Chapter 6
Chemo wasn't always hard on me. It was the very first few times and then the past couple weeks. I was bound to my room with a sick bin and stack of books. I was stubborn about reading but eventually broke when I was desperate. I could only sleep for so long and the telly wasn't going to become an option.
I spent an hour reading a Shel Silverstien poetry book. I felt like '25 Minutes to Go' was a parallel to my life. I'd always thought he was a children's poet but it was teetering on the edge of morbidity.
Charlotte came in to check on me what felt like an eternity. I sat up a little more, cracking my back unpleasantly. She checked the IV bag dangling above my head then sat down. "Hey handsome. How do you feel?"
"You know when you eat too much then go for a really long run?"
"No, I don't run."
"Well that's what it's like but I don't have that feeling running gives other than the tiredness." I wanted to run more than anything in the world. I briefly imagined the way it felt; freeing, calm, challenging, the way my hair always got in my line of vision. I liked when it was zero degrees and I would go out in shorts and no shirt and still not freeze. Now, I was rarely warm and too easily exhausted.
She was in her own world as I was in mine. I finally came back to reality, watching her stare at my covered legs. I didn't much care for butting into people's business but for the sake of conversation, sometimes I gave in. "Are you awake?"
She jumped slightly and nodded. "I haven't slept a lot recently."
"Worried?"
"More than worried. Bryan's results came in."
I didn't want to ask what the results came in like. It was undoubtedly bad and honestly, I didn't care to know.
Charlotte rubbed her eyes, smearing her make-up just a little. She tried to wipe it from underneath her sagging eyes. "He's got leukemia. It's pretty advanced too."
I'd never known how to answer heavy things like that. So, I let my head sink further into the pillow and closed my eyes a minute. Her face fell onto my bed and hand on mine. That look in her eyes was one I'd never wanted to see but did from time to time. The look someone gives a person they didn't imagine having a shred of hope. The look she'd probably give Bryan the rest of his life.
"My parents say they'll probably bring him here. It's a six hour drive but they want me to take care of him. They can't stay with him all the time and work and if they don't work, they won't be able to afford his care."
"Hmm."
She sighed. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Putting all this on you." She grinned through a mask of tears. "You know why I told you before anyone else besides my boyfriend?"
"Because I'm ill and confined to my room?"
"No. Because I knew you wouldn't give me outward sympathy. Sympathy only makes me dwell on it. I feel better when people don't make a fuss."
I would have told her there was no sense in a fuss and that Bryan would probably come out okay. People in the medical field slowly become pessimists though. Charlotte had come in not long ago and used to think the best. Then she'd told people their kids were sick or dying and seen some pass. Then there were the ones she thought the best of and they stole medicines and things. She wasn't the same as she used to be.
I'd been a pessimist my entire life but I wasn't outward about it nearly as much as I used to be. Instead, I smiled a little. "Hopefully treatment will be as easy on him as it is me." I said sarcastically.
