One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

CHAPTER ONE
    She was nicknamed The Graveyard. Any secret,
any piece of confidential information, personal or otherwise, that went in never, ever came back out. You knew you were safe; you knew you would never be judged or, if you were it would be silently, so you’d never know. She was perfectly named with a birth name that meant consistency and fortitude, and she was appropriately nicknamed; she was solid, permanent and steady, stoic but oddly comforting. Which is why visiting her in this place was all the more agonising. And it
was
agonising, not just mentally challenging; Kitty felt a physical pain in her chest, more specifically in her heart, that began with the thought of having to go, grew with the reality of actually being there, and then worsened with the knowledge that it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a false alarm, this was life in its rawest form. A life that had been challenged, and would subsequently be lost, to death.
    Kitty made her way through the private hospital, taking the stairs when she could take elevators, making deliberate wrong turns, graciously allowing others to walk before her at every opportunity, particularly if they were patients moving at a snail’s pace with walking frames or wheeling intravenous lines on poles. She was aware of the stares, which were a result of the current crisis she was in, and the fact she had at times walked in circles around the ward. She was attentive to any bit of conversation that any random person wished to have with her, anything and everything that she could do to postpone arriving at Constance’s room. Eventually her delaying tactics could continue no longer as she reached a dead end: a semicircle with four doors. Three doors were open, the occupants of the rooms and their visitors visible from where Kitty stood, though she didn’t need to look inside. Without even seeing the numbers, she knew which room contained her friend and mentor. She was grateful to the closed door for the final delay she had been granted.
    She knocked lightly, not fully committing to it, wanting to make the effort to visit but truly hoping she wouldn’t be heard, so she could walk away, so she could always say she’d tried, so she could rest easily, guilt free. The tiny part of her that still clung to rationality knew that this wasn’t realistic, that it wasn’t right. Her heart was pounding, her shoes were squeaking on the floor as she moved from foot to foot, and she felt weak from the smell. She hated that hospital smell. A wave of nausea rushed through her and she breathed deeply and prayed for composure, for the supposed benefits of adulthood to finally kick in so she could get through this moment.
    While Kitty was in the process of looking at her feet and taking deep breaths, the door opened and she was faced, unprepared, with a nurse and a shockingly deteriorated Constance. She blinked once, twice, and knew on the third time that she ought to be pretending, that it would not help Constance to see her visitor’s true reaction to her appearance. So she tried to think of something to say and words failed her. There was nothing funny, nothing mundane, nothing even nothing, that she could think of to say to the friend she’d known for ten years.
    ‘I’ve never seen her before in my life,’ Constance said, her French accent audible despite her living in Ireland for over thirty years. Surprisingly, her voice was still strong and solid, assured and unwavering, as she had always been. ‘Call security and have her removed from the premises immediately.’
    The nurse smiled, opened the door wider and then returned to Constance’s side.
    ‘I can come back,’ Kitty finally said. She turned away but found herself faced with more hospital paraphernalia and so turned again, searching for something normal, something ordinary and everyday that she could focus on that would fool her mind into thinking she wasn’t there in a hospital, with that smell, with her terminally ill friend.
    ‘I’m almost finished there. I’ll just take your temperature,’ the nurse said, placing a thermometer in Constance’s ear.
    ‘Come. Sit.’ Constance motioned to the chair beside her bed.
    Kitty couldn’t look her in the eye. She knew it was rude, but her eyes kept moving away as though pulled by magnetic force to things that weren’t sick and didn’t remind her of people that were sick, so she busied herself with the gifts in her arms.
    ‘I brought you flowers.’ She looked around