Doctor-Patient Confidentiality: New Adult Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

Chapter Seventy-Two

I had a tumor in my stomach, and the very graphic pictures in front of me to prove it.

Several more minutes passed and I was still unable to say a single word. It must have been shock that kept me motionless, that halted any reaction from me. It's been almost twenty-four hours since, and that shock still hasn't left my system.

I leave the bag and keys on the floor, making it a point to avoid looking back at the bag; or the medical folder that's in it. Everything in me screamed to bury that folder somewhere, to put it in a place where I nor anyone else would ever find it. I almost convinced myself that maybe if I couldn't see it, then it wouldn't exist, and then all the words and pictures inside it wouldn't exist either—words and images clearly telling me and showing me that I have a tumor in my stomach. Words and images telling me and showing me that that tumor could be cancerous. And I'll find out if it is tomorrow. Frost insisted that I get my biopsy results in person, directly from him. I look at the clock again as the minute hand hits twelve, signaling that it's five o'clock on the dot, and I realize with grimness that I now have exactly sixteen hours until that happens. Just sixteen hours until I learn my fate.

I haven't told anyone about it. About any of it. Not Gran. Not Trixie. Not Allison. No one. And I intend to keep it that way.

My mind comes back to the apartment around me. The place looks like a complete dump right now, but at least it's my dump, something I can call my own after everything that's been taken away from me. And now this...this thing, this tumor, might take away the only other thing I have left; my singing.

I finally take a step forward, but my legs feel like steel; cold and heavy and foreign, like they don't belong on my body. It takes more energy than I realize to simply walk, but I manage somehow, taking one slow, tiring step after another until my feet hit the carpet. My bare soles press firmly against the soft, cushioning fibers, and I can feel the tiny protrusions flattening under my weight, bending and shifting to accommodate the pressure of my feet.

I can vaguely feel the retreating sunrays on my back and arms beneath my shirt despite the artificial heat blasting from the heater, their subtle warmth further dissipating with each passing second, leaving me with a strangely deja vu sense of emptiness.

I continue to take more steps ahead, slowly walking around, my feet deliberately connecting with the carpet as I idly allow my hand to graze whatever's within its reach. My fingertips eventually make their way to one of the walls, the itty bitty protrusions of cement and plastic mold too small to be abrasive even collectively, jutting out against the pads of my fingers and gently scraping at them. I pause, letting my hand linger, pressing my palm into the wall and feeling the rising pressure against my flesh. The faint smell of tangerines still lingers in the air from last night, the remnants of some really good air freshener Allison bought during a BOGO sale at the beginning of the semester. I'd sprayed the apartment with it yesterday, hoping the smell would help me relax, even just a little bit with how tense and jittery I'd become after the endoscopy. And it did...for like the two seconds it took to spray it. And then the anxiety just came rushing back, flooding my entire system and seemingly worse than before.

The fading citrus smell mingles with the surrounding heat. I take a long whiff of it, adjusting my legs and leaning my weight onto the wall. I can't believe Alli's only used it once. Then again, she's never actually here to use it. She's literally always at her relatively new boyfriend, Aaron's house. I've never met him, but she talks about him whenever I do get to see her—which is pretty rare nowadays. She practically lives with him at this point. I'm not even sure why she renewed her lease this year. I admit, there are times when I miss talking with her and wish she'd come by more often, but this is not one of those times. Company of any sort, even that of my best friend, is the last thing I'm in the mood for right now.

But somehow, even though I feel that way and I know without a doubt that I'd rather not be around anyone right now, I can't seem to shake these feelings of lonesomeness and isolation looming over me, suffocating me and weighing impossibly heavy in my chest, threatening to crush me from the inside out. So I do the only thing I can do right now to try to calm myself down. I try to breathe, just like I was taught. Just like I do when I'm about to sing.

Inhale.

Count to ten.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Count to ten.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Count to ten.

Exhale.

Inhale—

Without warning, a heavy, painful sob erupts from deep within my chest, violently tearing itself out of me and escaping into the silent apartment, halting the airflow into my lungs. I briefly register the loud echo of my strangled cry, right before the sound of it clashes with the next sob that leaves me, and the next, and the next. Before I realize it, I'm dropping to my knees as tears run down my face uncontrollably, and I wouldn't try to stop them even if I could.

Instinctively, I lie on the floor and bring my knees up to my chest and clutch my hands to my chest, curling myself up into a fetal position as harsh, uneven sobs continue to stutter out of me. I cry as the seconds, minutes, and hours continue to slip by, the time moving along like it always does, uncaring that I'm distraught and terrified out of my mind. I cry as the sun completely leaves the skyline, and as my apartment goes dark. I cry as I remember the past. I cry as I regard the present. And I cry harder as I ponder whether I'll even have a future. I cry until sleep finally claims my tired, weakened body. I cry until I can't cry anymore.

***

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