whatever ;; tradley

The Part Where I Meet The Cancer Kid

After spending the morning moaning about how much I didn't want to meet this Bradley guy and eating half of the cookies my mum made for me to take over to him (which she berated me for), it was finally time to go over to visit Bradley.

"Be kind," My mum kissed the top of my head as I was about to go out the door, the plate of cookies in one hand and my rusty car keys in the other.

"Are you sure that this is a good idea? You never know, and he probably doesn't want my company." I tried one last time to get my mum to change her mind, to save me from becoming even weirder of a person to him than I already was.

"We are not having this conversation again. It's over and done. Bye-bye. Have fun!" She promptly pushed me out of the door, and I thanked God (if he was real, anyways) that she'd covered the cookies in plastic wrap, because, although she looks small, one little shove from my mum sent me stumbling outside.

I sighed. Fuck this.

After a few minutes of driving around, debating whether or not I should just go to some fast-food place and pretend like I visited Bradley, I finally parked outside of his house (which my mother thankfully told me the address to, so I didn't end up in the wrong place), taking a deep breath before getting out and walking up to the front door.

I rang the doorbell, and waited.

For about two minutes, there was no answer.

I rang the doorbell again. I heard some shuffling, and then an odd noise that sounded kind of like a dog in pain.

I took this as my cue to leave, and was just turning around to walk back to my car, when the door swung open.

"Tri -" I heard a loud sniffle. "- stan! How l-lovely of you to come by."

I turned around, fearful and dreading this conversation. As soon as I saw Anne-Marie Simpson, I knew she had been crying. Her eyes were bloodshot, her nose was red and chapped, and she had a handful of tissues clutched in one hand.

"Hello," I tried to give a 'sympathetic' smile like I'd seen other people do in these sorts of situations, but I'd never been good at faking emotions. To Mrs. Simpson, I probably looked like how I felt: awkward.

The middle-aged woman swiped a hand under her running nose and took in a breath before smiling back at me. I'm as bad as reading emotions as I am at faking them, but even I could tell she was in a lot of pain.

"I'm ... uh, I don't know what to say," I bit my lip.

Apparently, my shitty answer was the right answer, because she pulled me into a huge hug at that moment, shattering my ribcage and pushing all the air out of my lungs.

"Oh, Tristan," She said, her voice cracking, "No one ever does. But you aren't about spewing bullshit, are you, sweetheart? No, you're honest. And you do the right thing - Bradley's pretty lonely right now."

"It's no problem, really," I said, surprised, patting her back awkwardly.

She stood there, hugging me, crying as softly as she could, and running a hand over my hair, which was the one aspect of my appearance that actually took time in the morning, compared to my clothes, which were pretty dope (but I never cared about matching this to that or comparing prints). I just kind of stood there and ran a hand up and down her upper back, trying to breathe in some air every now and then

She finally pulled away from me, after what felt like two hours, and dabbed at her eyes again with her tissues and straightened her dress (which looked dirty and wrinkled). "Well, Bradley is upstairs, lying down right now. It's the first room on the left. You can take the cookies up with you - I don't usually let him eat in his room, b-but-" Her voice cracked once more.