life support

03

"that's disgusting!"

Jake was telling me then eventful story of how he went streaking with a bunch of friends in Austin.

"it was so much fun. they have it every year it's like an annual thing."

listening to jake talk, took my mind off my condition. it made me feel like I was a normal teenage girl who was talking to a normal teenage guy. but , in reality I was just the cancer patient and he was the sympathetic nurse. I was use to it by now. people feeling bad about my sickness. they see it as an opportunity to be nice and spoil me and treat me like high authority. all I really wanted was to be treated like a normal girl.

"jake?"

Jake stopped mumbling about how cold it was and turned to me , "what up buttercup?"

"how did you decide what you wanted to do with your future?"

jake thought for a minute and smiled.

"well my parents were both farmers back in Oklahoma. they owned this giant farm and no matter what day it was, kids ran around. my older brother , jared , decided he wanted to provide for our family because crops were going down. he went to police academy and came back after he graduated , showed us his certificate. one day he came home from the job and was stumbling , couldn't walk straight. he had stage 4 lung cancer and nobody knew. the smoke he inhaled from fires had gotten to him. he died 4 months later."

"I'm so sorry jake." he glanced my way and smiled.

"I told myself I would go into the medical field so no family would have to go through what my family went through."

here he was. this beautiful being with such a tragic past. yet he opened up to me and trusted me. I think that's the most anybody has ever treated me like a real person and not just some patient. "thank you." jake stopped picking at his nails and looked at me. "for what?"

I looked at him then looked down. "for treating me like I'm human."

"you are human. just because you have a sickness doesn't make you any less of a person love."

love.

nobody had ever called me anything but my name. I found it interesting how jake never called me by my name. brentley. it was always firework , buttercup, love. made me feel special but I never did know why he did it.

"why don't you ever call me by my name?" Jake glanced my way and gave a half smile. "because all everybody has a name but not everybody is special enough for a nickname. you're special brentley."

Jake stopped smiling at me and turned the keys. "where are we going?" Jake didn't even glance my direction when he said , "far away."