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So sorry for the delay. I wrote the next chapter then realised it doesn't really fit here so I will upload that another time when we get to it.
Trigger warning - mentions of suicide
Wednesday
Jake
I'd spent a lot of time in the hospital over the last few years. I was admitted for the first time shortly after my 14th birthday. I'd been here several months before I was discharged and labelled cancer free. I was rediagnosed three months, now 16, and readmitted two months ago.
It was hard.
This was supposed to be the best time of my life and instead I was stuck here unable to do anything.
I'd lost all my friends. I'd lost out on going to school which I know sounds amazing to some people but all I wanted was to be able to experience what everyone else did. I wanted to get caught talking at the back of class, I wanted to be able to actually speak to a teacher in person about my work, I wanted to join sports team, sign up for clubs, hang out with my friends at lunch, I even wanted to be assigned homework. There was no such thing as homework in my case because all the work was done at home. There was no difference between school and home. There was no home really, just this hospital.
I'd struggled tremendously during my first stay here. Getting used to the new routine, the chemo, the doctors being around me constantly, this small room with a lack of entertainment, and having to deal with the fact that I was dying had really taken its toll. Feeling the nausea after my first chemo, watching my hair fall out until I had no choice but to shave it, watching my once bright and happy, athletic, capable self transform into this sick looking, depressed person I barely recognised.
This time had been better. Not much, but better. Until mum died that is. She'd been with me through this entire journey. I couldn't have asked for a more supportive parent. She did everything she could to help me from finding me the best treatment, to staying with me in hospital, to cooking my favourite dinners. I couldn't have done it without her.
I almost lost it that night, when I found out. She'd gone out to get us some dinner and had suffered a heart attack in her car. She'd never even left the car park. I didn't know how long it was before someone found her but Ashton came and broke the news to me around 11.
I'd broken down, sobbed for hours over her death before I wore myself out to the point where I could fight sleep no longer. I'd dreamt of her that night, nothing unusual or even related to her death, simply her talking to me. I dreamt of her a lot. I work up early and cried again, wanting to get it all out my system before Michael and the others arrived for the day. I didn't want everyone to see me cry.
Meeting Megan had made it better, at least for a little while.
But now she wouldn't speak to me and I had been told I have a sister. A sister who is younger than me, not by much, a sister that proved my father had cheated on my mother.
I couldn't talk to him after hearing her tell me she was my sister.
Ashley.
I hadn't spoken to her.
As soon as she said the word sister, I got up from the bed, barged past her and my dad and made my way straight to the roof.
Ashton followed me. He was always wary about me being up there alone, after all I was the reason the rooftop garden had been closed.
During my first stay I'd gone up there, prepared to jump; I just couldn't take the pain and the misery anymore.
It was at night, when I was sure it would be empty. I'd been in the ledge, about to take the final step when Ashton had appeared. I'd not spoken a word to him since my arrival but he wouldn't give up. It took some time but he talked me down from the ledge.
The roof had been off limits since then.
I still liked to go up there.
I wasn't sure why but now I enjoyed it. Maybe it reminded me of the life I had and that there was a reason to keep going.
I'd been distant from everyone since Friday, except on Sunday. Sunday my father had tried to speak to me but I just couldn't handle it. I yelled and cried about what he had done to me and mum, how he had left us, how he had cheated on her.
He response of two simple words was enough to make me lose it.
'She knew.'
I'd launched myself at him as soon as the words were out of his mouth. There was no way Mum knew. He'd cheated on her, but he hadn't left until years later. She wouldn't have put up with that. And she would have told me. She would have told me I had a sister.
Unfortunately for my father, he'd decided to sneak into my room alone, when he wasn't supposed to, to talk to me so but the time Michael entered just to check on me, I'd already beaten my dad unconscious. It wasn't intentional; I wasn't thinking, just punching.
I had to have a very long talk with Ashton after that.
Michael had later informed me that my dad was now also a patient in the hospital but that no serious damage had been caused.
Too bad.
That was three days ago, and I hadn't spoken a word since.
And now my surgery was tomorrow and I was panicking.
I would be okay. Michael was doing it and he was an excellent doctor. The success rate was high, as far as I knew. It was fairly major surgery, yes, but I would be okay.
I would be okay.
Right?
