Letters To Sophia Berkeley [h.s.]

The Beginning

We had only been sitting in the living room watching movies together. It was another normal day in our little apartment in New York, until I noticed something off about her. That's when everything changed.

"But Harry I wanted to watch Grease!" she protests as I click through channels on the television. I look over at her and see she's pouting at me.

"Please?" Sophia asks.

"Ugh. Fine. But I pick the movie next time. You know exactly how to get me to do whatever you want," I say, rolling my eyes playfully.

She laughs and we begin watching the movie, but halfway through the movie she has to get up to get some water. She's been feeling feverish and extremely tired for the past few weeks. I said that we should go to the doctor but she refuses. Sophia has always been very stubborn about taking care of herself when she's sick.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry," she says.

She starts scratching her arm but winces as she hits a certain spot.

"What the hell?! Harry how do I have a huge bruise on my arm," she asks.

Sophia walks over and shows me the large black and blue mark right in the middle of her forearm. Around it are a couple tiny red dots.

"What are those red dots?" I ask.

She shrugs it off and says its probably eczema, but I have this gut feeling that there's something else going on.

After she falls asleep, I look up her symptoms even though I know I will get paranoid about the countless number of ailments she could have. As I scroll through, I see the word "cancer" and my blood turns cold.

"There's no way," I whisper softly to myself, not trying to wake her up.

The next morning...

Much to her protesting, Sophia and I both agreed that she would go to the doctor. I have a feeling she's only doing it to make me feel better. Especially because after the argument she told me, "I'm only doing this so you feel better."

"I don't wanna go," Sophia says with a worried look on her face. I sigh.

"You know you have to," I say. I cup her face in my hands and kiss her forehead, leaving her in the bathroom so she can get ready. I'm waiting in the car for 10 minutes until I get worried and go inside to find her crying in the bathroom with an eyeliner pen in her hand.

"Soph. Oh my God. What's wrong?!" I ask, squatting in front of her.

"I'm scared, Harry. I've never been sick like this before. What if I'm dying?! What if I've been putting this off and now it's worse and there's nothing we can do and --"

"No," I say, cutting her off. "I won't let you think like that. It's probably nothing! It could just be the flu or something." I try to make her feel better, but I don't believe the words I'm saying.

"The flu doesn't give you a rash, now does it?"

She's right. We both know she's right. I sit there, still squatting down in front of her, and I don't even realize that I'm crying until she wipes a tear off my cheek.

"I'm sorry. I should've just shut up and gone to the doctors," she rambles.

"No, no, no, no, no. Sophia this is not your fault. We're both emotional right now, okay?"

She nods and we both dry our tears, pathetically laughing.

"Look at us. Crying over something that probably isn't even true," she says.

I chuckle and help her up, and she decides she's too tired to put on makeup. I make a point to flail my arms around weirdly and push all of the makeup off the counter. She laughs and we go to the car, immediately getting anxious and tense as I pull out of the garage.

At the hospital...

"Sophia Berkeley?" the nurse says when she opens the door. Sophia grabs my hand and we walk towards the nurse, getting a sympathetic smile from her while we pass. "Follow me this way," she says. We get lead into a small, isolated room that smells like the walls were washed with hand sanitizer and dish soap. I've always hated the smell of hospitals, but if things go badly in here I'll have to get used to it.

The nurse asks Sophia a bunch of questions on how she's been feeling, and every time Sophia answers, the nurse gets a more worried look, but doesn't say anything. Not very promising. "I will go get the doctor and he will tell you everything you need to know," she says. I heavily sigh, letting out most of my stress with one breath.

As we're waiting for the doctor, tension builds in the room. The silence fills the space until there's a knock on the door that startles both of us.

The doctor sits down in his chair after shaking both of our hands. As nice as he is, I feel more and more worried with every passing second. We sit there and listen to him. We hear him say things that point to us being here for a while. There is no mention of any life-threatening illness yet, but there's probably some policy where he can't say anything until the tests come back.

He tells us that Sophia needs to get an MRI as soon as possible, and the same nurse that asked her questions leads us to get one. Sophia sits in a wheelchair, it's apparently something everyone has to do, and as the nurse is about to leave with Sophia, she turns to me. "Would you like to come?" she asks. I nod and grab Sophia's hand.

At the MRI machine, I stand behind the nurse as Sophia is put into the huge metallic tube. I sit in a chair next to the machine with the vest they made me put on and hold onto her hand. "Alright I need you to lay completely still. No moving," the nurse says to Sophia. I look up at her and say, "I love you babe. No matter what."