His last thought

09| Four bags

The next morning, I wake up and drive back to school by myself.

"Where's your friend?" Amber asks.

"You tell me." I lie. "Are you going to Corey's party on Friday?"

"Yeah." She says. "Don't you drive Caleb, though?"

I shrug, "Ask him yourself, if you want to know that bad."

After school, I quickly drive to the hospital. I run inside and to the front desk.

"Where's Caleb doing his chemo?" I ask Noel.

"Uh, 133c, I think." She says and I leave before she can say anything else. I walk in, and a random kid, maybe 8, looks over at me.

"Sorry." I say and shut the door, and go to the one next to it. Caleb looks at me, and then rolls his eyes.

"Why are you here?" He asks and covers the IV that's in his arm. He was wearing black sweats and a white t shirt.

"I told you I'll be here." I say and sit down next to him. "I'm sorry. You don't know how bad I feel."

"Yeah I do." Caleb says. "Did she tell anyone?"

"I don't think so. I didn't hear anything today." I say.

"If you do me this one thing, I'll forgive you."

"Yeah, shoot."

"Can you get me some hot Cheetos and a Twix bar?"

I smile and laugh a bit. "Yeah. I'll be right back."

I walk outside and to the first vending machine I see. I grab what he wants, and I get myself a bag of Doritos.

"So what happened today when I was gone?" Caleb asks. I sit back down next to him.

"Nothing, really. The rides were lonely."

"Why? What happened to Ashley?" He asks.

"She was acting like a bitch so I told her I wasn't going to drive her." I say and open the bag. "How much longer do you have here?"

"This, and two more bags." He says and points to the bag of chemo above him on the rack. "Plus one of the nurses said she wants to check my bp after all this."

"Have you ever tried cold caps?" I ask him.

"Yeah, they're a hassle to take care of though." Caleb says. "Did you?"

"I did through one full round. It mostly worked." I say and nod off. "Are you tired yet?"

"Nope. This is only my second bag."

"Shit." I mumble. "Four bags? Are you going to go to school tomorrow?"

"Maybe. I might sleep in, though." He says and opens his bag too. "I can't do gym so it won't really matter in the long run."

I sit there looking at him. He looked tired.

"What?" Caleb asks.

"Are you tired?" I ask again.

"A bit, yeah. But I'm fine."

"I can leave? You can sleep."

"No, I'm good." He says and smiles. "My mom just left like a half hour ago, she's been here the whole day."

"That's great. My mom never left my side."

"Because you were 10." Caleb says in a 'duh' tone.

"Yeah, but at the end I was 13."

"True." He says. "But you did have that scare a few months ago when they had to re test your blood. Didn't it just get contaminated or something?"

I look at him in shock. "How did you know that?" I ask and a smirk appears on my face. "You were asking about me, right?"

"No-"

"Uh-huh. Not even ash knows about that!"

"Okay fine. But you did too."

"I'm going to have to talk to Paige. She's been giving out confidential stuff."

"Yeah okay." Caleb says and stands up. The door then swings open and Paige walks in.

"What are you doing standing?" She asks Caleb.

"What's the big deal?"

"Just sit down and let me switch the bags. Your halfway done." Paige says. Caleb sits back down and Paige grabs another bag from the table. "Why are you here, Morgan?"

"Why are you cranky?" I ask.

"Long day. Ollie in 310 was giving us all shit."

"He's 7." I tell her.

"It doesn't mean he can punch and kick." She says. She finally turns back to face me. "But really, why are you here?"

"Caleb has no attention span." I say. Paige just rolls her eyes and starts walking. When she gets to the door she turns around.

"I'll be right back with food, but stop moving around Caleb." She says and leaves.

"Food? It's 3pm."

"I got here at one." Caleb says and stands up. "This sucks."

"Sit down." I tell him. "Paige might blame me."

"And?" He says and the door swings open again. It was Paige.

"Caleb, Morgans going to leave if you don't listen." She says and puts a tray of food on the table next to Caleb.

"I'm not eating that."

"To damn bad." She says and storms away.

"She's 29 and your already giving her grey hairs."

Caleb laughs and starts poking at his food. "But really, I'm not eating this."

"We can go for a walk? Take the back hallway, so no one sees us."

Caleb quickly gets up and grabs his poll. "We're good for a half hour at least."