Paradox

14

"Hello princess." My mom greets me as I walk into her hospital room.

"How're you feeling?" I ask sitting in the chair next to her bed.

"I'm feeling a bit better." She says smiling weakly.

"The doctors told me I'm aloud to go outside in the garden, in a wheelchair. Do you mind going to get me one?" She asks, I smile and nod.

I talk to the nurse and she helped me get mom into the chair. I wheeled her down the corridors, she rolled her iv thing next to her.

We got to the garden, already being photographed by the paparazzi. I sat on the end of a bench as she sat in the wheelchair next to me.

"I love you, you know that." She says out of the blue.

"Of course, I love you too." I smile at her wearily.

"We both know that I have barely a week left, I'm not going to sugarcoat it like the doctors and nurses." I look at the trees.

"I want you to live on, don't make the funeral big. You and Ellie, that's all." She said I looked at her wide eyed.

"Ellie, she's beautiful, don't let her be broken so easily, make her strong like yourself." I smile weakly.

"I hope that Nash boy is locked up for life, what he did to you was horrible." She says, I look at her shocked. I never told her about it, I didn't want her thinking about it to much.

"How did you find out?" I ask.

"The hospital has a program where volunteers come in to talk to the patients, a boy named Jack told me about it." She said smiling, "he was very handsome and showed me his bruised knuckles, he told me he punched that Nash kid."

"Jack." I say, "he had brown hair and eyes?" She nods.

Jack talks to my mom, he volunteers at a hospital. Wow there's a lot I don't know about him.

"Wow." I say.

"He's a nice boy." She says, "he's a keeper."

"We're not together mom." I say, "I don't think we'll ever be together."

"Well I'm rooting for you two." She says making me laugh softly.

"It's never going to happen." I say.

"How's your dad?"

"Your never going to believe what he's gone ahead and done!" I exclaim, "he's engaged." I watched as her face slowly broke, her smile faltered and her once happy eyes turned sad. I hated that I was the one to tell her or that she was told at all.

I regretted it immediately, "take me back to my room princess." She says quietly, I do as she says and role her back to her room. With help she gets in her bed and lies there staring at the wall emotionlessly, I didn't realise the truth could hurt so much.