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“But you still want to…” Xander coughed. “Be free to do stuff with Christian?”
“I’m not saying I’m going to have sex with the guy,” I said, watching both boys across from me cringe. “But I have to lead him on a bit, yeah. Make sure he doesn’t start dating anyone else before the dance.” If he did that, my plan would be royally screwed.
Alec said, “But even ignoring that, it’s…it’s weird.”
“Weird to who? To you?” I shook my head. “Why is it weird I want to be with both of you? You two were with each other, so I don’t see—”
“You don’t need to keep bringing it up,” Xander muttered, shooting Alec a fast look.
These boys were being such…stupid boys.
I checked my phone before setting it on the carpet beside me. “It’s three-thirty-four. How much time do we have until your parents get home?” What I did next would depend on his answer.
“A little over an hour. My mom usually gets home a bit before five, my dad at five-thirty,” Alec rattled off. “Why?”
My eyes fell to my lap. More specifically, to my wrists. If I did what I wanted, my scars would be visible for any and all to see. But…maybe that was the point. Maybe that’s what I needed. Maybe, eventually, I could forget the spiteful feeling inside of me and just live.
Living. It’s what my mom would’ve wanted me to do.
I sat on the most uncomfortable chair ever, hunched over in the hallway of the hospital, too far away from the one person that mattered above all else to me. Somewhere, in one of the rooms, was my mom, hooked up to machines, talking to doctors. I’d ridden in the ambulance with her, and I used one of the nurse’s cell phones to call Leah, since I left mine at home in the chaos. Leah and her mom were on their way.
My heart felt heavy in my chest. I was sad, but it was a different kind of sad than I’d felt before. Not the shoulder-crushing weight of sheer depression, but something else.
I looked at my hands, turning them until my palms faced the ceiling. I wore a jacket, and I tentatively reached for a sleeve, exposing my scar. It was a deep, thick scar, because it’d been a deep, thick gash made with a kitchen knife.
These were my scars, and they would stick with me until the day I died for real. Would I change my past, if I could? Probably. It was stupid of me to try to kill myself all because my world was crumbling around me. My life would get better, it would go on, just like it would move on from this. And even if things hadn’t gotten better, if I had to stay at that school and be subject to bullying and constant torment from the other kids, what did it matter? School was only until I was eighteen, and then it was college, adulthood. Then I could’ve moved away and never seen any of their faces again, my dad and his pretty girlfriend included.
But that would involve me leaving my mom, which was just something I couldn’t do.
It was before Leah and her mom arrived that a nurse came to get me, telling me softly, “You can come see your mom now, if you want.”
I nodded once, following her through the sterile white halls until we walked into a private room, where my mom lay on a bed beneath a sheet, looking pale. Beside her, her IV dripped steadily. A doctor stood near her, holding a clipboard. I rushed to her side, hugging her, glad she was back.
“Be gentle with her for a while,” the doctor advised, giving me a small smile.
I ended the hug. “What’s wrong?”
“Your mother had a seizure,” the doctor said. “And it wasn’t her first.” At that, I looked at Mom, meeting her guilty eyes. She’d been hiding seizures from me? How?
The doctor glanced at my mom, who gave him a nod as she wiped her tears. He went on, “She has stage four glioblastoma. She’s forgone chemotherapy and surgery.” When I kept staring at him with a stupid expression, he added, “Brain cancer. Your mom has brain cancer.”
The words hit me like a bag of bricks. Brain cancer? How? My world began to spin, and I wanted to shout, wanted to argue, but I knew he was a doctor, with years of practice under his belt, and this…this wasn’t something new. You didn’t just wake up one morning and have stage four brain cancer. It was something that built up.
My mom had hidden it from me. For how long? Why? If she would’ve told me, I would’ve…
What could I have done? Begged her to try chemo? Told her to get a surgery that might not even help her?
“Based on the size and how much it’s spread, I’d give her six months, at the most.” To my mom, he said, “It’s time to get everything wrapped up, Rosie.” Her life insurance, her will, all the other things dying people had to worry about.
Because my mom was dying.
I didn’t remember much after that. I recalled stumbling into the hall, finding Leah and her mom. I remembered collapsing into my friend’s arms, too stunned to cry.
I’d survived River Elementary. I’d gone to therapy, gotten better, had a life here. I smiled more, I tried hard in school. I did everything my mom and my therapist had told me to do, and this was how I was going to be rewarded? All that work, and this was where we ended up? I stood taller than ever after my suicide attempt just to watch my mom die.
