"No, no. No talking little bug, this is the part where you listen" he cuts me off before I can finish. I'm disappointed in myself for complying to his orders. I told myself when I left him that I wouldn't let him control me like this anymore. But he...
"What do you mean there's nothing they can do? Kasey! There has to be something?" I gasp out in horror as I shift myself up closer to her on the couch.
She looks at me with a mixture of heartbreak and empathy, like she was feeling for us both in this moment.
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"It's just too late Harry, I'm sorry, I didn't know until it was too late" she attempts to explain through her body consuming her in emotion.
She had thought it was just a flu, something Willow had brought home from daycare, but when her cough didn't go away after 3 weeks, the persistent ache in her chest and then the final straw coughing up blood at work last week, she finally went in for testing to find out she was in stage 3 lung cancer. The same thing her grandmother had passed from only a few years before.
"How long?" I whisper almost completely under my breath.
"Harry, I'm going to be trying this new form of chemotherapy because the doctor said that surgery was -"
"HOW LONG?!" I cut her off and shout in frustration, realising that I have skipped from hurt to angry incredibly fast.
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"Harry please, please don't be mad at me" her voice echoing the hurt I'm feeling as well.
I'm not angry at her. That's insane. I was angry at the world. She was the most selfless person I knew, this couldn't happen to her.
"The expectancy is up to five years but based on my condition and how my symptoms seem to be rapidly increasing; Doctor Lin thinks 12 months."
I can barely contain myself now. Twelve months? That's all I had left? That's all Willow had left with her mother? There was so much that Kasey would miss; going to big school, first boyfriends, graduation, wedding, grandchildren. All of it. The person who deserved to see it the most would miss it.
Life is so cruel.
"You need to be there for Willow, Harry. You can't let her down. She will need you now, you have to; you can't give up on her, for me, please you need to be here" she quickly rambles off her chest without taking a breath. Desperation in her eyes.
