Guess what? Life happened.

Chapter 5

“You’re going to tell me what happened now or keep brooding?” Roxie asked five minutes after we got in the car.

I had spent the past hour sitting in the ground of an empty parking lot with my depressing thoughts as my only company. By the time she had come out I was on the edge of screaming. I couldn’t control my mind any longer. Everywhere I turned I kept seeing my mother’s face smiling, laughing, glowing, just plain happy. I tried to close my eyes but every time I did that, I saw my father lying in a coffin. How can life be so cruel? I’ve been good all my life but what do I get in return? …a broken heart to go with my lonely life. I needed somebody to hug me and to tell me everything will be all right just like my mom used to do when I thought there was a monster in my closet. Now, the monster was no longer hiding. He was coming at me in plain sight but there was nobody to help me so it was eating me alive.

“Nikkie.” Roxie drew me out of my thoughts. “Seriously what’s going on?”

I kept my gaze in the window looking at the houses filing by. I didn’t want to say it out loud. I was still feeling too raw about it. Maybe if I didn’t say it out loud it wouldn’t be real. I would wake from this horrible nightmare. My dad would wake up healthy, filling the house with his dreadful singing and burning food.

I took a pen and my notebook out of my book bag and wrote the most painful four words of my entire life.

My dad has Leukemia.

I took a deep breath than showed the paper to Roxie. Her foot automatically went to the brake pedal making the car stop abruptly in the middle of the road. Thankfully it was one of those times that I remembered to fasten my seatbelt or I would have been subject to some serious injuries. I turned my head around to look if there was any cars behind us but the road was deserted like usual.

I returned my eyes to Roxie. She was white as a sheet. She looked even worse than I did when I learned about my father’s illness. Her chest was rising extremely fast as if she was struggling to pull air into her lungs.

“Roxie, are you alright?” I touched her arm gently but quickly retrieved it. She was cold as ice.

“When did you find out?” She asked while her eyes remained on the wind shield and her knuckles were strained with the force she was gripping the steering wheel.

“This morning.” I replied. We sat there in the middle of the empty road. The silence totally engulfed the car. Two cars honked at us but they just passed by us once they realized we were not going to move.

“How long?” She finally let out with a strained voice. I continued to stare ahead but from my periphery vision I could see tears streaming down her face.

“I…I don’t know.” I didn’t really want to know. I would have rather not known anything at all. I regretted ever opening that door this morning. I regretted snatching the letter away from my dad. I regretted not listening to him and read it. I regretted everything that happened this morning. This should not be happening. Not to my dad.

A sudden knock on Roxie’s window stopped me from going deeper in the solemnity of my mind. A police officer was standing next to the car with a scowl on his face. Roxie’s face was also turned toward the officer but I don’t think she saw him. She was still lost in her thoughts.

“Scroll the window down.” He said but I could barely hear him through the glass and the rushing of blood in my ears.

“Yes?” Roxie said after she finally snapped out of her trance and did as she was told.

“What’s the hold up? You girls have been standing here for the past thirty minutes.” He sounded irritated. Neither of us responded but as his eyes scrutinized Roxie’s tears stained face, he gradually softens.