Project Fat Suit

Forty-Three: Conflicted

Chapter Forty-Three: I don't know what to call this--help please?

I felt like I was in a dream after the words left the snobby doctor’s mouth. Those beautiful words reverberated in my mind, leaving me in a surreal state of mind.

The Nelsons were all hugging and cheering in front of me, but I was too focused on those words to join in.

But of course, like all dreams, my blissful state of mind came to an end when the doctor opened his mouth again.

“You didn’t let me finish,” he said, trying to carry his voice over all the commotion.

I started to panic again. Thirty-seven wasn’t a very good percentage, so of course there had to be some drawback to all of this. The question was how serious was this drawback.

My mind started coming up with terrible possibilities. What if he went into a coma? What if one of his senses was gone? What if he woke up, not remembering anything?

I tried to shut my mind up as the doctor started to open his mouth again. “I’m sorry, but we’re expecting Liam’s vision to have significantly worsened, he might have a speech impediment temporarily, and he might be unable to walk for a few days.”

Relief came. Nothing was too serious.

“But my baby’s alive and going to be fine?” Mrs. Nelson asked, on the verge of jumping out of her seat.

“We won’t be too sure of the side effects until he wakes up, but the tumor is gone completely…hopefully.”

Mrs. Nelson nearly tackled the doctor right after he told her.

“Mom, get off of him. He just spent seven hours in an operation room. Give the man some space,” Cam told her mom.

“We still have to run some assessments and make sure he is stable before you can visit him. We’ll run a MRI to make sure the tumor is gone,” the doctor continued, not losing his professional tone even after being tackled by a middle-aged lady. “I will see you in a while,” he said and walked off.

The ruckus from earlier made a comeback and this time I joined in. Nadia kind of made it hard for me just to stand there anyways. She pulled he into a tight hug, telling how she knew he was going to make it and some other things I couldn’t catch because she was talking too damn fast.

I knew nothing could wipe the stupid smile I had plastered on my face.

“He made it,” I said out loud, loving how those spectacular words tasted on my tongue.

“Of course he did. He had to make it through for the girl he loves,” Kurt said, slinging an arm around my shoulders.

The fact that Kurt was being stupid and actually teasing me about the l-word didn’t bother me at the moment because I was just that ecstatic. Instead of yelling at him, I just elbowed him the stomach.

I looked over at Uranus and the kids. Amy and Thomas were grinning from ear to ear and they were chatting animatedly amongst themselves. Uranus was on his phone with a smile on his face.

“Rena, he made it!” Amy reminded me cheerfully as I walked towards the group.

“I know. It’s wonderful.”

“I knew he was going to make it,” Thomas bragged.

“No, you didn’t. You were crying out it when Margaret told us.”

“Hush, Amy! I wasn’t crying. I was cutting an onion.”

I rolled my eyes at their bickering. They were only seven and they were already sounding like an old, married couple.