A Lifetime of Memories

I'm dying

"Can we talk about this over coffee and not hospital coffee?"

"Yeah let's go to Starbucks down the street."

We get to Starbucks and order our drinks. We move to the side and wait for our drinks.

"Hannah and Tyler your coffee is ready." The barista tells us.

"Thank you." We both say at the same time.

We head outside to the tables they have out there.

"Well you have to start somewhere bitch."

"Not with that attitude." I say getting up and start walking back to the hospital.

"Hannah get back here please, I can't stand seeing one of my best friends in the fucking hospital."

"Why should I? Just so you can call me a bitch again? How do you think I feel? I fucking put him there. He is my fucking fiancé."

"Because I deserve to know why there isn't a ring on your finger and why you just called him your fiancé?"

"Fine but fuck you for calling me a bitch. I didn't deserve that especially since you don't fucking know what happened."

I then procced tell him what happened over the summer and I can't tell if he wants to punch me or hug me.

"Why didn't you let Jamie pay for them to come down for a week over the summer?"

"Nice try. There were thirty people I visited with this past summer. They can't all get the same week off of work. I am also not going to let J just pay for me to visit with my friends or for my friends to come down and visit me. I can afford plane tickets to go visit them and they can afford plane tickets also."

"So why did you call him your fiancé after what happened between you two?"

"Cause he is the best thing that happened to me. I still remember when we were on that goddamn playground in Victoria and he had his friend ask if I wanted to play soccer. If I remember correctly he was just as reserved then as he is now but when it comes to sports he becomes a whole different person. He is the only guy that has stayed with me all these years and I think that is why my dad really liked him."

"You know he told me at one point that he was afraid that you would regret not going to California for school. He feels that you would have had a better life out there without him and that you would have found your husband there."

"When did he tell you this?"

"Sometime this past season, I don't really remember when."

"That's why."

"What is why?"

"I told him that I regret coming to Dallas with him and that I should have gone to California for school. That is why he drank so much. I can't do this anymore with him."

"Why can't you do this anymore? He loves you and you can't just give up on him this easy. This is a little off topic but I noticed in all the pictures and videos from the One Direction concert that you didn't have alcohol in your hand. Why is that? Every time you talked to me about it you said that you were going to drink while you were there."

"I can't do this anymore because I have put people before me for my whole life and it's time to take care of myself. I have to take care of myself because I have cancer and they told me to drink minimal amounts of alcohol during treatment."

"God Hannah why haven't you told us? I'm sorry about that. What kind of cancer?"

"I have breast cancer and I don't know I wasn't ready to tell you guys. I hate dumping my problems on the team. I already dumped sexual assault awareness on the team and now cancer. Well actually you are the only one who knows."

"What stage are you? How have you been able to travel so much with your treatment?"

"Stage three and I'm not doing my treatments. I just stopped drinking because I want to remember the things I do while I'm still here."

"Why the fuck are you not doing you're fucking treatments? You know that stage  three is not the stage in which you can wait to start fucking treatment. Hannah this is not how I want you to go out of this world. Jamie is going to kill you. Hannah."

His sentences become short and he is now crying. He is now pacing around where we were sitting.

"Stop pacing. I know that I should be doing my treatments and that I should be fucking fighting but I can't do it. I have seen the stats of five year survival rates and for stage three is about 72%. Do you know that is about seventy two out of every one hundred that get stage three survive five years or more with successful treatment options. I have thought about this for the past few months and I can live with the fact that 72% survive past five years. But I fear the pain that people go through for treatment. I fear not waking up one day. I fear not being old and wrinkly with J. I fear not being with this team for years to come. I fear that my children will get breast cancer because I have it. I fear not being able to have children."

"Wait, you have known for months about this? Hannah look at me, all these fears are okay to have but can you at least try and fight it? Do you realize how many people you have affected over the past two years? Have you seen any of the letters from girls that have been sexual assaulted and found peace knowing that you are speaking out? You need to tell at least Jamie if you are going to tell anybody about this."

"Wait those letters for me are from sexual assault victims and how did you know that? I thought that they were letters from horny teenage girls that were trying to get to you guys through me."

"Well at least the one that Jamie opened was from a survivor. He was wondering why you were getting so much mail over the past two years that he finally opened one. I am sure that there are letters in there from horny teenage girls that want to get to the team through you but Jamie got lucky opening one from a survivor. If you aren't going to fight for yourself, fight for the girls and boys that you have saved. For the kids that will be able to open up about their sexual assault."

"I have to call somebody before we go back to the hospital."