There’s something ominous about the sound of the home phone ringing. Ro felt that way when it woke her up on Sunday morning. Her mother had off for the day so she mercifully silenced it after the third ring. Ro was already awake though.
Getting out of bed, Ro realized that she was tired. After sleeping so long, it felt like too long, she pulled herself out of bed and wondered who would call the house that early. When she checked her phone she realized it wasn’t early: it was noon.
She smiled when she read her good morning text from Alex, and replied. They had been text messaging from the second he got home from dropping her off until midnight. Ro had slept twelve hours. Most of her day was gone, and she hated that feeling. Alex’s next text asked her to spend some time with him that night, and she eagerly agreed.
Alex was blonde. He had gorgeous blue eyes and a killer smile. She’d loved him as a little girl, five or six years old. As they grew up they fell in and out of friendship but Ro had always cared about him. This second chance she had was positive for her because she convinced herself that he could pull her out of her funk. She wanted to see him so badly.
“Rosalina, are you up sweetie?” Her mom asked, knocking before opening her door. Ro looked up at her face and became confused.
“What’s wrong mom?” She asked. Her mom seemed worried.
“Get up and get ready: we’re going to the doctor’s at one.” Ro nodded and left her room. She showered, scrunched her hair, and put on some light make-up. She was ready in forty-five minutes and waited for her mom at the kitchen table.
Ro’s mom grabbed the keys from the hook in the pantry and headed out to the car, Ro following behind. Her stomach had butterflies. What doctor? The OBGYN? What for? When they called with her results wasn’t that always it- just a call? Something wasn’t right.
“Mom, what’s going on?” Ro couldn’t stand being left in the dark.
Her mom replied, “I don’t know. We’re going to find out.”
Mico woke up and made himself breakfast. The house was empty. He heard car doors slam outside. At first he thought it was his family, returning from wherever they were, but no one walked in the door.
At the kitchen table all alone, Mico didn’t know what to do. He thought about starting some of his homework…but he laughed out loud at the thought. He never did homework. He settled on playing Xbox with Jay.
The day went by excruciatingly slowly. He ended up looking at his phone so often for the time he thought he was going to go insane. Eventually his sisters and parents did surface. They’d gone to church, without him. He wasn’t very religious.
Danielle and Same kept him occupied, at first messing around wrestling, but after a nice wholesome family dinner they watched a movie together. He hadn’t thought about Ro…a ton. He’d barely noticed when she came home.
Out the window he saw her face, and he was confused. She looked like she’d been crying. Did her mother and Ro have a fight? He didn’t know but it looked like they’d both been crying. Mico mentally punched himself. Due to his stupid rule about cutting Ro off, he couldn’t even ask her what was wrong. He’d have to ask Ann.
Ro sat in her room, perched on her bed, staring at the mirror on the back of her shut door. Her eyes were red and swollen from her tears. She had tried not to cry…but she was so mixed up.
Yesterday, she’d been a different girl. Today she was changed.
When she arrived at the doctor’s in the afternoon, she sat in the waiting room with her mother. After ten minutes, a nurse led the pair into Dr. Groomberg’s office. The doctor walked in a few minutes after that with Ro’s medical file in her hand.
Sitting in the silence, Ro and her mother waited for the doctor to tell them what was going on.
“Rosalina, your test results came back different from last year’s test. You weren’t negative, as we’d hoped. You tested positive for pre-cancerous cells.”
Ro looked at her mother’s watering eyes for only a moment before she stared blankly out the window at the winter day outside. She felt the chill the wind would have on her skin as if she was standing outside. The information sank in, and Ro realized there was no way to see this coming.
“So I basically will develop cervical cancer?” Ro asked the doctor, who nodded. She added, “You have two options. You can wait it out and see if they go away on their own. Or, you can begin a treatment to control and hopefully get rid of the cells.” Faced with this ultimatum, Ro didn’t know what to do.
At fifteen, she’d just been branded with the word cancer. She could die.
Ro’s mother and the doctor discussed treatment as Ro sat quietly, staring out the window. She began crying, silent tears sliding down her cheeks. She didn’t wipe them away, even when her nose started running. After a while, Ro interrupted the women.
“I’m not going to do anything. Life is going to take its course. I don’t want to believe it. It’s only the beginning. It could be a mistake. I could be normal next week. I want to live my life without any cares right now.” Alex was supposed to be her way to do that. Now she was stuck with cancer.
Ro felt like she was going to pee her pants so she finally wiped away her tears and asked, “Where’s the bathroom?” She listened patiently to the doctor’s directions and then sprinted towards the bathroom. An immense feeling of joy spread through her abdomen in the form of painful cramps. In the bathroom, panting and clutching her stomach Ro approached the porcelain sink. She clutched the edges. Through a cutain of blonde hair she stared at her reflection with a satisfied, sly smile.
She thought she looked a little possessed but all she could repeat was, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”
She unbuttoned her jeans, lowered her underwear and burst into happy tears. Everything in the bottom on her jeans was soaked in dark red blood, and as she sat on the toilet it dripped into the water. Tears streamed down her face in complete elation as she realized how happy she was that she wasn’t pregnant.
Then she began to cry instead because of the secret she was going to keep. She wasn’t going to think, mention, or admit until she was ready, and that would be practically never. When she stopped cryikng, she put a smiled on her face, used toilet paper as a pad, and flushed the toilet.
She let the water from the sink make her feel just a little bit cleaner with the soap. She waddled calmly down the hall with toilet paper between her legs and a happy smile on her face.
When she entered the office again, her mother looked at her smile and said, “It’s your decision, baby, but don’t make it too late.” Ro’s smile didn’t falter as she replied, “I’ve made my decision. Can we go? I’m ready to get back to my life: but I’m going to need a tampon first.”
As Ro’s mom nodded and stood, Ro walked forward to shake the doctor’s hand. “Thank you,” she said sweetly, and left the room. She walked quickly to the parking lot and got into her mother’s car as soon as it was unlocked. The drive home was silent, but that was okay with Ro. She had a lot of thinking to do…about Alex.
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Author's Note:
I'm sorry! Don't kill me. It had to be done.
Wahhhhhhh
