Take This To Heart || ImmortalFox

3. Ocean and Atlantic.

"Cuts on paper hearts, they can be awful deep. Lips from wear and tear on different city streets. Don't all need a home, but just a place to sleep.
So I will run until my feet don't touch the ground, and as the waves carry me out. Keep listening, she'll never make a sound."

---

Eddie's Point of View

After facing the horrors that cancer brought for years on end, I normally maintained my ground when it came to basic procedures. Needles and injections hardly even bothered me nowadays. But that changed rapidly when it came to chemotherapy. I had a session once a month, and today happened to be the schedule time for such.

It was Monday, meaning that I would miss the Support Group meeting. This also meant that I would miss seeing Aleks, which normally I'd be glad to get out of that damned meeting room. When the news settled, my stomach churned and I'd yearned be there right now than anything else. 

It was the first time that I actually wanted to see those men. Not that they're bad guys or anything, just not my forte. It was slightly unnerving knowing that the one time I had to see Aleks regularly would be deprived from my grasp.

My mother was by my side and rubbed small circles on the top of my hand, pressing her thumb down on my knuckles and then towards the smoother skin on my wrist. 

My sister had been positioned beside her, although she didn't look me in the eye. She was rather squeamish when it came to things like this, and no one forced anyone to watch. I wasn't judging her, I tended to look away as well. I'd been having chemotherapy on a regular basis for two and a half years, and I dreaded every moment of it. They're fucking awful, needles driven into parts of the body whilst multiple drugs had been administered into your bloodstream. 

It's nearly cringe-worthy just to think of it. I've been rotating from each form of injection. Taking pills and drugs orally, infused through vein, through muscle, and under the skin. Today happened to be one of my intravenous injections, and it had to be, by far, the worst. 

My eyes immediately widened when the doctors entered the room, needles in hand. 

"Remember the distractions we practiced?" My mother spoke slowly and softly, and she'd stopped rubbing patterns onto the sensitive skin on my knuckles. I nodded, though I knew I'd hurt her if I squeezed her hand too tightly.

My eyes widened when the nurses took their places beside the bed. It only meant that it had been almost time to begin. It didn't last for very long, although it was hell and back, every time.

"We have someone who wanted to see you." They say. Normally, they don't take visitor requests before a therapy session, so my eyebrow rose slightly and I turned towards the doorway.

Aleks had sashayed into the room, stopping when his eyes fell upon my family's gaze. 

"Oh, shit, I didn't know you would be here for this." I stammar. He stifles a gentle smile and nods, shoving his hands into his pockets and swaying back on the heels of his feet, the hospital gown wrapping around his knees. 

"I didn't know you would have people, should I leave?"

"Please, don't go." The crack in my voice is obvious, and I chew on the insides of my cheeks. "This is my sister and mother," I say and he waves them shyly, "this is Aleks. He's a friend I met a few days ago. He's new to the Cancer Ward, so play nice. He doesn't bite." I begin with a hint of unnoticeable flirtation rippling through my tone to recover from the break in my previous sentence. 

"If you want to sit, Mr. Marchant," a nurse directs him to a chair on my other side, which he gladly takes.

"Isn't there a meeting today?" I ask, concerned. My brows knitted together, and the doctors had been so kind as to let him explain before proceeding with the procedure. In a way, it made the lingering feeling of dread and fear intensify and made the whole thing a lot worse. I'd regret it, but Aleks was here and it sent an easy feeling through my body, as well.