“Dan, baby, you okay?” I asked. She lay curled up on her side on the bed. There were tubes in various sizes hooked up to her and she clutched her stomach with both hands.
I hadn’t come to any of her appointments because she always had them during school hours and she wouldn’t let me miss school for her, and I don’t think I would be able to handle watching her hooked up like this, like a guinea pig or something. More than anything I wished it was me in her position so I could take all the pain and spare her from it.
She grumbled something but I couldn’t catch it. I stroked my hand over her forehead and down the side of her face so I was cupping her cheek.
“Dan what hurts?” I asked.
“My stomach,” she groaned. She didn’t open her eyes. I know she was trying to hide exactly how much it hurt from me.
I turned to face Lilly. She still hadn’t told me what had happened and I needed a better explanation than what Danielle was capable of giving me.
“Lilly what happened earlier? She isn’t normally like this is she?” I asked.
Lilly shook her head. “No she’s not. Just everything seemed to go wrong this time. When the chemo started, she got sick immediately and she normally doesn’t until further along into the treatment and then she got pale and almost passed out a couple of times. She started complaining lots about her stomach…” This was really serious. Danielle, never complained. Never. She only did if it was something serious, which this clearly was. “And they just took her for some tests to see if there is something wrong with her organs. They fear that the treatments she has been getting haven’t been enough to stop the cancer from spreading.”
Unexpectedly, I turned and punched the wall next to me. I didn’t feel the blistering pain that exploded in my knuckles, I knew it was nothing compared to what Danielle had gone through the last couple of hours. Heck it was nothing compared to what she was going through every single moment of every single day.
“It’s all my fault. She was getting treatments every two weeks. Sometimes it was every week. If I hadn’t taken her on the stupid trip she would be fine right now!” I said.
“Ryan,” Danielle whispered, she still hadn’t opened her eyes. She was shaking now and once again I knew it was because of me. The noise my fist had made when it connected with the wall must have scared her.
“Shh, baby. It’s okay. Everything’s fine,” I lied. “Shh just calm down Dan. I’m right here.” I leaned over and gently pressed my lips to the top of her bald head. Her chin was tucked into her chest, and her arms caged in her lips so I couldn’t reach them.
“What was the noise then?” she asked.
“I just got mad, I hit the wall. I’m fine.”
“Is the wall?”
I laughed and looked at the wall. It definitely looked a lot better than how my knuckles felt. “It’s perfect Danielle, just like you,” I said. I stood up and went to climb into the hospital bed with Danielle, but I looked over at Lilly first. She nodded and there was a small smile on her face. She was still in love with the fact that I was in love with her daughter.
I laid down on the bed, as far on to the edge as I could so that Danielle had tons of room. I laid facing her but not touching her except for my hand on her hip.
“I’m not perfect,” she whispered.
“You’ll always be, in my eyes Danielle,” I told her.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not. No one is more perfect to me than you are,” I whispered.
YOU ARE READING
Perfection, Beauty and Flaws
Teen FictionDanielle has never believed anyone when they tell her she is perfect and Beautiful. She hates to think of herself that way. She tells everyone that she is neither of those things but they simply thing she is being modest. One day though, the bigges...
32- Spare the Pain
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