The girl lies asleep in the bed, her skin looking an off-white. She slowly, semi-wakes up. The starched hospital sheets itch but she does not dare to move. She stays there. Her head spinning. Her heart thumping against her ribcage like the drum line in a punk album.

She feels like she wants to throw up and she wants to press the button to call a nurse. She considers this for a brief second, before realizing that pressing the nurses’ button would require moving. Moving would increase the dizziness. Moving would increase the nausea. She calculates in her head that it is best to stay still and not press the button.

The curse is chronic illness at its worst. A flare up. A raging 20-foot bushfire compared to the grass fires she usually dealt with. The diagnosis was something she could barely pronounce and doctors could barely understand. They say time will fix her and it will “go away on its own.” That’s fine for them as they go home at the end of every day, she is dealing with it 24/7. An adolescence on pause while her friends continue their youthful existence filled with algebra homework, kisses, and sleepovers.

On the vinyl hospital table, her life creeps up on her every time she falls asleep. Life doesn’t wait for you. Life is like a train and you can either jump on the moving train or watch it crush you. Her table is filled with catch-up schoolwork she is behind on, get-well notes from classmates that she hasn’t read, and texts on her phone that she hasn’t responded to.

Her phone beeps again. Another text. A boy. The boy. The girl hears the ringtone, customized so she knows every time he texts her without looking at the phone. Her ears prick up but she still doesn’t move. Instead, she closes her eyes again and drifts back off to sleep. No boy (or their kiss) can rescue the girl from her sickly slumber. No boy can wake up Sleeping Beauty. 

—By Rhianne C., 20, Australia ♦