Reggie Peters And Brittany Mercer

1994 Monday Lunch Time

Brittany leaves her class as soon as the bell rings because she doesn't want to waste an extra second. She wants to talk to Reggie about what happened in PE. She walks as fast as she can to get there without running. She had to make sure she still has a relationship with Reggie. She loves him too much to let him go. Brittany walks around a corner and sees Reggie standing at his locker. She walks towards him and leans against her locker. "Hey," she says to him.
"Hey," he replies. He has a sad look on his face like he has lost the most important person to him in his life. "What's up?"
"I was just wondering if I still have a boyfriend?"
He has a confused look on his face. "Of course you do. Why would you think that you don't?"
"Well, because of Robby."
"He's your friend. I get it." Brittany wouldn't really call Robby her friend because they just met. "I have girls that are friends. I know you're fine with that. So, I am fine with you having guys as friends." To be honest, Brittany wasn't really fine with Reggie having all of those girls that are friends. She doesn't know why, she just doesn't really like any of them. "Let's go to the Cafeteria and sit with our friends so we can show off your new necklace that I bought you!" He grabs her hand and they walk together to the cafeteria. Absolutely nothing comes out of their mouths as they walk to the cafeteria. They want to soak in the almost silence for as long as possible. As they reach the table their friends are sitting at, they all wave to them.
They sit down at the table and one of their friends automatically says, "Wow. That's a really pretty necklace."
"Thank you Savannah," Brittany says. "Reggie got it for me."
"Wait!" Another one of their friends says. "You two? Really?!"
"Yeah," Reggie says. "Why is that shocking to you?"
"Oh. No reason. I just always thought Brittany would end up with Luke." Brittany gives her friend a look like she wants to kill him. "Why are you giving me that look?"
"No reason," Brittany tells her friend. "Hey Adam. Can I have your roll?"
"Yeah sure." He grabs the roll off of his tray and hands it to her.
"Thanks." He nods at her while stuffing food in his mouth. She tosses the roll back and forth to her hands.
"Dude," Alex says as he walks up to the table. "Who gave my sister a roll? You know we don't give her our rolls anymore for what happened last time!" He goes to grab it out of her hand, but she pulls away before he could. Then she throws the roll at Adams head. "See what I mean!"
"Ow," Adam says. "I forgot how good of an arm she has." Brittany and the rest of the people at the table laugh. "What?"
"Dude, that wasn't even her good arm!"
Her and her friends continue laughing until a voice behind them says, "What are we laughing about?" It was Luke.
"Adam gave Brittany a roll," Alex says to him.
"Seriously Adam! You knew what happened last time. Why did you give her a roll?"
"I wasn't there that day!" He complains. "What happened with the roll?" They all laugh harder than they were before because they forgot that he was absent that day.
"She…. She threw it…. And…." Luke starts to say. He didn't finish because he was grabbing his ribs because his stomach hurt. While Brittany is laughing, she looks over at Luke. She points at him and laughs even harder. At some point, they were all holding their ribs because they couldn't breathe. Finally, they all catch their breath.
"So what happened was…." Brittany starts to say. A teacher walks up to the table.
"Brittany and Alex Mercer," the teacher says to the Mercer twins.
"Yeah?" They both say at the same time.
"You're needed in the office." They give each other a glance and get up from the table. They start to walk to the office.
"What do you think this is about?" Alex asks his sister.
"I don't know," she replies. "Whatever it is, it probably isn't good." They walk the rest of the way to the office worried and sad. 'What could this be about?' Brittany's inner thoughts start to wonder. 'Is something wrong with mom or dad? Is there something wrong with Grandma Rose? Or is it her dad's mom? There could be many things that could be wrong.' They get to the office. Brittany hesitates on grabbing the door handle. Then she pushes her entire body forward and grabs the door handle to swing it open. They both walk into the office. The smell of the office changes their faces from concerned to grossed out.
The principal then walks up to them and says, "You two must be Alex and Brittany Mercer. I'm Principal Garcia. Your mom called and said that she needed to pull you two out of school for a family emergency." Brittany was right. She knew it was gonna have to be a family emergency. Her face was not pleased with the news she just received. The principal walks away from the twins to give them some time. Alex turns around to see his sister in tears. She lays her face on Alex's chest and cries loudly. Just then, they hear the front office door swing open. They both turn around to see their mom standing in front of the door.
"I'll bring them back before lunch is over," their mom says as she walks up to the office desk to sign them out. "Come on kids. Let's go." They all walk out of the office and to the car. As they get in, Brittany wonders what's wrong.
"Mom," Brittany says, concerned. "Is everything okay?"
"No." She keeps her eyes on the road and tries to not lose focus. "It's your father." Tears run down their mothers cheeks. "He had a heart attack at work. He also had to get some x-rays. They found cancer in his lungs." Brittany and Alex look at each other and grab each other's hands for comfort. "That's all they told me because they need to do more tests. Anyways, we're here." Their mom turns off the car. They all hop out and close the doors. Brittany and Alex grab each other's hands again. They are still sad and shocked. Brittany can't bare all of the information that was just put on her chest. She squeezes her brother's hand that is surprisingly still intertwined with hers. He squeezes back. Alex's starts scamming all of his thoughts in his head. 'I don't want him to die. Even though he doesn't accept me, I love him and I don't want anything bad to happen to him. If he leaves my life, I don't know what I would do.' They enter the elevator of the hospital. Brittany's mom pushes the floor level they are going to. Then her inner thoughts start. 'Is dad going to be okay? Am I not going to have a dad anymore? If it wasn't caught early, will he survive it? Is my mom going to be able to cope with all of this? Are any of us going to be able to cope with it?' They step off the elevator and follow their mom to wait in the waiting room. Right away, a doctor comes out and starts talking to them.
"Are you Mrs. Mercer?" The doctor asks their mom. She nods. "Your husband needs time to rest, but I can fill you and your kids in. So, basically what you already know is that he has lung cancer. He has stage three cancer. So, we didn't catch it early, but he has a fifty fifty chance of survival with surgery. If he doesn't get surgery, his chances of surviving lower."
"By how much?" Brittany asks the doctor.
"His chances of survival will drop by at least 5-10 percent. That's without the surgery. If he does have the surgery, we are gonna have to do it soon. It's up to you Mrs. Mercer. I'll give you some time to think."
Before the doctor could walk away, their mom grabs him by the wrist and says, "Do the surgery." The doctor nods. He starts to round up the doctors as the Mercer's sit down and gloat. "You guys don't have to go back to school if you don't want to," their mom says to them. "You can stay here and wait for his surgery to be done." Brittany didn't want to stay. She wanted to go back to school. So did Alex.
"Actually mom," Alex says to her. "I want to go back to school."
"So do I," Brittany says in agreement with Alex. They didn't tell their mom why they wanted to go back. They thought going back to school would be a distraction. At least, that's what Brittany thought. They all walk out of the hospital and to the car. Brittany closes her eyes as soon as she is in the car. She thinks about all of the happy moments with her dad. She tries to block out all of the bad ones, which is a lot. All of those happy moments are so happy that they cancel out all of their bad moments. She just focuses on every happy time with him. She thinks about before the cancer, before all of the yelling, before Alex told them that he is gay, before everything went all wrong. She just wants her dad to be okay.