Zach and Abby

24. - Edited

Abby - Edited

Before he could respond, I said: Stop freaking out, get to class. She woke up with some pain, doctor says nothing too serious. I’ll call u soon.

I knew I should have chosen my words more carefully when I said Mom was in the hospital. I knew him well, the moment anything was wrong, he’d moved mountains to make it better. When the call came in from the home saying my mom had woken up coughing and hacking, I put myself on autopilot, completely forgetting to let Zach or Austin know.

For so long, I’d been dealing with her episodes myself that I never thought about the people in my life who would care if I didn’t show up for class. Back in high school, I’d miss weeks at a time because Mom would go through one of her unstable periods and needed someone to be with her all hours of the day.

Now though I had two guys, bombarding me with calls and texts, worrying their asses off when I kept trying to tell them nothing was wrong. We had already seen the doctor who said it might be a small case of the flu and he’d run some more tests as an extra precaution.

I put my phone away after I texted Zach, hoping he would understand and not come running in like a madman thinking he needed to save the day. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him here, I actually would have preferred him holding my hand right now but he had class and practice. I didn’t need to distract him more than I already did.

The nurses gave my mother a room to wait in with a bed and TV. She was humming to herself, staring out the window that faced downtown Glendale. I took a seat in one of the chairs against the wall, cracking open the Chemistry textbook I had in my car to study. If we were stuck here waiting for some results, I might as well make it count.

A few hours passed with nothing. If I had known we’d be here this long, I may have actually gone to a few classes and then just picked my mom up when she was done. Numerous people came and went, letting us know it’d be a few minutes more until the next person came in, telling us the exact same thing.

Around noon, I was tired of sitting and reading so I told my mother I’d run out and get us lunch, needing to breathe in fresh air instead of air polluted with the smell of antiseptic. Days of Our Lives was running reruns so she didn’t mind all that much.

By three o’clock we were still waiting. If I was taller and had a stronger voice, I may have requested to speak with a nurse manager and give her a piece of my mind on why this was taking so long. Instead, my mom and I played cards with a deck I found in my purse, she didn’t seem to care much with having to wait this long. I think she liked spending the time with me, getting away from the everyday life at the nursing home.

I thought about calling Zach but he was just starting practice and wouldn’t answer his phone anyways. And calling Austin was pointless, there was no new information to tell him.

The last time I looked at the clock, it was almost twenty to five before I fell asleep. I put two chairs together, creating a makeshift bed that wasn’t more comfortable than sleeping on the floor. We’d been here eight hours already, either something was really wrong with the tests or the staff just liked interfering with peoples’ lives.

"Ma'am,” someone nudged my shoulder. “Excuse me, miss?" 

I slowly opened my eyes to see a nurse hovering over me. The electric clock said it 9:48, why the hell was I still here?

“Yeah?” I croaked out, needing a drink to fix my dry throat. I wiped my eyes, sitting up and stretching out my arms. The nurse’s face looked like this was urgent, I was wasting time trying to wake myself up.

I glanced over to make sure my mom was still here. It wouldn’t be the first time she forgot where she was and wandered off, getting herself lost. She was still there, asleep on the bed. In her sleep, she looked so peaceful, so normal. No one would have any idea she’s even sick.

“The doctor will be in shortly to deliver the test results. If you don’t mind waking up your mother, I’ll let him know you’re awake.” I nodded at whatever she said and she left. We were heading into our fourteenth hour, whatever was keeping us here better be worth it.

I got my mom up, she started complaining about the time too. The doctor took his sweet time but eventually he arrived and asked us both to take a seat. He pulled out a clip board stacked with several pieces of paper, looking them up and down, twisting his mouth side to side like he didn’t know how to say this.

I pulled a chair up next to my mom, taking her hand. She squeezed back, I didn’t know if she was nervous or excited to know she’d be leaving soon.

It suddenly dawned on me for the first time that this could be serious. Why else would simple tests take so long to analyze if it wasn’t bad news?

“Ms. Mitchell, you had a mammogram not too long ago that we received your results for just last week. We noticed something there and when you were admitted this morning, we did further tests.”

Mammograms tested for breast cancer. Something there meant breast cancer. Further tests meant breast cancer. I was going to throw up.

He was silent for too long. News like this wasn’t a band aid, ripping it off slower did nothing to ease the pain. “Tell us, what did you find?” The tears were pooling in my eyes. I couldn’t tell who was squeezing harder now, either way my hand was going numb.

“Ms. Mitchell, we found cancer.” The word that stops your heart immediately. “The tests indicate it’s been there for a while, undetected. We’re going to need to investigate further, but as of now we expect it’s stage four.”

Here’s the thing about life: it both passes and ends without you even noticing. We haven’t invented ways to fight time yet and until then, people like this doctor think that terminal breast cancer is something you’re going to learn to deal with and get over.

I couldn’t breathe anymore. I didn’t register if I was inhaling, exhaling, purposely holding my breath. All I knew was that I was shaking and a hazy feeling was covering my head.

My dad was back, reminding me in his deep, gruff voice this was my fault. Everyone I loved left me – it’d be breast cancer to take my mother this time.