The Cause Of My Effects

CHAPTER 2 - REALITY BITES

REALITY BITES
(SEPTEMBER)

6:00 A.M.
    Ugh, well it's time to rise and shine to another great and amazing day that may or may not end up with me laying face down on a hospital bed.  I don't mean to sound so depressing, but life just isn't as squeaky clean and full of stars and rainbows as other people may paint it out to be; my world is just miserable, at least it has been lately.  It's like a nightmare that I can't quite shake awake or find any kind of escape from.  I'm just looking for some hidden exit door that leads to the route of my happiness. 
           I lay awake in my twin sized bed, "resting my eyes" as some may call it.  I do this until my mother knocks on my bedroom door, swinging it open as she knocks. This leaves no time for even a complete syllable of a response.  As you could imagine, there have been many "close calls", if you catch my drift.
           "Time to wake up sweetie, you have to get up for school  You wouldn't want to be late for your first day back" she says in the sweetest most caring motherly voice that almost any mom would try to pull on their 'babies' ... problem is I AM NOT A BABY; I am seventeen years old, eighteen next month! 
           I respond to her attempt at waking me up by pulling my soft, 100% cotton, green and black striped covers back over my head, hiding like an ostrich with its head in the ground. She walks out the door, leaving the door ajar as I hear her fluffy blue slippers slap across the wooden floor of the hallway and into the kitchen she goes.
    I rise from my bed with much effort, swinging my legs over to the left side with the wall to my back; I look to my right at my black wooden desk covered in books and cds with my 32 inch television hanging above it.  To my left is a large blue bean bag chair big enough for two; next to the chair is my dresser, black and wooden to match the desk.  My door to the hallway stands directly in front of me with a four foot closet to the left of it. 
    I blink my eyes repeatedly to wake myself up from the seemingly never ending drowsiness that I was cursed with.  I look around at the light, almost ocean blue walls that engulfs me into its deepest slumber.  My feet touch down into the high risen carpet, a kind of gray / blue color. I enjoy having carpet in my room because it keeps my feet from freezing during the cold winters, a personal preference I suppose.
    Finally, I rise from the bed and make my way to the door, which leads to the hallway.  To the right, all the way down the hall, is the entrance to the kitchen, to the left is my parents bedroom and directly across from my room is the bathroom. 
    I take a step into the bathroom and can feel the cold of the linoleum beneath my bare feet; sending chills up and down my spine.  Directly in front of me is the sink and the two by three foot mirror above it, A.K.A. my worst enemy. There I stand, no bulging muscles, in fact, there really is no muscle mass at all on my skeleton thin body. Underneath my eyes are noticeable purple bags that never seem to go away, no matter how many hours of sleep I get. I stare at the unnaturally pale skin which doesn't help my cause either.  Oh, and that wonderfully blond hair that once laid upon my head no longer exists, but instead is replaced with a shiny bald scalp.  The baldness of my head would not be so bad if it weren't for the scabbing, also known as Herpes on the head, but not to worry it isn't a sexually transmitted disease; it is just some scabbing on the head as a side effect from the radiation and chemo. Yup the double whammy, that of which I have finally completed my final round of radiation.  I know the picture as a whole makes me sound extremely attractive, almost model like. I'm aware, so is everyone else.
    I walk out of the bathroom after doing my usual morning routine;  looking at the effects of cancer taking over my body in the mirror, washing my face, brushing my teeth, and taking an overly hot shower.  I can smell bacon and eggs cooking in the kitchen; this makes my stomach hurt because I haven't eaten anything since lunchtime the day before.  I walk down the hall into the kitchen where my mother is standing at the stove.
    "Good morning Janice."  I greet my mother with the best fake smile I can muster up for it being so unbearably early in the morning.
Oftentimes I call my mother by her first name, just a habit I suppose. Most times my father will tell me that it is rude to call my own mother by her first name, which prompts me to do it anyway, just to get somewhat of a rise out of him.  It's like when you're a little kid and your parents tell you not to touch the hot iron, but your curiosity kicks in because you don't want to be told not to do something, so instead you go ahead and do it, but in this case I'm not getting burned, just mildly irritating my father.  He'll never dare yell at me though. My parents seem to always walk on eggshells with me now, it's really awkward and strange. Sometimes I wish that I wasn't quite a burden on the two of them.
    Janice is in her early fifties, but doesn't look a day over thirty-five.  I know, I know, "you're just saying that cause she's your mother," but no, she just doesn't look like an old lady, that's all I'm saying.  She has curly blond hair, which is something that she is known for around town.  It is usually easy to pick her out of a crowd when I would accidentally lose her in a grocery store when I was younger because I just had to look for "the hair".  My mother is a very warm and welcoming woman who, unlike most mothers of children with cancer, hovers over me but is not attached to my hip every single second of every single day of my living, breathing, not buried in the ground life.  My parents have this theory that I should live my life without anything holding me back because any day could be any of our last days living, breathing, and walking on this Earth.    
    "I made you some bacon, extra crispy, and some eggs over easy, with some toast, hold the butter."  She knows me so well; you could say that I'm a "Momma's Boy," but hey who gives a shit, right? 
    I quickly eat my breakfast and look at the clock. It's already 7:05!  I have to get my things ready because Emma and Sam are going to be at my house any minute to pick me up for my first day back to high school and the start of my Senior year.  I can't say that I am thrilled to go back because that would be a straight up lie, if there ever was one. How can I put this straight? I was never really very popular in school. I wasn't on the football team, baseball team, wasn't the "star" student in the class, but I am the kid that had cancer, being in and out of class for treatments throughout the past year and then missing the entire last month of my Junior year.  Now I'm going into my Senior year and I look even less like a cool popular kid with my pale skin, my skeleton build of a body, astroid sized bags under my eyes, a shiny bald head covered in scabs ... I mean really how could my new appearance not send my popularity skyrocketing? I'm sure to make prom king, right?  Maybe people will just feel sorry for me, "Oh look the cancer kid, he's so sad and sick, we should definitely befriend him."  Ugh, maybe in my next life ...
                        HONK, HONK, HONK