Make a Wish || Rhett and Link

Chapter 65 - Ice Cream and Cyber Bullies

"Our last ice cream together..." I murmured as Link handed me a cone.

He shook his head. "I'm gonna bring ice-cream to you every Wednesday. We're not giving up Cooper/Link time."

I smiled slightly and sat down on the bench. "Still, I'm gonna miss this."

"Me too." he squeezed my hand.

We ate in silence for a while, just watching the cars go past. When I finished, I sighed slightly and leaned my head on Link's shoulder.

"Are you okay, Super Cooper?" He asked softly.

"Not really." I mumbled.

"What's wrong?"

"I probably sound like a massive whiner." I sighed softly. "I just don't want to go back into hospital."

"That's not a whiner thing to say. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me." Link put his arm around me. "I know how scary this is."

"No, you don't." I mumbled. "That's the thing?"

"Hmm?"

"For all the times you've visited me in hospital, how would you rate them on a scale of 1 to 10?" I asked. "1 being a good day, and 10 being the worst imaginable."

He pursed his lips as he thought about it. "About an 8?"

"Wrong." I whispered. "Probably about 4."

"Oh..." Link gulped nervously.

"You haven't seen my bad days." I mumbled. "Days were they have to medicate me so heavily that I don't know which way is up. Days where I need morphine just to make it through. Days where I'm so tired where I fall asleep in the middle of sentences. Days where I can't even stand up..." The list could go on and on. I refrained, only for Link's sake.

Link was silent, but hugged me tightly. "It's going to be hard Coop, I can't deny that. But you're strong enough, and you're brave enough, and you're gonna get through this, okay?"

"O-Okay..."

Link rested his head on top of mine. "Have you had a good break?"

"It's been the best six weeks of my life." I whispered. "It's been amazing."

"That's good." He smiled.

We talked quietly for a while more, until Link dropped me home. Rhett and Jessie were sitting in the lounge, going over my medical file.

"What's this?" I asked.

Rhett quickly slammed it shut. "Nothing."

"That's my file."

"No..."

I pointed at my name. "Yes. What are you doing?"

"We're just... looking for ways to help." Jessie sighed.

"Oh..."

"Don't worry about it Coop." Rhett assured. "If we find anything, we'll come to you straight away."

I nodded unsurely. "Alright..."

I went to sit in my room, and I pulled out my iPad. I turned it on, and having decided to reunite with many of my old school friends, I decided to see if I could see what they'd been up to without me.

It was weird, logging back into that account. I felt like a completely person to who I was when I used to use this. It really was quite surreal. Like an out-of-body experience almost.

So I leaned back into the cushions and prepared for 6 months of instagram posts.

***** Rhett's Point of View *****

When I walked in to find Cooper for breakfast, she wasn't in her bed. Instead, she was lying under it, staring at the bottom of the mattress.

I wasn't really sure what to do, so I just crawled under there next to her. "What's up, Super Cooper?"

"My old friends hate me."

"Huh? I thought you said you had a good time at school."

"Not that." She muttered, unlocking her iPad and passing it over. Some kid at her old school had taken a photo, and posted it on instagram with a horrible caption. It got worse when I found a stream of about 16 hate comments, most of them teasing her for the hair, or just being plain cruel about her disease.

"Oh, Cooper..." I sighed softly.

She sniffled. "Why does everybody hate me Rhett?"

"Nobody hates you, Super Cooper." I assured. "These people are just stupid. They don't know you."

"But they do!" She cried. "I've been best friends with the person who posted that since the third grade!"

"She's being stupid then. She doesn't know how amazing you are."

"I'm just gonna stay here until I die." She mumbled. "This is a good spot."

"Really?"

She nodded.

"We were gonna go out today." I frowned.

She sighed. "I'll stay here."

"Come on Cooper. These people don't know anything. They're just idiots. By letting them get you down, you're letting them win. Do you want them to win?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Do you wanna know the best way to respond to hate?" I offered. "And trust me, Link and I do it all the time."

"W-What's that?"

"Prove them wrong. If they're gonna make fun of you for not having much hair, do it up and post a photo where you look amazing. If they're gonna make fun of your disease, turn around and show them that you're kicking it's butt. The best way to fight hate is with love, Cooper."

She sniffled.

"There's waffles with ice cream if you want some."

She followed me to the breakfast table and I tried to turn the mood to a positive one. She seemed to cheer up quite a lot when I told her Link and I were going to take her rollerskating today.

While we were there, we took a good few pictures to put on instagram to show those kids they had no idea who they were dealing with. I even went so far to put one on my account, and that lead to Cooper's picture going pretty huge.

She just smiled slightly at me from the corner once she noticed, and I grinned back.

Together, we were unstoppable.