Wherever You Go [Katy Perry Fan fiction]

Chapter Seventy

"Honey, honey, slow down,"
"No, Dad," I choked back the tears that soaked the entire surface of my face, drenched my t shirt and allowed my hair to stick to my cheeks in a sticky mess. The vomit still sat there in the pit of my stomach, and I knew that if this ambulance didn't come to a stop some time soon, I'd be covering it entirely with my sick. "It's mom," I hiccup through a sob, "you need to get to the hospital r-right now!"
I heard his breath hitch on the other end of the phone, and for a few seconds a heavy silence sat upon us. I couldn't even hear the sound of him breathing anymore.
"Dad," I cried down the phone through a weak whisper, "please hurry."
"I'll be there as soon as I can, baby, okay? Just, I need you to sit tight for me. I'll be as fast as I can."
The call ended. With my shaking hand I pushed the phone into my jacket pocket and looked up at the small lady that sat before me, dressed in her paramedic uniform, watching me sympathetically. She sent me a small smile, but I couldn't bring myself to return it because inbetween us lay a half dead woman responsible for my existence on this Earth.
"I know that this can't be easy for you, but what you did back there, you should be proud of yourself,"
I looked back up from my fidgeting hands to look at her, for the first time noticing her unique golden eyes. She couldn't have been that old herself. My guess being at around twenty-seven.
"I don't feel proud of myself. She shouldn't have been left on her own in the first place. It's my fault she's in this situation." I admit to her, feeling every single kind of hatred I possibly could towards myself. I was stupid. How could I have been so careless?
"You being there wouldn't have stopped the cardiac arrest, Sweetie. You found her in time, though, and you saved her life."
I imagined what would have happened if I hadn't have left my cell at home. If Luke hadn't have asked me to take pictures of him in the clouds to show his mommy. If I hadn't have gone back to the house to get my phone... Or if I hadn't have realised that I had had no response from my mom and turned back around just to check that little, tiny piece of doubt that sat in the back of my mind.
All those what ifs. Because if one of those things hadn't have happened, I would be out at the park right now with my family, enjoying the beautiful sun shine, whilst my mother laid dead on our kitchen floor. We would have returned home and it would have been too late. What if it still is?
"She's so young," I say through tears, feeling the tears soak through my lips. "I have a little brother. He's only a baby. I don't even know what we would do without her."
"Don't think like that. I promise you she's in the best hands," and as assuring as she sounded, I know that the hands her life were really in was God's. This was his call, and for the past twelve minutes I had done nothing but pray to him for more time on Earth with my mom. I told him I wasn't ready to be on my own yet, that she was needed down here far too much by far too many people.
The ambulance came to a stop, and before I even got chance to speak, the double doors were opened by the drivers and my mom had disappeared within the blink of an eye. I panicked, sprinting out of the ambulance and following the three paramedics as they ran down the hospital corridor with my mom laid on a stretcher, so peacefully, as though she was simply just... Asleep.
"We have a female, Miss Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, found unconscious in her home after having a cardiac arrest. She was given CPR for two and a half minutes and we now have a pulse but blood pressure is still fairly low. Katheryn has recently been diagnosed with Cancer of the stomach and has not yet started any kind of treatment."
I just about managed to keep up with the paramedics. Everything was happening so quickly; everything being said so fast. Most of it was all just a load of medical jargon that I didn't understand, only making me more frustrated.
"What's happening?" I asked anyone that could tell me anything, to which the paramedic who sat with me in the ambulance turned to face me.
"We're going to take your mom down for a CT scan so we can see what exactly we're dealing with. I need you to just wait in the waiting area for me and-"
"W-what? No. I'm not leaving her. I'm not letting her be on her own!" I began crying erratically again, but I couldn't help it. I wasn't in control of my emotions at the minute. My head was everywhere. I felt sick. I felt absolutely petrified, and I was on my own. I felt like a little kid lost in a crowd of people, not knowing who to go to, where to look, what was even really happening.
"Sammie, I will be with her at all times. She won't be on her own."
"Do you promise?" I sob, "because, because, she likes to make out that she's tough, you know? B-but she gets scared too. She doesn't like being on her own when she's scared, and I know she will be. Just don't leave her on her own, please."
"I promise you, Honey."
Even though I had only just met this lady, I for some reason put every single ounce of trust into her. I nodded after she'd spoken, making my way over to the waiting room where other family members sat, looking at me with eyes full of sympathy. They'd just seen me be separated from my mom. They could see how scared I was. They could see I was on my own.
I just wanted to break down completely. Throw everything in sight at the wall opposite me and scream until God was forced to listen. I brought my unsteady hands up to my tear stained cheeks and blocked my view away from everything around me. Hospitals terrified me, because it seemed as though we had been here far too often. Every time, we had nearly lost one another. They say bad luck comes in threes. My car accident four years ago, the stabbing at the gas station and now this. What if this time really is the last time?
"Sammie," I hear my name, causing my head to lift up so quick that it sent a throbbing pain right the way down my neck.
I searched for a familiar face, until a small lady with curly, chocolate brown hair came into sight, stood in the entrance of the hospital beside another familiar face. The pair of them looked terrified, like two lost little girls.
"Shan, Tam!" I called out as I ran towards them, just thankful that I didn't have to sit alone with my thoughts anymore. I just needed a hand to hold, someone to pretend like everything was going to be okay even though I knew it probably wouldn't be.
"Sweetie," Shan cooes into my ear softly, after pulling me into a warm hug. "Shh, shh, shh, it's okay."
I could see my tears turning Shannon's slate grey jacket a deeper shade of grey. She held my head with her hand, carefully stroking my scalp with her nails.
"Shan, I really don't know if she's going to be okay," I lift my heavy head from her shoulder, looking into her eyes and seeing every ounce of fear possible that they could hold.
"What the hell has even happened?" Tamra questions, immediately filling my body with guilt. She had absolutely no idea, and not only was she dealing with this, but I now had to throw the real truth at her too.
"Tam," I sob.
"Is this to do with... The thing," Shannon asks, and I nod.
"They haven't said for certain but, they said that she had coughed up or vomited blood, so I'm presuming so."
I see Tamra's face drop. "Hang on, hang on. What thing? If she's bringing up blood then that's, that's really serious."
I turn to Tam, trying to quickly piece together a sentence in my head but I couldn't. I couldn't even begin to tell her. But she looked so scared. This was the woman who had travelled the world twice with my mom, been at her side during some of her darkest times and helped pick back up the pieces when she was broken. She kept her alive on tour; she was her family.
"There's something you're not telling me. What is it?" Tamra asks calmly, and I gulp away a mixture of salty tears and saliva that sat at the back of my throat.
"My mom's... She's..."
"Hey, babe," Shan whispers, "it's okay." And I knew what she meant. Shannon turned to Tamra, pressing her fingers to her temples as she thought of the words to even begin to tell her friend. "Katy has been diagnosed with Cancer, Tam,"
Tamra didn't speak. Nor did she move. She just stood there staring at Shannon like she had just been told something so absurd she was working out whether or not to believe it. I knew the feeling. She doesn't breathe because she can't. The words are still ringing annoyingly in her ears, screaming in her mind. She doesn't know whether to cry or laugh at what she hopes to be a joke. She doesn't know how to say anything at all because she's forgot how to speak.
"Tam, she was going to tell you once she had told me. Then Keith and Mary showed up and she couldn't find the time." I tell Tamra, knowing that she will be questioning in her mind why one of the closest people in her life didn't go to her, confide in her, tell her something so important like this. "She hated keeping it from you, especially you."
"The whole helping me move apartment thing..." She trails off, her eyes still staring into space. Not even a single blink.
"Katy needed an excuse to leave for the morning to go get some tests done at the hospital."
"I can't even, how? She's so healthy and, this is so wrong. This world is just too fucking unfair!"
She was right. Of course she was. Bad things happened to good people.
"What have they said?" Tamra asks me, finally looking away to look at me. "She's coughing up blood, what does that mean?"
I shrug as I cry, "I don't know. But, when I found her she wasn't breathing. You don't understand what she looked like when I found her. She looked...dead."
Shan wraps an arm around me, trying to calm me down as I got worked up again but I couldn't help it. My mind kept throwing these images at me of my mom in the cold floor. I kept picturing her face. How lifeless she was. The way her hair sprawled out around her head and her knees were dug deep into her torso as though she had been in pain.
"When the ambulance came, they asked me how long she had been there before I found her. How long she hadn't been breathing for, but I didn't know. We must have left around ten minutes before I found her. It only takes minutes for the brain to start to die without oxygen." I turn to face Shannon. "Her lips were blue Shan, bright blue."
As calm as Shannon tried to remain, for my benefit mostly, I can see that she's fighting back the urge to cry. Her chocolate eyes glisten beneath a teary surface. "She doesn't give up easily," she whispers. "Katy won't give up without a hell of a fight."
I dropped down onto the chair behind me. Tired. Exhausted, actually. My headed aches from crying and my eyes stung like crazy. I just allowed my head to fall into my hands, hoping for some sort of miracle to make everything go back to what it was like a month ago, when none of this was happening.
How could she be laughing a joking one minute, and then the next almost dead?
"Sammie!" I hear, and I jump from my chair so quickly and dart across the room. The first face I see is Louis and I can't help but throw my arms around him and melt into his arms. Somehow, whenever he was there, he made every situation easier. He just hugged me back, sensing the state I was in and trying his best to calm me down.
"It's okay. I'm here now." He whispers.
My dad stands there, arms hung loosely at his sides, out of breath from running. His cheeks flush a deep red. He looks as though he's about to drop down dead himself, something that worries me even more.
"What happened? Where's your mom?"
"They've taken her down for a scan," I tell him. "I-"
"Did you tell her I was on my way?" Both of his hands sit on top of his head, holding fistfuls of his hair between his fingers.
"Dad," I gulp, knowing that he didn't know the seriousness of the situation and it was going to kill him. "She isn't conscious. When I found her, she- she was on the kitchen floor...and, she wasn't breathing."
"Oh my god," Mary begins to sob, and that's when I realise that there were more people in the unknown that we now had to break it to. This was their daughter; their child. "My darling baby."
Keith holds her closely, trying his best to remain calm for his wife, but the panic was very much there on his face. He just held Mary in his arms and she sobbed into his black shirt, biting onto his lip and praying silently in his head. I know the face Keith had when he was praying. Concentration, as he pleaded with the Lord.
"Dad," I exhale, swallowing the little amount of liquid in my mouth. "I think there's something we need to tell them."
I knew that he couldn't do it. Right now, I don't think he had the strength in him. He just looked like a lost little boy, ready to break down at any point and cry his heart out.
"W-what? What do you need to tell us?" Mary asks, lifting her head off of Keith's shoulders as the both of us looked at me with questioning eyes, waiting. Mary was already in floods of tears, which just made the whole thing harder, and I felt as though I was an evil person because I had to tell them the news that was going to destroy their world. They weren't ready for it, I could tell, but it wasn't like we had much time now for them to prepare.
"Mom's sick," I whisper, "and when I say sick, I mean... I mean really sick."
"What kind of sick?" Keith is first to ask, dropping one hand from around Mary to push into the pocket of his black jeans. "Flu sick? Food poisoning sick?"
"No," Mary says quietly, more to herself than anybody else. "Flu or, or food poisoning doesn't result in this. Sick how?"
I look at my dad, but he doesn't look back. He drops both hands to his sides and turns away, as though he was unable to hear that venomous word said aloud one more time. As if every one someone said it it was a scald to his body. Because that's what it felt like for me.
"She thought she was pregnant, but it was something else. They did some test and, found some sort of...mass in her stomach."
Keith runs a hand along the bare skin on his head. "A mass? Like an ulcer?"
I shake my head, wishing that that was actually the case. I quickly cover my hand with my mouth, knowing that I was going to have to tell them and they were going to be heartbroken.
"No," I quiver, and that's when I take a breath to get out the word, "cancer."

Ten minutes seemed like ten long, horrific hours. Staring at the same walls over and over, having the same thoughts, over and over, only started to drive a person insane.
Everybody was sat in silence. I suppose nobody really knew what to say. Keith had gone to get coffee. My dad sat, slouched in his chair, biting anxiously on his nails and shaking his legs nervously beneath him. Tamra and Shannon did almost the same, staring out into thin air, Shan looking like she was starting to get a little impatient. Whilst heartbroken Mary, absolutely devastated at the knowing of my mom's health, sat with her purse open in her hands, staring down at the picture inside of Katy, smiling beautifully at the camera with that cute little crinkle visible in her nose, the flash of the camera making her blue eyes stand out against her pale skin. Like two seas of magnificent blue water like you get in the Caribbean. I felt for her. Her heart was shattered.
My attention quickly changed to something else, and I rise to my feet. The woman that wore the same matching, chocolate brown eyes as Louis did was walking our way.
"Grace," I breathe out, hoping that she came to bring us good news. She holds a clipboard of notes in one hand, smiling at her son before looking at the rest of us to see if we were listening and ready for whatever she was about to tell us. My heart thudded so loudly. My cheeks hurt as I bit them harshly from the inside of my mouth.
"Do you have news for us, Doctor?" My dad stutters, but my heart stops in fear. I didn't know if I wanted to hear what she was about to say.
"I do," she nods, "first off, Katy's awake. In and out of consciousness but that's a good sign. We asked her if she knew what day it was. She did. She also recognised me, so it's looking like you found her just in time Sammie. There is no brain damage. You did one hell of a good job back there. You should be proud of yourself."
"Can I see her? Please," I feel my body breathe again, as if for the first time in half an hour.
"You can see her shortly, I promise. However, we do have, other news." The pause before she said 'other news' was something that didn't sound pleasant. "Is everybody here aware of her current health condition?"
"Everybody knows," Shannon confirms.
"Okay. Well, the scans have shown us that the cancer is a little more advanced than we originally thought. It hasn't spread to any of the main organs in her body, which is the most important thing, but it has grown in size."
I feel my heart sink into my stomach. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it just had.
"We're going to have to remove it, and quickly, before it gets any bigger and spreads to her main organs. Now, removing the cancer will mean that Katy has an extremely high chance of making a full recovery, however, the operation is a really big operation. Meaning-"
"Meaning there's a chance she could die during?" My dad finished what she wanted to say. His voice broke, as did his heart at the same time. The tears he had fought so damn hard to hold back came falling from his eyes as Doctor Taylor nodded her head at his words.
"That is correct."