See You Soon

Chapter 9

Thanks for all of your support and patience, because school comes first. You get to see more of James in this... :-)

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I fixed my eyes on the envelope in my hands, not wanting to see anything besides that. Aaron led me through the various corridors by gently keeping his hand on my arm to guide me. He knew how much I hated hospitals, though he didn't really know why.

There was an older man in a wheelchair with his nurse in the elevator with us, and I couldn't help but wish for the ride to be over. We needed to get to Brooklyn. Finally the doors opened and we were on our way, down to the end of the hall on the left. Number 327. The door creaked as we opened it, and David's and Emily's heads snapped up.

Brooklyn was sound asleep in her hospital bed, attached to various tubes that accompanied the bandage around her forehead, and in the middle of her parents. David was the one who greeted us, no surprise, and Emily kept quiet.

"Hi guys, Brooklyn will be so happy to see you here when she wakes up. Of course the drugs are keeping her- well not herself whenever she is awake," he laughed hollowly, clearly forced.

"To be expected, and of course we're here. We would've been here last night if they would have let people in." Aaron sounded almost as if he was reassuring David.

"How is she?" I interrupted, and all eyes were now on me.

"Well she's good. Yeah, she's doing well." David looked down, then grabbed his wife's hand and then excused themselves. Aaron was already on the edge of her bed, his head in his hands.

Brooklyn went in for surgery late last night, trying to remove the cancerous tumour. Yesterday we went to school to get our report cards, and since Brooklyn was preparing for surgery and couldn't be in school, I had her report card. I don't think I even checked my grades, just chucked the envelope on the counter and went on to worrying about Brooklyn.

We sat in there for hours, interrupted only by her parents and a nurse or two every now and then. She slipped in and out of sleep for most of the day; her minutes awake were filled with odd phrases like,

"Your head looks big," or "Did you get fat?"

Aaron had a book with him and I had my IPod. It was dark out when a knock on the door startled me from my thoughts.

"Hi kids, how's it going?" My dad stood in the doorway dressed in the white coat and black slacks that made up his uniform. He looked sadly over to where Brooklyn lay.

"Good, how are you Dr. Jording?" Aaron turned around to face my father, while I took out only one of my headphones.

"Good, thanks. I'm not sure how much you guys know, so I'm here to tell you." He let that sink in for a minute then continued "The tumour they were trying to remove, well they couldn't get it all out. This was a possibility from the start."

"Oh." I knew this was likely to happen, but it happening for real was... different.

"Thanks for letting us know," Aaron told him, keeping his voice even.

"You're welcome. It's getting late, and visiting hours are over in about," He checked his watch, "10 minutes."

"Ok, I'll just drive with Aaron and see you at home later then." He waved goodbye before leaving us alone again, quiet surrounding us. The short brunette that came more than the other nurses came to kick us out a short while after and we bid her goodnight.

The moon was almost full, and lit up the dark night sky. I sat awake in bed for a long time staring up at it, not knowing what to think.

Brooklyn was awake when Aaron and I returned the next morning and she smiled lazily at the both of us.