Melody's Secret

Hiding My Secret

We spend time together as always, the only difference is that now I wear makeup, long sleeves, and no shorts. We only have the weekends together. When summer comes he asks me to go on a college tour with him, but I refuse. Afraid that he will discover I am sick. Also because hangout with a bunch of hockey playing jocks sure doesn't sound fun to me. By summer I practically give up hope of recovering, because none of the treatments were working. Then my parents hear of a new experimental steroid treatment up in Salt Lake City Utah and I choose to see if I could go there for treatments.

As time goes on and I wait for an answer from Salt Lake I choose to tell Damien the truth and send a message off to him to visit me when he gets back, because I have something important to tell him. Then, right before he gets back we get two great messages in the mail. The first is that the hospital accepted me for the treatment, but that it would start a month after school started, and would be for two weeks of my senior year. I was okay with that, because after that I could just work and catch up and everything would be okay, because I am a huge nerd, and always a straight A kind of girl. The second is that I got accepted into Georgetown on a partial scholarship and I am being evaluated for a full scholarship.

With this new news I debate whether or not to tell him, but then I hear a familiar knock on the door and know I have to tell him something. I begin to open the door with a fake smile, but as soon as I see him it turns real and I say, "long time no see Dai. How are you?"

He looks back at me with a smile and says, "Doing great Mel, but I would love to come in for your mom's lovely cooking, but you are blocking the door. I quickly stick out my tongue, then I let him in and proceed to pick up a plate of my mom's cookies on the way up to my room, where I will have to tell him something. What, I don't know yet, but something.

When we get to my room I set down the plate of cookies look at him and say, "do you want some milk?"

Damien gives me a raised eyebrow and says, "no I'm fine. I want to know why you needed to talk to me as soon as I got back home."

"Oh... I look at him, panic and say the first thing that comes to mind, "I got accepted into Georgetown on a partial scholarship."

At first Damien just stares at me, and then with a strained smile says, "That's really great Melody, I knew you could do it."

I see his hesitation and say, "Are you alright Damien? You look as if you just got terrible news. What's wrong?"

He looks back at me and says, "Nothing wrong. I am just going to miss you is all."

I look back at him and say, "We still have a year, and anyway, you know our parents will make us come home every holiday, so we will still see each other." As I say these words I think to myself, well at least if I live long enough to go to Georgetown.

Damien must have seen my hurt expression, because he smiles a real smile at me and says, "Yeah we will see each other, and on the topic of seeing each other, we need to make plans for your eighteenth birthday."

My mind was on other things, and I look at Daimen in surprise and say, "Oh yeah... can we please not do anything crazy? I don't really like parties you know. I like curling up with a book or to go on a to find a place to curl up with a book."

"Come on Mel, it is your eighteenth birthday. We have to do something special. Even if it's just the two of us."

I look at his smiling face and remember that my birthday may be the last time we see each other and with this thought I reply, "Okay. You and me will go out and do something, but you have to pick, because I know what I would pick you will not like.

Damien looks at me and says, "Well, why wouldn't I like it?"

"Because I would pick movie night, which we always do and you say it has to be special." I reply curling my fingers in quotation marks as I roll my eyes at him.

Damien smirks at me and replies, "You're right I will plan something that you will love and will blow you away. I have only two weeks so I best be going to make my plans." He then comes over, kisses my cheek, and grabs the entire plate of cookies. He dashes out my door, down the stairs, and through the front door, taking my cookies with him.

After this Damien and I go about our normal activities except that we are not spending as much time together. I try to brush it off as he is busy with plans for my birthday and other things and that's why he can't hang out, but every time I see him, it feels as if he is distant. He keeps finding reasons to leave sooner, and doesn't say hello every time he sees me on the street, and it is really starting to worry me. I feel that I am losing him, even though he doesn't know I'm sick, and it hurts. I ponder on all of these things as I go to bed the night before my birthday.