It all started with a game

Chapter 17

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.
~chuck palahniuk

A/N
A lot of you guessed this but, Sonny is our cancer :)

Chapter 17
Beatrice's POV
I finished the book in my hand for the third time. It had to be one of the best books I'd read in a long time, definitely my new favorite. I wasn't sure where Klaus had gotten it from, but I had found it in his bag and decided it was now mine after reading the description on the back. In my defense, he said he was supposed to give it to me, it just may or may not have been after I'd already stolen it.

Sonny laid quietly beside me, barely having enough room as the hospital bed was most certainly not made for two, working on a new embroidery project.

I'd been in the hospital for three days now, mostly because my oxygen levels were unusually low, and the two of my brothers had not left once in the entirety of this trip. They practically lived here with me, eating in the cafeteria, sleeping either on the bed with me or on the chairs to the side of the room. They didn't even go to school. Technically the two of them weren't allowed to be here as much as they were, but thankfully we had one of the sweetest nurses in the world who turned a blind eye and let us.

For a second, as I read the last line of the novel, it felt as though everything was perfect, and then it ended. I closed the book, a slight emptiness taking over my body as I said goodbye to a world that had provided me so much comfort, but I would visit again.

"Have you talked to Ryder?" My little brother interrupted my peace.

Not even a book could heal that kind of pain.

I shook my head. I hadn't spoken to Ryder, but he had left me about a hundred text messages and an equal amount of voicemails. He even tried to video chat me a few times. I'd ignored all of them. I didn't want to speak to him.

I had been trying my best not to think about it, but the moment replayed over and over in my head. He was touching it. He was touching my disgusting, deformed reptile skin. He was touching it.

"Beatrice, you should talk to him," Sonny tried to persuade.

I shook my head again. "Sonny, I only have seven toes and he saw that. I don't want to talk to him." My feet were probably the part about myself I hated most. They always looked swollen, even though they never were. And instead of ten toes, I had five regular toes and two giant toes that were just multiple toes fused together into one big lump. I hated them, so I always wore socks, always. Even when it was just Sonny and Klaus, I would wear socks, not because I didn't want them to see it, but because I didn't want to see it. I've always hated socks, they make me feel claustrophobic, like I'm slowly being suffocated, smothering me to death with a pillow. But I'd rather not be able to breathe than be forced to look at my own deformities.

"It's barely even noticeable." Sonny tried to make me feel better.

"I don't have toenails." I hoped that if I said it with enough of a void of emotion, and pretended that it was laughable, then I could act like it didn't get to me, like it didn't tear my insides to shreds.

Sonny set his project down, leaning his head against my shoulder. "I don't either."

I wrapped my arm around him. "I know." Thankfully for Sonny, his feet, and some of his calves, were the extent of the damage. He got out a lot sooner than I did.

"I wear socks whenever Maxon's around. He knows everything but I still wear socks, even when the sock should be on the door, I wear them."

I knew my little brother was not telling me this for me to help him cope with his own issues but instead to show me that he understood.