Phobic

Chapter 6:

I awake. My elbow is still very healthy. It barely hurts when I sleep on it now. I twisted it, and toiled with it in circles, observing its motion. Something about healing objects fascinated me.

The nurse had told me that the cells, chondroblasts, make cartilage and help amend the fracture. Her words interested me, the name rolled in my mouth in a pleasurable way. Chondroblasts.
Saying the word aloud made me sound almost like a frog catching a fly- in a metaphorical sense. It caused my tongue to extend when saying the 'blasts' part.

The medic also mentioned various others, like the hard callus and the osteoclasts that develop after a break, but the two didn't appeal as much as chondroblasts. The human body facilitated many ways to revive injury, or illness. Any way that occurred our body repaired it.
Not Ewing sarcoma, however.

Ewing sarcoma is a cancerous peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumor that forms in bone or soft tissue. The metastasis hasn't yet migrated to my recent fracture thankfully, but in my case, it's still in me. My ribs are where the cancer is located.

It began in 2075, twelve years ago, when I was three. My physician, Dr. Harley- who I had read in a newspaper article had died just recently -examined my body from head to toe during a physical treatment I was scheduled for. I don't exactly know how, but the cancer was spotted growing and expanding in my chest area on my rib bones. It was incurable at the moment, because I was three and not able to have elaborate surgery. That'd result in blood loss. But now that I'm older, and have much more evasiveness to these things, I never, ever reconsidered therapeutics.

I was as healthy as a duck on the outside. And on account of the cancer, like I said, it hasn't reached my extremities, and I was safe. For now.

And after my completed MRI scanning, no infected tissue was discovered. Only slight bone Ewing sarcoma surrounding my left rib cage. No worries, until it eventually spreads.

I was just glad that I hadn't broken my rib cage during the fall and the landing. That would effect me more than the cancer, probably much more unfixable.

I stood, and sauntered into the kitchen where Joan sat at the wrap-around table. He was eating oatmeal, like I was yesterday. On spur of the moment, I visualized my mother, dead-asleep with a beer stain puddled on her sweater. I grunt mentally, and roll my eyes.

He spun the chair facing me, and waved, smiling widely. "Join me," He said coolly. "Have some breakfast, Mel." I grin and do as he says, sitting nicely on the chair perched next to him. "So, I see you're healing from the accident." He says, gesturing at my arm. It wasn't thick and swollen, nor was it bent. It was straight and thin as usual. I nod plainly, shaking it to show its recovery.

He nods too, taking it in his grip. His hand is firm and tight. It hurts even without the fracture. Yet they are sweaty too, and make me a tiny bit uncomfortable. I want to tell him to soften his grip, but then he releases, and says, "You know. . . Sara visited earlier."
The words forming her name made my eyes open wide, intrigued. I haven't understood my motive for always feeling this way towards her. Perhaps once a person saves you in a way, you're usually sympathetic because you've imprinted on them in good manner. Like they're the one person you'd rather hear about aside from the others.

"Yeah," I say, calming down. "and?" He shuffles into the seat, straightening his back, erect. I smile, not because of Sara being aforementioned, but because Joan didn't seem upset with me anymore. He'd brushed it off apparently.
"What's with the smile?"

My eyes trailed panoramically around the room.
"I'm glad we made up, Joan." I tell him, calmly, smoothly. His face transforms anxious quickly, and his eyes also vigorously pace around the room. Such as they're bordering on happiness and sorrows.

Either he couldn't forgive me yet, or he didn't desire to tell me. After a half of a minute later, I nodded, and returned to talking about Sara. It made me sad that he didn't forgive me, but seeing that the blonde girl with the narrow face made me cheery, I made her the topic.

"So. . ." I asked again. "What'd she want?" His face was solemn again- surprising, because we were anti-solemnity. His face was just as it looked before I thanked him. Why did he not forgive me- in a month?
"She wanted to see how you were doing." He explained. "To ask if you needed anything, that's all. . ."
He's nervously staring at me now. But that expression swiftly fades away, and he smiles, shrugging lowly.
"Ya' sure?" I ask curiously.
"Yes, Melinda, I said that is all."

My brother is lying to me. He often used slang terms I could decipher, that are now divine and grammatical. He only ever says, "Mel" too, now "Melinda." There was obviously something my brother wasn't spilling. His eyes darted to his oatmeal. Then, he ate it leisurely trying to act placid. He wasn't succeeding at it, though.

"Joan. . ." I say, nudging him playfully on his waist. At contact, Joan swirled around and forced me into a crouching position to where I was facing his thighs. They were chubby, unlike his fingers which were chubbier. Eyes focused on me sinisterly, he grabs my head on both sides, yanking me upward a little. I squeak, scared because his fingers are so tense and my heart skips a beat.

"Please consider your thoughts Mel, okay?" He whispers.

Mother's words.