Cigarettes and Valentines

Chapter 16

Michael's POV

It wasn't too much of a shock to be honest but Allison seemed to be more than exhausted about the fact, that I had this certain form of cancer.

„Hey don't give me that look" I muttered, not daring to gaze at her piercing green eyes directly.

Her forehead clenched and I had that feeling, that she wanted to say so much and nothing seemed to really contain her disappointment.

„It's cancer, Michael. Not any sort of cancer but also lung cancer! Don't you know how bad the chances of surviving these tumors are?!"

Biting the walls of my cheek, I played with one of the bracelets I wore so many of.

„You don't really realize how serious this is, do you?" she kept on making her point.

Now I couldn't help but meet her eyes just to see how much water collected in them so I decided to give an answer even though I had planned on avoiding it.

„You don't really realize the concept of taking life as it comes, do you?" 

She shook her head and the first tear rolled down her cheek and this was the moment where I said something that made her tear up completely. 

„I don't mind, really"

Allison gulped. „Are you kidding me? You can't just tell me that you've already coped with the possibly of dying anytime soon!"

A light chuckle escaped my lips. „It's not like that it's on my bucket list, okay? I wouldn't have stopped smoking if I was planning on leaving this goddamn place, would I?"

She wiped the tears off her rosy cheeks. „You know..." now she twisted the piece of paper in her hands, scanning the prognosis over and over again. „It hasn't even got to state 1"

I raised an eyebrow at her. „Which means...?"

„Which means, the tumors haven't affected your lungs just yet. It's the most realistic state to survive... I mean... as long as you're being operated regularly"

Now my smirk died. „Operated? As in sharp tools digging their way inside in my body?" I did everything to sound as unaffected as possible. This wasn't exactly a fear of mine but, real talk, I wasn't all too keen on it either.

She nodded. 

„What exactly did the doctor tell you?" her voice was still shaking but it seemed like she put all effort in stopping to cry.

„Can't we just break it off?" I sighed bored. „And please stop crying. You had so many legit reasons to cry over in the past weeks and this definitely isn't among them"

Allison tilted her head back in frustration. „Oh Michael, why can't we have one damn conversation about serious topics? You always block off whenever I mention the shooting from last week and you refuse to tell me where you've been all the time as well! Why is trusting me such a hard thing for you?"

Now my foot started to hit harder against the table and the pace increased as well. Shit, I really wanted a cigarette but after telling Allison about my disease, there was no way she'd let me have one.

Okay, can we just take a moment to realize how the fuck this whole thing turned around?! I'm literally choosing to renounce something I favor, just because I know it'd hurt another person?! Shit, this is mental! How did that even happen?

"Never trusted anyone, let alone myself, I must insist-" I couldn't even finish my Green Day quote but she instantly picked it up.

"Yeah, but if you actually leave me, I'm the loner with a catastrophic mind! "