How To Go Out With A Bang

00

Cam would be lying if he said he wasn't scared, terrified at how in single unseen moment, his life had been thrust into a waiting game. Six months the doctors said. Six months, that was just the median, a bell curve with distribution on both sides. God he hated being good at math.

Ian was a welcome distraction, sitting idly by his hospital bed tapping away at keys on his laptop as he took down even the stupid suggestions Cam listed.

"Do you think there's enough time to do all this?" A toothy grin lifted Cam's lips as he nodded, he had his worries but clouding Ian's mind was the last thing he wanted to do.

"Are you coming back to lacrosse?" Ian hated he had to ask that, but he needed to be realistic.

"Of course, we're going to regionals, put that down." Managing a cautious laugh, Ian noted it down.

A commotion outside the room stunted their conversation, Teri's voice ringing clear through the thick material of the door.

"We have to see him."

"Visiting hours are over. Family only."

Closing his laptop, he heaved himself of the uncomfortable hospital chair and made his way to the door. Teri's arms enveloped him as soon as he slid it open.

"God Ian, tell her we're closer than family." Ian shifted her attention to the burly nurse, smiling apologetically as Teri clung to his neck.

"We'll be really quiet," Ian reasoned, "he's our best friend."

The nurse sighed, it wasn't her first time dealing with teenagers usually giving in was better than arguing. "Half an hour." She ordered as she returned to her place behind the round sterile counter. Teri broke away from Ian and walked in, followed by Henry and Sophie who had quietly stayed aside letting Teri handle the nurse.

"Hey guys." Cam waved; although his friends now filled the tiny private room he immediately noticed the one thing missing, "no London?"

"She said to give you this." Henry thrust a bouquet of sunflowers in Cam's face, "she doesn't like hospitals." The memory of an eight-year-old London bawling her eyes out in the hospital waiting room flashed through his mind. He placed the flowers on his side table gesturing for his friends to take a seat.

Henry took the seat Ian had vacated, while Sophie and Teri sat by the foot of his bed.

Everyone silently stared as the gravity of it all hit them like a tonne of bricks, here was Cam, the healthiest guy any of them knew sitting in a hospital bed, tubes sticking out his arm and the dark circles under his eyes more evident than ever.

"Did they say what it was?" Sophie brought herself to ask the question they had been thinking since Ian had called them to tell them that Cam had fainted during lacrosse practice.

"It's a malignant tumour in the brain."

"Brain cancer?" Henry repeated in simpler terms, a little confused by the severity of it. He hadn't expected anything but dehydration but then again he was hoping this was all just a bad dream.

"Hmm, hmm."

Ian felt uneasy at how lightly Cam seemed to doll out the information, as if it were just another setback he could recover from. Teri's tears hit faster than the others, the hot tears rolling down her face as she wiped the with her jacket sleeve only. Henry and Sophie sat silently, still attempting to process the information; bad things never happened to people like them and they were relatively good people, a little selfish at times but what teenagers weren't.

It was Sophie who broke the tense silence that filled the little space of the hospital room, "But you're young, it's more of a survival rate for young people, right?"

"Right."

Only Ian and Cam knew how serious the tumour was, the doctor gave him six months, maybe a year or more. It was never easy to tell with tumours that close to the circle of Willis or whatever gibberish the doctor had spouted and Ian had successfully shocked from his memory.

"You're going to live right?" Teri's voice fared through her breathless sobs.

Cam feigned a smile and nodded.

"I'm going to be fine."