Won't Stay Down For Long

Chapter 7: Birthday Surprise

Over the past few weeks it’s been a roller-coaster in both Jessica’s and my life. Jessica has been taken on and off many different types of medication. She looks kind of almost the same as she used to be. She is very pail and is starting to loss the color in her cheeks. She is also starting to loss some of her gorgeous brown hair.

She still has the strength to talk to me for a long period of time, butI have noticed in the past couple of days that she has become tired after about an hour of talking with her. After I left one day I went back a few minutes later to find that she was fast asleep again.

For me these past few weeks have been pain and torture. My doctor has had me try to get out of bed with using a bar to pull myself up. It took a few minutes to get into the chair. My legs are always tight and stiff from lying in bed all day.

 For my love life with Eric is pretty dull. His mom has finally ungrounded him, but she did it before one of his meets. I don’t know where it is at. For some reason he didn’t tell me much about it. We text constantly though. We almost always know where each other is.

The Present:

Today is my fourteenth birthday. It kind of sucks because I am stuck in the hospital. Now that I don’t have Jessica to run round with, there is nothing to do.

 I’m hoping though that my parents come up with a surprise for me. Almost every year they try to do something big so that I can always remember each birthday. Like last year my parents surprised me by taking me to Walt Disney World, when I thought I was going to France.

I know it kind of sounds silly how I ran up to hug Mickey Mouse when I was thirteen, but I never have gotten to go on vacations or just hang out with friends a lot. Sometimes I think that I missed out of a lot of child-hood from being home schooled and being at the gym almost 24/7.

My parents walk in right on cue. My mom is holding something behind her back. When they are walking towards me they are lightly singing Happy Birthday to me.

When they get to my bed my mom hands me what’s behind her back. It was a double fudge cake from one of the bakery in town. Both of my parents lean over and kiss my forehead saying,” Happy Birthday! Sweetheart.”

I tell them thank you and we start eating the cake. I left a few pieces of cake for Jessica and her family. It may help them cheer up.

When I thought all the presents were done my dad says to me,” We have one more present for you, but we have to get out of this h*llhole to see it.”

I smile at him and say ok. He helps me get into my wheelchair and starts pushing me really fast out of the room.

Once I got into our car my dad took out a handkerchief and wrapped it around my eyes. He whispered into my ear with a teasing voice,” No peeking, Abigail.”

After about a few minutes of being blind folded, I could tell that my mom had stopped the car. She opened her door and came around to my side. She lifted me into the wheelchair, but she didn’t take off my blind fold though.

My mom must have walked me into a building because I felt the breeze of the air conditioner and many talking people. I also felt people come up and touched my shoulder and then moved on. I really had no idea where I was.

Then I suddenly felt that we were going down a ramp or something like that. It suddenly got so loud from the yelling of people cheering and yelling.

My mom stops me when I think we were at a flat surface. I feel my mom reaching for the back of my head to untie the blindfold.

When I open my eyes I see a huge gym full of all gymnastics equipment. Then I saw all of my friends from gymnastics standing around me smiling. I broke down in tears after seeing them. My best friend, Ashley, walks up to me and says,” Look up at the board.”

I look up at the board up on the wall and it reads,” Happy Birthday Abby!!! We all miss you!!!”

All my friends embrace me in a hug. I have happy tears because they cared enough to set this up for me.

I look up through my tears to see Eric walking towards me. When he gets to me he hugs me and whispers Happy Birthday in my ear. He gave me a short kiss, but for some reason it leaves me breathless.

All my teammates told me that they felt really bad from not being able to come see me at the hospital a lot so they thought this was a way to get back. I told them all,” This is the best birthday I have ever had.”

All my teammates had to leave to get ready for their events, but Eric wasn’t competing at this meet so he got to hang out with me during the meet.  While we were sitting together watching everyone he told me,” Sorry I couldn’t tell you about this. I wanted it to be a surprise. Actually the whole team came up with the idea. I just carried it further.”

I told him thanks and gave him another hug. My mom leans over my shoulder and says,” It was mainly his idea. You have a good guy on your hands Abby.”

After the meet was over, they had awards to do. In the beginning they said,” Abby may up come up here, please?”

 Eric pushes my onto the floor to the lady with a huge smile on her face. She shakes my hand and says into the microphone,” This meet has been fund raising for Jessica. She is a patient at the hospital with Abby that has cancer.”  I am already started crying. I can’t believe they went this far for me.

She looks at me real fast and returns to her speech,” We would like to present you a check from all the money we have earned from this meet. We earned a total…” I am covered in tears by this point. I feel Eric place his hand on my shoulder.

 She took a phase for effect and continued,” 30,000 dollars!!!!”

 I close my eyes from the shock and I also cover my mouth. The tears are pouring down. I try to manage a thank you but my voice cracks in the middle of it. She gave me a hug and she also hands me the check. She also asked if I wanted to say something. I look at her and nod my head.

Eric pushes me towards the microphone and lowers it down to my face level. I don’t think I could manage to speak. I was able to spill out,” You don’t know how much this means to me. Thank you so much.”

I notice that I was shaking and that I was also holding the check a little too tight. I loosen my hand and try not to shake.  I look up again and see almost my whole gym including the coaches running towards me. They all gave me a hug and told me to stop by whenever I wanted to.”

After everything was over, Eric asked my parents if it would be fine to come to the hospital with me to see me give Jessica the check. My parents of course said yes.

When we were in the car, it was very quiet. I was trying to dab away the tears before I got to the hospital. Eric reaches over his chair to grab my hand. We sat there fingers intertied and holding back the tears.

 Eric, my parents, and I walked slowly towards Jessica’s room. I am trying to hold back the tears, but I few kept slipping through.

We walked into her room, her eyes were closed. I thought that she was sleeping, but she looked up towards us and smiled and said,” Hey. What are you guys doing her?”

Eric pushed me to her bedside. I look towards her and said to her,” My teammates and Eric came up with this idea that they were going to hold a meet that was today. They also decided that they were going to do a fundraiser. They were fund raising for you, Jessica.”

She had a huge smile on her face and she was also crying. I swear I saw some of the color in her face come back. I continued by saying,” They earn 30,000 dollars for you and your family.”

She was bawling her eyes out. She looked up at all of us and said,” Thank you so much. I love you guys soo much.”

I thought to myself that today was the best birthday in my life, but it probably was the happiest day in Jessica’s life too. I really hope that Jessica gets through this cancer.

 Very emotionally chapter! Sorry it took so long to write this. I had to write it prefectly. This has to be my favorite chapter. I promise that I will update my chapters sooner. Please vote or comment and tell me how I did. Love all you guys!!!