Razorblade |-/ Tyler Joseph Fic

chapter ten

The Tuesday after next, I got a call from Lizzie. It was a huge relief, too, since I hadn't seen her in days and hadn't even heard from her in the past 12 hours. She said she had a meeting with her doctor to discuss the date of the transplant, and she followed through on her promise to contact me when she got home.

"Hey, how'd it go?" I asked when I picked up.

"It went okay," she replied over the receiver. Her voice was kind of hoarse, as if she had been crying, and that really upset me.

I didn't know what to say to her. "Are you okay?" I asked quietly.

There was a really long pause before she spoke again. "Can I come over?"

"I, um . . . Yeah, if you want. Wouldn't it be easier for me to come over to your place, though?"

"No."

I blinked a few times.

"I'll be over in 15 minutes, okay?"

"O-okay."

"Alright. Bye."

"Bye," I replied, but she had already hung up.

Instead of waiting for Lizzie in the treehouse, I sat out on my front porch and hummed a few songs to myself. I stood up when she pulled her car into the driveway, though, and put my hands in my hoodie pocket.

She got out of the car, backpack slung over her shoulder and cannula in place, and greeted me with a silent hug. I didn't ask any questions, and I didn't even say anything as I returned the gesture and then walked to the treehouse with her. I just carried her backpack for her and held her hand, walking as slowly as she needed to.

After we both climbed up the ladder and got ourself settled in a pile of blankets, she finally spoke to me.

"So, the surgery is scheduled 4 weeks from tomorrow," she said. Her voice was still worn out.

I just wrapped my arm around her shoulder. "That's not too bad, is it?"

She shrugged. "I dunno," she said quietly, like a little kid who wouldn't tell why they were upset.

I pressed a kiss to the side of her head and whispered, "It's all for the best. You know that, right?"

She nodded, and then she was crying. She was crying so hard, her entire body shook. She brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, sobbing into her body.

All I could do was give her a tug to indicate that I wanted her in my lap. After she adjusted, I kept my arms tight around her and held her close to me. "It's going to be okay," I told her. "I promise you, things will turn out."

"What if they don't?" came her reply. It was muffled and I could hardly hear it.

"Then you live life to the fullest so you don't have any regrets."

She nodded and sat up, drying her tears and trying to calm down.

I rubbed her arm and gave her a smile. "You decent?"

She laughed through her tears and smiled back at me. "Yeah, I'm decent."

--

After spending about an hour in the treehouse, we decided to go see Josh. I helped Lizzie down from the tree and offered to carry her backpack again, but she insisted that she could handle it. I at least drove to Josh's house in her car and carried her bag inside for her.

Josh looked so ecstatic to see Lizzie again. With her permission, he gave her this huge hug, to which Lizzie rolled her eyes at me while he was holding her. Then Josh and I did this stupid handshake we made up that lasted a solid 20 seconds, and Lizzie found it amusing, so there was that at least.