"Oh, Lily," My mother practically sighs out of exhaustion, the bags under her eyes darker and deeper-set than I'd ever seen before. She gets up from the armchair in the corner of the room and throws her small arms around me. "I'm so glad you're here."
I hug her back and try to push away the tears threatening to spill out of my eyes. "I can only stay for a few days," I warn her immediately. "But I'll be back in a week and a half for break."
She hugs me tighter, almost as if she didn't want to let go or else I'd disappear. From the embrace of my mother, I glance over at the hospital bed to see a pale, weak looking Danny sleeping soundly, almost as if he hadn't slept or eaten in days. My heart immediately cracked at the sight.
"How have you been, mom?" I ask anxiously when she finally lets go of me. "How have you been handling things here alone?"
It's one of the first questions I ask every time I see her after being away at school. No matter what, there was always going to be guilt crawling through my body when I considered the fact that the alternative route was to go to school closer to home and be here for her and Danny.
"Things have been alright," She sighs, but then her gaze shifts behind me, perhaps like she's seeing Vincent there for the first time. She straightens up and attempts a smile that I immediately recognized as forced. "Hello, there. You must be the young boy who brought my daughter home."
Vincent steps up and takes her hand in hers to shake it, his other hand covering the outside of her hand, almost like he wanted to keep it warm.
"Yes ma'am. My name is Vincent, it's nice to finally meet you," He introduces himself maturely and calmly, and for some reason, I immediately felt my stomach become warmer.
"Likewise," Her smile becomes more genuine as she looks into his eyes. "Thank you for driving Lily home. That was very kind of you."
Without missing a beat, Vincent says, "Of course. I'm happy to help."
The sound of a phone vibrating cuts my mom off from saying whatever she had opened her mouth to exhale, and she turns to dig into her purse to stop the source. She looks at us apologetically and excuses us while she takes the phone call outside of the hospital room.
I take the moment of silence to turn to my little brother and walk to his bedside. You could tell he was sick even if he wasn't in a hospital bed. He had been more energetic, more full of life these past few months; but now, he resembled his weak form of last year.
"So this is the famous Danny," Vincent says slowly, as if he's unsure how I'm going to react to him being here for this intimate moment.
My eyes swell with tears that I force not to fall onto my cheeks as I nod. "This is him," My voice comes out in a cracked whisper, and a stray tear falls down my cheek. "He doesn't deserve this."
I hear Vincent shuffle toward me before wrapping an arm around my waist to draw me closer. "No, he doesn't. But he's a hell of a fighter."
I rest my head in Vincent's chest for just a moment, long enough to take a deep shaky breath and attempt to calm down, when I hear the door open again. I look up at my mom with Vincent's arm still around me and I can tell by her flustered appearance that she just got called into work.
"I've told them what's going on, but the manager keeps insisting I go in," She explains in a huff. "I'm scared I might lose-"
To spare Vincent from listening to my mom contemplate losing her job, I interrupt her and say, "It's okay, mom. We'll stay here."
There's still a bit of skepticism in her eyes when they land on me, but the moment they flutter to Danny laying in the hospital bed, the same realization hits her: we need the money. So she lets out a deflated breath and nods, her worry lines already crinkling at the base of her mouth and her forehead.
"Alright then," She nods once more. "I'll be going, then. Visiting hours end at 7, so when you get home heat something up for dinner. My shift won't let out until midnight."
"Okay mom," I say kind of quickly, embarrassed that Vincent was witnessing this side of my life. It felt too personal. "I'll see you later."
She gives me a quick hug and kiss on the cheek before saying farewell to Vincent, but doesn't leave without casting one last look at Danny lying on the hospital bed, a view she was probably sick of seeing. When she leaves, I take her old spot on the big chair in the corner, and Vincent pulls up a sitting chair beside mine.
We sit in silence for a few moments. The air was thick of things that I wanted to say, and I was the most struck by the words sorry you had to see that. It felt almost natural, like a reflex to apologize to outsiders for seeing a glimpse inside of our world. But even so, the reflex felt wrong this time, and I couldn't bring myself to say the words out loud.
"Lily?"
The little voice croaked from the bed, and my head snapped up to see Danny squinting his eyes at me, a little ghost of a smile on his lips. I jump up all at once and rush to the bed in two long strides, sitting on the edge and giving him a vibrant smile back.
"Hey kid," I greet him with a grin. "Glad to see you finally woke up. I thought you would sleep all day."
"You're here," Danny smiles brightly, which is interrupted by a cough, and then a subsequent closed-mouth smile at the prospect of my arrival. His curious gaze travels to Vincent and he scrunches his eyebrows. "Who are you?"
"I'm Vincent," The boy beside me introduces himself with a goofy grin and an exaggerated wave. "I'm Lily's friend."
"Vince," Danny repeats, shortening his name. "How do you know Lily?"
Vincent motions to his leg, which was wrapped under his pants, and then shoves his thumb in my direction. "She's helping me get better so I can keep playing football."
Once the magic word was said, it was hard not to see the light in Danny's eyes. He associated football with our father-- we all did, my mom included-- even if Danny didn't get the opportunity that I did to actually go to games and cheer on Sunday nights with him. The sheer stories that root from memories my mother and I constantly share of watching a game with our father and the various worn jerseys in my mom's closet were proof enough that our father and football were synonymous.
"You play football?" Danny asks in excitement as he struggles to sit up in his bed.
Actually playing the sport was always a dream for Danny, who had never had enough consecutive good years to build his physical strength and allow him to play. However, not being able to play didn't bar him from appreciating the sport almost as much as our father had.
"He's really good," I tell Danny to fuel his excitement. "Maybe you can watch him play sometime, when you and mom visit."
Danny's eyes dart from me to Vincent. "What position do you play, Vince?"
Vincent's eyes light up almost as much as Danny's as he grins proudly and announces, "Quarterback."
I continued to stand there as Danny and Vincent gushed over football to the point where you wouldn't realize I was even in the room. My heart warmed considerably watching them interact, and I realized after twenty minutes that I had taken the role of smiling from the sidelines and observing them rather than actively participating.
Eventually, Danny summoned me over, and we talked about school and being home for awhile, until the nurse knocked on the door and gave us a fifteen minute warning for the end of visiting hours. When she left, my stomach let out a loud and embarrassing growl within an empty room, and both boys looked at me with similar smirks.
"Someone needs to feed the beast," Vincent teases lightheartedly.
"I'll get around to it," I tell him with a grin. "You might have to stop at McDonalds on the way home, but don't tell my mom."
I was still laughing when the doctor walked in. At first, I thought he was here to be a second voice of warning against overstaying our welcome, but the grim look on his face told me otherwise. My smile slowly fell off my face as my heart slowly fell into my stomach.
Vincent noticed immediately, too. His easygoing attitude changed in seconds, and his hand inched toward mine until he was holding my fingers awkwardly in an attempt to comfort me for what was about to happen.
"Ms. Wevv," Doctor Howell greets me. He had been Danny's doctor for more years than I could count. "It's nice to see you again."
I stand up from my spot on the edge of the bed and cross the room to shake his hand. "It's nice to see you, too."
"I'm afraid we're going to have to discuss a serious matter," Dr. Howell says slowly, his gaze sliding behind me, no doubt to the new face in the room. "This is information that only family has the legal right to hear."
"It's okay," I say quickly, holding my hand out behind me, a silent and effective sign that Vincent needed to stand up and hold my hand. I kept a death grip on it. "He can stay."
The doctor nods solemnly and lowers his voice an octave, something that he always does when he's about to deliver bad news. "Unfortunately, the recent scans confirmed that Daniel's cancer has spread," Is all that came out of his mouth before a faint ringing began in my ear. "...the chemotherapy wasn't as aggressive as we'd hoped... His best chance at beating this and to stop it from spreading is surgery..."
His explanations and medical terms went in through one ear and out the other, being processed in the in-between time it spends passing through my brain as I only manage to retain parts of what he's telling me. It felt like cold water had been poured over my entire body and I was standing there, dripping wet and freezing cold, with no dryness or warmth anywhere nearby.
I couldn't tell if my grip on Vincent's hand had escalated or gone slack. I tried to focus on the words coming from Doctor Howell but could only hear the ringing in my ears getting louder and louder. Danny needs surgery. The cancer spread. His chances are getting slimmer.
Five minutes ago, I had a smile on my lips that had lasted me nearly an hour. Now, my body felt so jarringly empty that I wasn't sure if I wanted to cry or be mute. I thought immediately of how to tell my mom, and then the look on her face when I tell her that the cancer spread, and then the shifts she would have to pick up to pay for a fraction of the surgery that will put her deeper in debt for the rest of her life.
When Doctor Howell left, I hadn't asked any questions that I'd been programmed to ask the doctor for years-- details, dates, etc. I hadn't even said anything to him upon his departure. I hadn't even moved, really. But all at once, my heart crushed like someone stepping on a can, and I turned around to see the boy who had to listen silently from his hospital bed.
And he didn't have tears in his eyes, or red stained cheeks, or worry swimming on his features. He seemed calm to the point that I wasn't quite sure he had heard what the doctor told him.
"Are you going to go eat now?" Danny asks, unworried. "I can still hear your stomach."
I stared at him incredulously for a moment. I wasn't sure what to do-- bring up the gravity of the information I had just received, asked him if he even heard it, discussed his options immediately, call my mother to tell her the news. Any of these were probably a better option than what I did-- which was force a smile and ignore what just happened.
"Yeah, we're going to go to McDonalds," I tell him. "Are you going to go back to sleep?"
My little brother yawns, his hair falling into his eyes, and nods. "Thanks for coming home, Lily. I'll see you tomorrow."
I smile to myself as my heart squeezes in my chest.
"I'll see you tomorrow, buddy." I tell him solemnly.
"I love you," His cute voice reminds me, and I feel a little pressure relieved from the pain in my head, heart, and stomach. "It was nice meeting you Vince!"
"You're a polite kid," Vincent jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood. "I'll see you tomorrow, Dan."
We didn't make it to the elevator before I felt tears burn my eyes and any semblance of faux calmness disappeared. Vincent still walked with his hand gripping mine, giving me a fraction of the pressure that I was giving him, probably so he didn't wind up hurting me.
When we turn down a hallway and we are officially obstructed from Danny's view, Vincent draws me into a hug and lets me nestle my face in his chest as the tears begin to escape and my breathing becomes heavier.
"I know," He murmurs softly, one of his hands rubbing my back while the other digs his fingers into my side to hold me.
"I don't know what to do," I mumble into his chest, certain he couldn't understand me.
But, apparently, he could decipher my mumbled words against his chest and held me tighter. "We're going to figure it out, Lil. I promise."
And with his touch and his words, I felt myself begin to calm down, until the uncontrollable tears came back under my power. I took a few deep breaths and wiped my cheeks with Vincent's shirt and pulled away with a glance at his chest.
I couldn't help but laugh shortly when I notice the wetness on his chest. "Sorry."
He glanced down and laughs with me. "No worries, it'll dry." He takes a deep breath and looks around, then back at me, and holds his hand out. "How about we get you some dinner?"
I nod helplessly, looking up at him in wonder. The boy who I hated turned into the boy who I trusted to take care of me when I felt like my world was crumbling around me. With just a day, I realized the extent of his effect on me, from the hand holds to teasing to hugs to the looks. My feelings for Vincent were the only clear thing surrounding the smoke of the explosion of my life.
And all I really knew was that I was grateful he was here.