Sticks

Prologue(Kiara)

"I have cancer"

The words float around in my head making noises like when water drops into a sea. I can't find the meaning behind them yet because they haven't settled into the waters.

An ocean doesn't expect rainfall. A disturbance to its perfect calm. Neither did I expect to hear such gravitational words comes from my mom's mouth. They should bring me back to earth. I should react.

She stares at me and my blank face waiting my answer. Probably waiting for me to break down and cry over this tragedy.

Is it tragedy? I don't know yet because I haven't found her words.

I look for the correlation between them.
"I"
"Have" , and
"Cancer"

Cancer is bad. I know that because I learned it last year in 8th grade health class when I was 13.  
Obviously I also knew cancer was bad because I'm not a fucking dumbass.

Cancer; A disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body

I can recite the exact definition of Cancer in the blink of an eye is I wanted. So why isn't it reaching me?

Okay let's think about it. She also said "I". Meaning her. Not me, I would say "I" for myself, she would not say "I" referring to me.
Unless she was imitating me, though does not do that often.

She said "I" which means the statement has something to do with her.

I love sea turtles. That means I express affection for a turtle that inhabits marine life. I know what this means. I know what cancer means.

I don't know the meaning I should be finding in what she said. Am I supposed to breakdown and cry into my mother's arms like I would be expected to?

Am I supposed to ask her questions of concern? What am I concerned about? I don't know what her words mean yet.

I think this moment is one of the hardest I have ever had to digest. Like food. Like pancakes.
I love pancakes.

That means I express affection for a fluffy or tender confectionary food often made on a griddle or stove top. You can use a pre made mixture to make this, you could use each ingredient to make this, you could milk a cow and collect eggs from chickens and harvest wheat to make this if you want to be extreme.

Pancakes boil down to a science. As does cancer.
I believe the only defining factor between cancer and pancakes is the emotion held behind them. Pancakes make you feel good. Cancer makes you feel bad.

I supposed there is more to it than that. But then again I'm not thinking right now.

I want to see past the fact. I want to see and feel the hurt I should have for whatever the meaning of what my mother just said to me is.

I can't find it yet.

"It's stage three, honey" she continues and scratches the back of her head, using an awkward term of endearment I have never liked. I am not a sticky, orange, sugary liquid produced by bees.

She scratches her head in... confusion?
Unsureness?
Fear?
Nerves?

I'm not nervous. I am not anything.
Like pancakes I have always boiled down to a science. I have DNA, a brain, thoughts, and a body. I always feel things. I feel as if I am a stranger to emotion in this moment as I search for it.

Maybe I haven't expressed emotion like others for my whole life, but I still do it.
Maybe I don't cry and people call me a robot.
Maybe I spark fear in others with my big mind because it satisfies me to see how I affect other.

Maybe I don't like to cry. Maybe I don't like to be vulnerable. Maybe I don't like it when people see through me. Maybe I want others to question themselves in my presence so I don't have to do it. Figure myself out for myself, I mean.

Maybe I don't want my mom to see how I feel about what she just told me so I am stopping myself from finding her words?

Maybe I'm a stupid fucking idiot who took too long to figure this out.
Too long being the twelve seconds that have elapsed on the clock above my sink.

I'm so stupid. I have stood in my own way this whole time. I can know what she meant.

She means that SHE has cancer. One stage before the last one that often results in inescapable death.

She has "a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body"

I know how I am gonna react now.

"Oh shit" I say wide eyed. Then I clench my teeth together and open my mouth sideways to create a fake symptom of stress.

Did I mention that I'm drunk as fuck?