Going, Going, Gone

                                                                                Prologue

She inhaled the sterile scent of hospital, her gaze fixated on the doctors thin lips. As he spoke her mother erupted into a series of vehement sobs that left tear stains on her previously pristine, white blazer. Haley cast a glance at her mother but it wasn’t a sympathetic one. Since her dad left her mum had lost herself. There was no happiness left just a self-pitying, workaholic… who was always crying, always.

Haley blinked slowly, trying to pick out and comprehend the significant information while the doctor rambled, haphazardly throwing in a medical term when the ability to speak like a human failed him.

“Located in the brain…, Astrocytoma…, grade four tumour…”

A piece of auburn hair fell in front of her face and she got distracted. She focused all her concentration and efforts on blowing that piece of hair back behind her ear where it came from. She was against the odds, she didn’t succeed and begrudgingly tucked her oily, red hair behind her gold, hoop earrings.

Haley begun to stare at the doctor again when it dawned on her he was no longer speaking.

‘Uh, sorry what?” She stammered, chewing on her fingernails. The doctor raised his eyebrows above the rims of his glasses questioningly.

“So what do you mean?” She tried.

“The test results show the tumour has returned and it has become much more aggressive and is growing rapidly.” He told her gravely. “To treat it again you have a number of options.”

Haley sighed deeply, stirring a pained face from her doctor.

He continued talking but this time with more conviction now that he knew Haley was paying attention. “We could go through another surgery to remove more of the tumour but it’s impossible to eradicate it completely due to its location. You could undergo more chemotherapy this time with different drugs or you go through another form of radiation.”

“Ok.” Haley spoke slowly, drawing out the ‘K’ while she tried to understand her options.

“…But at this point all treatment would simply be in the interest in slowly down the tumour.” The doctor finalised.

Before he finished speaking Haley felt the world slow down. Every sensation began to feel surreal as if it wasn’t really happening to her but someone else and she was merely watching from far away. Her gaze flickered to the doctor and she could see his lips moving little by little to form his last word. She looked at her mother and watched a tear lazily roll down her cheek, she peered at the hallway and saw paramedics painstakingly slowly push a man on hospital bed to the ER, while in reality they were probably flying across the floor.

After what seemed like hours she gently drifted back to real time but the feeling of emptiness never went away.

‘So I’m going to die.’ The voice inside her head whispered. ‘I suppose it was going to happen eventually.’ Her thoughts continued murmuring. ‘Just not so soon.’

“How long do I have left?” She prompted the doctor.

He was about to answer before he was rudely interrupted by obnoxiously loud crying from her mother.

“We don’t like to put a number on it. We find we’re often wrong and it can affect patients.” He stated matter or factly.

“Say you were to put a number on it, what would that number be?” Haley asked her voice somewhat demanding.

“6 months give or take.” The doctor told her. He rose to his feet from behind his desk and ruffled his papers. After some exchange between Haley’s mother, he was gone.

“Huh.” Haley muttered “6 months.”

Without any further interactions with her mother she slid on her black, wedge thongs, picked up her cracked phone and jogged into the hospital car park to look for a bus.