For You ↠ Alice Cullen ✓

07 ; stage three

Tate glances upwards when the door to the doctors office clicks open. Dr. Monstroe steps into the room, her eyes set on the clipboard in her hand. She glances upwards at Tate, who has been sitting in the office for the last twenty minutes, waiting for his latest MRI scans.

"Hello Tate," Monstroe says, giving him a kind smile as she takes a seat in her roller chair. She moves closer to him, her dark eyes set on his face. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling fine," Tate said, licking his dry lips. "I've been having a few vision problems."

"Yeah," Monstroe says, flipping through the pages on Tate's clipboard. "It's written down here. Also, it says you've been having some bad vertigo, is that correct?"

Nodding his head slightly, as not to induce a headache, Tate watches as Monstroe seems to gear herself up for something.

"I'm going to put your scans up here and we'll go over them together, alright?" Monstroe asks, before placing them on a board hanging on the wall and clicking on the light.

Once she's back from turning off the main light in the office, Tate can see his brain scans perfectly in the dark room. His brain is wiggly, looking like thick worms, but amongst them in a large white mass is his tumor.

"It seems that the tumor is growing at a faster rate than we expected," Monstroe says, her voice slightly shaky. "The radiation treatments and the doses of telozolomide, however, seem to be helping somewhat. However, the mass is getting bigger, and pressing on occipital lobe, which is why you've been experiencing some vision problems."

"What stage?" Tate asks, knowing that's the most important part. He clenches his hands together in his lap, nails digging into his skin.

"Tate-"

"Please," Tate insists sharply. He wants to rip the scans off the wall, pretend that they don't exist. It shows him his timeline, which seems to be getting shorter and shorter each month.

"You're entering stage 3," Monstroe says, and Tate can't see her face in the darkness of the room but he can tell by her voice that her eyes must be watery. She's holding back her sadness in account for him, not wanting to overload him.

Tate knows she's taking the scans just as hard as him. She's known him since he was seven years old; she had snuffed out any cold he'd came into the doctor's office for. She was the one who led Tate to the MRI room whenever he was fourteen, after a series of unexplainable migraines and vomiting. She was one who told Tate and his mother the treatment options for the tumor in his brain the same day as Tate had clutched his mothers hand and sobbed.

Even at age fourteen, he knew what a brain tumor meant for his future.

Dr. Monstroe continues talking, however, her voice is just a blur. Tate nods along with whatever she's saying, staring at the white title of the doctor's office. His hands tightly clenched together as he waited for the appointment to be over.

After checking out of the hospital, Tate began his walk towards his car. It was parked in the corner of the parking lot, near the exit. It was his attempt to be able to get out of the lot faster whenever his appointment was done.

Clicking open his car, Tate sunk into the over-used leather seats and pressed his hand against the steering wheel. His fingers clenched tightly, his body stiff as he tried to blink away the tears trying to come through his tear ducks.

His knuckles turned a white color as he grip tightened even more. His bottom lip shaking as he tried to push down the dry sobs that wanted to erupt from his throat. Just as he was about to let one slip, the phone in his pocket began to ring.