Luke's POV
My mom has been back home for a week now. It's been three weeks since her first treatment. She's doing pretty well. Her side effects have gotten a little better, but she's obviously not feeling good by any means. The doctors think she's getting better though and everything is on track. As long as everything is going well, that's all that matters right now. Hopefully in a few months she'll be her regular self. Or, close to it.
Today we're heading back to the hospital for another treatment, but she can come home afterwards now. My parents said I don't have to keep going to every treatment because they know how I feel about being in hospitals.
Going to the hospital is kind of helping me, as strange as that may seem. I'm becoming more comfortable there now, I don't get nervous every time I walk in. It's helping me overcome my anxiety over hospitals and having flashbacks. In a way, it's also reassuring to see people going through similar things as my mom. It shows that she's not alone and people come out of this okay.
My dad drops my mom and I off at the hospital because he needs to run some errands. I walk through the familiar corridors of the hospital to the waiting area. My mom checks in and within a few minutes, her session is started.
"You don't have to stay in here, Luke," my mom says after a few minutes.
"It's okay, I don't mind."
She sighs. "Go see if your friend is here. Jordan, right? I don't want you to think of your teen years as just being spent in hospitals. Go be a normal teen."
"Mom, I'm nothing close to a normal teen," I say laughing. "And even if I'm with Jordan I'm still in a hospital."
She smiles. "But you're not sitting in here for an hour watching your mom get chemo. Go for a little. I'll be fine."
"Are you sure? What if-" I don't want to leave her. I'd be so nervous that something might happen and I wouldn't be here. If I'm here, I don't have to worry that I'm missing something.
"Luke, there's nurses. I'll be okay."
"If you say so. I'll go for maybe 10 minutes if you really want me to." I smirk and laugh.
She waves her hand, as if to shoo me away. "Have fun."
I walk down the hall to Jordan's room. We talked a lot while my mom stayed in the hospital, but I haven't seen her in about a week. She said she'd still be here for the next few weeks. I wonder how long she's actually been here.
Jordan's door is open, so I peek inside. She's sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading a magazine. She always seems to be reading.
"Hey," I say quietly, "Mind if I come in?"
Jordan looks up slowly. "I mean, I guess so." She smiles.
"I can go back to my mom if you-"
"Luke, I'm joking. Of course you can come in." She laughs and closes her magazine.
"Oh, right. I knew that."
I sit in one of the chairs in the room. Jordan's room is more decorated than any hospital room I've ever seen. It's clear she's been here for a while and that this room is basically permanent. She has posters on the walls and pictures everywhere. Half the pictures are when she was younger, and some are more recent. It's like her whole life story is in this one room. Each picture could hold different meanings.
I look at one of the photos of her, she looks about 13 years old. It's before she was diagnosed, I'm assuming. She's with some other girls and everyone looks really happy.
"You have a lot of pictures. It's like walking into a museum," I tell her.
She laughs. "I like having good memories everywhere. That was my fourteenth birthday."
"Which was when?" I realize I don't actually know how old she is now.
"A year before I was diagnosed."
"I didn't mean it that way. I meant how long ago." I feel my cheeks blush.
I wonder if she thinks of everything like it's a cancer timeline. It's like things happen before, after, or during her diagnosis. I feel like it might be hard to not have your life consumed by it. Just like for a long time my life revolved around all of my issues and not actually just me. I wonder if she feels like cancer is her life, just how I felt like depression was my life. But it's not the whole thing, it's just a piece of it.
"Four years ago. I'm eighteen now. That's why I'm not at the children's hospital," she tells me.
"Oh! I'm seventeen."
She tilts her head and squints her eyes, like she's examining me. "You seem older."
I shrug. "Nope."
Jordan reaches over for a photo and picks it up. She passes it over to me.
"That was when I was in remission. The nurses have parties for people who are 'cured' but you're not actually. They just give you hope. You can see the little hair I had growing back. I relapsed a year later."
In the picture, Jordan is smiling widely. She's surrounded by balloons and looks truly happy.
"Is it tough?" I ask her, handing her the photo.
"Is what tough?"
"All of it, I guess."
"Yeah, sometimes. It's just like any other problems people face, this one is just big and my life's on the line. But it's okay. I'm still here and that's all that matters."
Jordan smiles, but not like the smile in the photo. It's more of a sad smile, like there's a piece of doubt in what she just told me.
I clear my throat. "Let's talk about something other than cancer."
"Like what?"
"Um, tell me a little about yourself, I guess. Wait! Let me guess first. I'm gonna make up your life story and see if I guess correctly." I look all around at her photos to try and get some ideas.
She laughs. "Okay. Go ahead."
"I know you're eighteen. Uh, you have one sister?" I notice the same girl in a lot of the photos.
She shakes her head.
"Brother?"
"Twin brother."
"Really? Wait, does that mean, since your twins, does-"
"Does he have cancer? No. He's been checked." She laughs.
"Oh. That was probably a stupid question."
She shrugs. "It's a common question. Keep going." I look at her pictures and realize there's a boy in some of them that does look similar to her.
"You and your twin brother, uh, Parker, were born in... October. You played basketball for a few years. Your best friend's name is Emily. You really like to read." There's a multiple stacks of books and magazines. There's also a box of movies in the corner of her room. "You like to watch movies too. Your favorite color is..." I notice that there's a lot of blue in her room. "Blue is your favorite color. Um... You've graduated. You want to be a lawyer and have three kids?"
Jordan laughs to the point where she has to take a few deep breaths. "You're so wrong."
"Was I right about anything?"
"My brother's name is Greyson. My birthday is January 19th. I'm way too short for basketball, I did gymnastics. My best friend's name is Ashton. I do like to read and watch movies. My favorite color is green. I have graduated. I do not like to dream about the future in case it doesn't happen."
What she says about the future makes sense. It's also sad to know that she doesn't like to hope about the future. At one point, I couldn't imagine my future either. I didn't want to. Now I do.
"One of my best friends is named Ashton! He lives in America," I tell her.
She laughs. "This Ashton is a girl. And how do you have a friend in America?"
"You'll have to guess. Now it's your turn."
Jordan rolls her eyes. "I have no hints though. You could have looked at my pictures and figured everything out."
"I did. They didn't help much."
"Okay, let me think a little," Jordan says.
Just as she is about to start, a nurse walks in. The nurse smiles at me.
"I better get going," I tell Jordan, standing up. "Next time, okay?"
Jordan nods and smiles. "See ya."
In all the times I had talk to Jordan, she always seems positive, but it's like there is something lurking in the back of her mind at all times. She opened up a little more today than other times. I'm finding out more about her each time.
It also bothers me that in all the times I've been here, I've never seen another visitor for her. If she has a twin brother, why hasn't he been here? Or what about her parents? Or her friends, she must have friends.
Whenever I was in hospitals, my mom always came when she was allowed. Calum came too. At first, more people would come. But then everyone else gave up on me. She must have people that haven't given up on her. She can't go through this alone. That seems impossible.
I thought I could get through everything alone. But I couldn't. Finding people was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I just hope she has a good support system too.
I have not updated in forever. Life is kinda crazy right now.
BUT RTF IS OUT IN 10 DAYS!! OMG!!!
I'm doing book signings if you didn't know. There's info on my website ashleyroyer.com as well as my YouTube callmeashley98. :)
-ashley