probably quite silly. I was about 5 minutes late and my friend daniel who I go to book group with was leaning into the driving seat window and saying "No, I didn't see her in english" I rushed over
"HI! Sorry I'm late!" I muttered to Daniel so My mum wouldn't hear, "I've been in school all day" he didn't question me.
I went to bookgroup. I didn't tell anyone, I didn't even tell pip.
That night I called Star. I asked her why she had done it. she said, well mumbled " I didn't want you guys to worry anymore" which was bullshit. She wouldn't have said to she people of mcdonalds she was starting her second bought of chemo if she had. Because she had that ages ago. I hung up on her.
I cried for a hour. Then went down stairs. And told my mum. I cried into her shoulder, she cried too.
It was my SATs the next week. I spent all the parts of the days without exams crying in the room for kids who don't go to lessons.
It still hurts. I remember about a week ago I was upset and my friend asked me "what's wrong?" I replied that I was thinking about Star. She look confused and said "I though you were over that"
I guess teenagers aren't very empathetic. I dunno. Maybe it's just her. But it still hurts.
Yeah, ok I admit. I went to pieces a lil after it happened. But it's understandable right? I mean, I no longer had contact with my two best friends and it turned out one had lied to me from day one. I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it cept for Topher and my mum. It's not something people really understand. And i guess it didn't help that seeing as my two best friends were gone, I felt completely alone.
I'm closing the wound, I'm talking to pip on msn again (after 4 months of not talking) but I haven't herd anything from Toni. I guess closure would be good, like if she had cancer or if she was just a COMPLETE phyco.
I had a good summer all things considering. Met up with friends quite often, baked. Did exercise. I'm moving on. But it'll take time.