Oh, Boy

Chapter VI

I woke up early Sunday morning to tell mom and Ollie goodbye. It was hard, but if I ever wanted see Ollie again, I had to say goodbye this once to say hello to him ever again.
"How long will we be gone?" he asked.
"Only a week. Then you're coming right back here and we're going to rematch on the Xbox." I said as I kissed his forehead and ruffled his hair for the last time. I knew he was going to come back bald.

Once they left, I asked my dad a question.
"Isn't the counselor suppose to give a student time off if a family member becomes ill?"
"I think so. But, you might want to talk to your counselor early tommorrow morning to make sure." he said.
"Yeah. I'm probably going to take the next two or three days off." I told him.
"That's if your counselor let's you." he said sternly.
He walked out of the room to take another phone call. It sounded serious.
I didn't want to worry about financial issues, but I was willing to get a job if it meant helping my family.

Late that night, I was in my bed trying to fall asleep. I couldn't. I felt empty. Like I was hollow and I was just a shell. I don't know if that makes any sense. But, I eventually fell asleep around 2 am.

I woke up around 7 am. I totally forgot that Ollie and mom had left. I even went into his room to wake him up and there was nobody. I wanted to cry. It was amazing thinking he was still here.
I buried my feelings, and went downstairs to eat. I couldn't focus. All I was thinking about was how Ollie was doing. I even burned my Eggo waffles.
I decided to ride my bike to school. Not to go to school to learn, but to talk to the counselor about having a few extra days off.

I walked in his office. It was gross. There's was trash everywhere and beer cans lying on the floor. It looked like the aftermath of a frat party. I also saw Mr. Leonard passed out in his office chair, drooling on his stained yellow shirt.
"Umm? Mr. Leonard?" I asked with a loud voice.
He awoke and looked around. He looked at me like I was an elephant and I gave him the "what-the-heck-just-happened" facial expression.
"What do you want?" he asked with a scratchy voice.
"Umm. Well I heard that you can get some time off if you have a family member become ill." I said as I looked around.
"You heard right. What family member and what's the illness?" he asked as he got a pen and paper out.
"Umm. Well, it's my little brother. He got diagnosed with brain cancer." I said.
He wrote something down on the sticky-note and tore it off the stack.
"I will make sure to give this to the dean. I will give you 3 extra days off if you never talk about what you saw in here." he said.
"Oh okay. And how many days off do I get exactly?" I asked.
"Around 2 weeks total." he said.
"Okay. Well I better go, I'm taking today and tommorrow off." I said.
"Whatever. Shoo." he said pointing at the door.
I walked out and pretended I had just mastered the art of negotiating. Even though all I did was walk in at a bad time.