Dusk & Dawn

13- time freeze

The clock kept turning around but the day didn't seem to want to change. I stared at the small light creeping in my room from my maroon curtains. I had being in the room, staring at my ceiling. My phone was switched off, my door was locked and I was shut out of the world.

I wanted to check on Gianna, it was only right that I did. But my bones hurt like a bitch with every little move I made. I crawled out of my bed and helped myself to finally stand on both feet.

For some reasons I couldn't decipher, it felt like my chest was congested and I thought that maybe it was from crying for so long before finally closing my eyes to sleep.

I found Gianna crawled in bed with Sia right by her side. She lay on the bed in a different cloth than yesterday while Sia just played some video game. You could tell by the furious tap on her phone screen and Gianna's undivided attention on the screen that it was the kind that they fancied.

I turned to the source of the noise from downstairs and headed down in a tiptoe. Mom sat down at the other end of the living room and watched the other doctor from the room that day, speak. His back was turned to me and so neither of them could see me.

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important, Val." He mentioned as he pulled his crossed legs to himself.

My mom looked devastated, her hair was everywhere, her lips chapped and her eyes swollen from crying for so long. I couldn't dare imagine what she was feeling like. I simply couldn't.

"I can't watch you make a mistake that you'd regret, Gianna needs that surgery immediately," his tone was soft as he spoke but his voice held a sense of urgency that my mom needed to hear.

"Topaz, I am not giving up on any of my kids," my mom's voice quivered as she spoke.

"I am not asking you to, these children are my patients and I care about them almost as much as you do. We'll continue to manage Raine, have Gianna take the surgery." He advised again.

I always knew that I gave up on myself from the day that I got diagnosed of stage two ca. I knew it wasn't a war I could fight, so I accepted it and decided to live instead. But hearing my mom and Naomi tell me not to give up on myself every time made me want to believe that something good could happen.

They made me believe in the "you never can tell" but it was all just a lie to get me to keep on holding on. Listening to someone with a neutral view of the situation. I didn't like the way it sounded but I knew it was the truth that I had to accept.

A truth that I had to be.

"Look, I'll contact you once I'm ready," My mom asked as if to plead. "I need some time to think."

As I turned upstairs to go back, I found Sia on the way down and she looked beyond surprised to find me.

"Did Ezra go back to school?" I asked her

"No, he's been home all weekend," she responded and I nodded in agreement before she descended on the stairs.

I hauled myself out of my bed when I heard an incessant argument from down the living room. By the time I got there, mom was holding onto a drip bag with her gloved hands and a syringe while Gianna stood at another corner telling her to stay away.

"What's going on?" I asked them as I looked in between them.

"I am not a kid anymore, I deserve to at least know what is going on with me?" Gianna cried as she spoke.

I turned to mom who sent me a knowing glare reminding me not to even think of sharing what I knew already.

"You're going to be fine Gianna, can you just sit and—"

She cut mom off again as she held out her hands for emphasis. "You do not understand, do not treat me like I am sick when you can't even tell me what's wrong with me!" She yelled again.

"Telling you doesn't change anything Gianna."

"It is cancer, just like me."

Mom and I seemed to have blurted out our replies at the same time. Gianna frowned at both of us, her brows furrowing in confusion as she processed the information. Mom plonked on the chair next to her lifeless, dropping what was in her hand on the ground.

"I just needed to hear someone say it." Gianna's eyes glistened with tears as she replied me. She nodded as if she had been right about something all along. I picked that as a chance to convince her that she was going to be alright, because in all honesty, she was.

"But you're going to be fine. You were detected early and so it would be removed completely," I tried to assure her moving a step to her while she took two backwards.

"And what's going to happen to you?" She asked me, shaking her head at my entire explanation like she didn't buy any of the things that I said.

"Yeah, I'm going to be fine as well Gianna. When am I ever not fine," I tried to smile to her as I held out my hands.

"You must still mistake me for a child Raine, I've always been able to separate your lies from the truths," she shook her head with a scoff, silent tears streaming down her face.

She didn't look back as she walked away from us. She didn't look back as she ran up the stairs and slammed her room door so hard that the windows creaked from the force.

I turned back to my mom,

"You do realize that there's nothing to think about Ma? She has a better chance, we cannot waste that." I explained to her clasping my hands together at the thoughts of what that meant for me.

"So you told her she had cancer, the same thing that killed your father and the same thing that is constantly disrupting your own life?" She asked me, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Trust me mom, she'd want to know. She'd regret it if she didn't know. I was only trying to help." I answered.

"You want to know how to help?" Mom stood up, confronting me as she approached me. "Go away Raine, go to school or something. I'll think straight without your vain opinions disrupting my thoughts." She blurted out as she walked past me and up the stairs.

Nov 16th