Ro lay in the hospital bed feeling sick. Her mother sat by her bedside, offering her green jello. Ro knew she had to eat something but she wasn't hungry, and she hated eating when she wasn't hungry. Still she weakly spooned some into her mouth. She had drugs in her system, causing her to move slowly.
As she ate, a wave of nausea passed over her and she just managed to lean over into the waste basket to puke out the jello she'd just swallowed. Her mom dabbed at the side of her mouth with a napkin, cleaning her up. "I'm...so...tired..." Ro murmured, and she dozed off.
Rosalina dreamt of Mico. She dreamt that him and Ben were on both sides of her, each man clutching her hand. They were waiting for her to wake up. She looked to her right at Ben and smiled. Thickly through tears blurring her vision she whispered, "Come back. I need you. I miss you, Ben." She couldn't feel his hand anymore.
Mico slid a ring onto her left hand, causing her to turn her head towards him. He smiled and she returned the gesture. "Marry me," he said. He didn't really give her a choice. She didn't really have a choice anyway.
She woke up to Mico fastening a charm on her bracelet. He had given her a charm bracelet her first treatment. Every time she'd gone in, Mico would visit after school and bring her a new charm. The first charm had been a star.
"You're the only star in the sky worth looking at every day." He'd said, after she'd hidden her face from him because she thought she looked pathetic.
The second week she'd been given a butterfly. He said it reminded him of her- fragile but free. The third week he gave her a crown to remind her that he was her prince and she was his princess. For the anniversary of a month full of treatments, Mico brought Ro a charm of the number 4. On the fifth week he gave her a laccrosse stick. That charm made her cry. For her sixth and final treatment, Mico was putting on her wrist a check mark. She was done.
He never stayed longer than the time it took to give her the charm. He stroked her hair and left. Seeing her in pain was just too much for him. He waited until he was in the hallway to shake some of her hair that had come loose and latched to his fingers off. He knew she wouldn't want to see it. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. He was scared when he saw her.
Gabe had come to visit her as well, but Mico didn't want to think about that. He knew Ro would make the right decision. The only thing he looked forward to was ball. His mother was constantly bringing Rosalina dresses to try on when she was strong enough to make it to her feet to have the dress slipped over her head. He wasn't sure if she'd picked one yet, but he had no doubt she'd be beautiful.
For the first three treatments, Rosalina had only spent the night at the hospital. By Wednesday she'd been back in school For the fourth treatment she hadn't been back until Thursday. The last two weeks she hadn't been back to school that week at all. Everyone wondered what was happening to her and where she'd been. Though she felt bad lying, she just kept telling everyone she had mono.
Ann visited whenever she could find a ride, which wasn't often. No one else knew the truth. No one else tried to visit her either. The one time Gabe did visit had been her second week of treatments, so she had still looked fairly normal. Mono was believable to him. He'd come to tell her that he was negative. She laughed weakly and replied, "Good." They joked for a while but then he kissed her and left.
From the corner her mother commented, "That boy's no good." Silently crying, Rosalina agreed.
Weeks in the hospital only reaffirmed her plan and made her more sure than ever of what she truly wanted.
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Author's Note:
Okay, this is SUUUUUPER short.....but from this point forward I'm only loosing following the rest of the chapter that I had written. Yay, two uploads! Haha.
The next chapter will be ball. Who's excited?!
After that I started one of my (at the time I think) final chapters...but I'm probably going to loosley stick to it and mostly make it up as I go. From pretty much this point forward, you're seeing my currant and not undeveloped creative genius at work! Woohoo! :) God I'm so excited for this. I never thought I'd get this far with this story.
I'm sorry for all the typos I have made copying word-for-word the chapters. I hope you forgive me! Maybe when I look into getting Where You Aren't self-published I will correct all of the errors in that as well. For now, let's just go with this.
Happy reading :)
Thank you for supporting me.
