The 100th Guy (English - Unedited)

[CHAPTER ONE] Accepting...

I will just dedicate the chapter as soon as I use the computer for Wattpad because I'm using mobile internet. There are certain features not available :)

Enjoy reading!
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Chapter One 

Accepting what’s coming 

I walked through the deserted hallways, my eyes stared at nothingness. The voices still echoed in my ears, like it was my favorite music that I could not stop listening to. I am not frightened nor scared nor any other worse feeling that I should feel for myself. I was worried for the people close to me. What would they say once they hear this? How would they feel? Would they hate me? Should they be sorry?
           My eyes went to the envelope in my hands. There was still this peculiar feeling inside me, something I could not explain. I opened the envelope with my frail hands and re-read what was inside it.
           Positive. I shook my head at the sight of that word. “Midori, it’s nothing, okay? Everything’s fine. Life is just like this. And besides you are still young. Everything’s fine, Midori.”
            “Midori!”
           I turned my head to where the voice came from. She ran to me like a lost kid who found her mom and gave me the warmest embrace I received that day. Maybe, she already knew. “Jane.”
           “Midori,” she sobbed at the back of my ear. I held her shoulders and carefully pushed her to wipe the tears streaming down her cheeks. I smiled at Jane but she kept on sobbing like a child.
           “Hey, stop crying. You look more like a bullied kid than a nurse. And besides, I should be the one crying. How dare you cry before I even can?” I jokingly told her just so she could stop sobbing, but she did not. She even wiped her tears with the back of her hands like a five-year old and cried again.
           “Jane, stop it. I’m totally fine. Look…” I turned my head everywhere to find something I could use to prove her that I was fine. But there was nothing in the hallway but hospital walls. So I leaned both my hands on the wall and did some push-ups. “See?” I said smiling at her. “See? I’m fine.”
            She just grabbed my arms, not even appreciating my act. “You are not fine.”
          I pulled a smile, a pretentious smile I must say. Philippe Jan Lim had been my bestfriend ever since I first met her. She’s just the most precious friend I could ever have. Even though our first meeting was weird because I thought she was a ‘he’ because of her name, it did not matter; our everyday meeting might still be weird, but those were the times that I was happiest. I could not afford to see Jane suffering just because of me. I would not take it if I saw the girl I loved the most cry, just because I was… weak.
           “Will you tell them?” she asked in between sobs.
           I gently knocked her head and she winced with the light pain. “Stupid! Of course I’ll tell them. Is it possible not to?”
           She returned the knock on my head, only that this time, hers was stronger than mine. “You are stupid too! How could you laugh at this situation?”
           Jane just rolled her eyes on me, then crossed her arms on her chest. I could not help but giggle. It was like she was very annoyed and she hated me for caring less. But then, the giggle became real laughter, not just a laughter for a joke, but a laughter of joy. She might be thinking that I was going crazy but behind the mirth that she saw was a realization: I may have had very few friends who I could even count with a hand, but at least, those that I have were the finest ones. And among those finest ones, Jane was the finest.
           I was in my first year in high school when I first met her. We became friends up until now, and I had no other close friends but her and other two kind guys in school. Not that I was not friendly nor I was sarcastic, but people chose to stay away from me, not that far, but distant enough to cry out ‘I can’t be friends with you’. Everytime, there was this weird thing that kept happening to me: I would feel dizzy, then at the end of the day, I would just be unconscious. The next thing I knew, I was already in the clinic, or worse in the hospital. It happened for many times. And my bleeding nose was the ‘yuckiest’ part of my everyday weirdness. So no one really wanted to be close to me. It was only Jane who never left and stayed by my side.
           “I should go by now. You are still on-duty, aren’t you?”
           “Wait! You can’t just go all by yourself. I don’t know what might happen to you on your way home. I can ask Flip to send you home. Anyway, she is just around. Or  if you want, I can just send you home. I’ll ask for a leave—”
            “Jane,” I called as I held her hand. “I can go home alone. You don’t really have to worry. Just go back to your work.”
           “Are you sure?” she pouted; her tears again welled.
           “More than sure!” I said with confidence.
           She just nodded. I sighed in relief when it seemed that I already convinced her, at last. She took a step forward and hugged me even warmer. “Goodbye, Bessie! I love you! Be careful, huh?”
           I returned the warm hug she gave me and said, “I love you too, Bessie!”
            Instead of going home, I decided to sit at the bench in front of the hospital. The sky was clear. The birds were flying freely. Cars on fire. People in hurry, beggars blocking their way. It was the same sight I had seen everyday. Nothing really changed, except for the news that threw the hot coffee to my face.
            “You have brain cancer, Midori. And it is not getting any better.”
          The words of the neurologist untiringly reiterated on my ears. I had brain cancer and it was not getting any better. The reason why I always felt dizzy, the reason why I lost my hearing sometimes, the reason for all the weirdness that kept on happening within me… All this time, it was because of this. I had brain cancer. And it was not getting any better. Even those last words did not change anything. It is not getting any better, a euphemistic way of saying, it is getting worse.
           When I first heard of it, I was not really moved. It was just like hearing a nonsense rumor spread in the neighborhood. If having this disease or disorder or whatever I could call this meant dying, it was really not a big deal. That’s life. Whatever we do, everyone would pass that stage—dying. It was just a matter of who would go first and who would go last. You were a lucky one if you went first, they say. As the saying goes, “weeds do not die easily.” That was why many people chose to be bad, so they could live longer. And that was the corniest joke I had ever heard.
            I heaved out a sigh and stared at the envelope in my hands. “Midori, why are you so optimistic? Don’t you know that too much can kill you?” I asked only to end up chuckling at my indifference. If it were others, they could have cried too hard, or maybe they would be paranoid knowing how short their life would be.
             But why would I do that?
           I have a complete and happy family. My brother was already providing everything for us. My parents were not working anymore, and their dream of living in Paris was already fulfilled by my brother. He also had his own house, his own car, his own business. Even though he told me that I should not work because of my health condition and even though it was only him who was working for us, he never failed to be a great provider. He gave me everything I need and anything I “seem to like” without me even asking for it. He was also happy with his girlfriend, Flip, Jane’s elder sister; few months more and they will soon be married. Flip and Jane were both employed. Their mother depends on them and they could live a comfortable life even though their father who provided for them already died years ago.
            Leaving everything would never be hard.
           “Your cancer cells do not have the tendency to spread on other parts of your body. But they grow. What’s complicated is, they are in your brain, Midori. If before you often felt dizzy, we do not know what exactly could happen next once they grow even more.”
          What possible things could really happen to me? My nose bled, my head hurt, what’s next? Would my eyes bleed too? Would my muscles ache? I did not know. Even the difference between cancer cells growing and cancer cells spreading, I did not understand. I knew nothing about my sickness. Only the fact that I was sick, and everyone was afraid of having cancer.
          “I suggest you stay here in this hospital, Midori, so we can observe you very well. We have facilities that can help you fight your cancer. You just have to accept wholeheartedly the therapies and other activities that we will be doing to cure you and everything will be fine.”
            “But what if everything will not be fine?”
            “Of course, it will.”
            “But what if it will not?”
          Dr. de la Fuente’s face was blank when he shook his head. “Let’s talk about it, soon.”
          What could possibly happen to me if my sickness would not go away?
          I picked up my phone when I heard it rang.  “Hello?”
            “Baby, where are you? Aren’t you coming home yet? The dressmaker’s waiting for you.”
          I smiled as I heard the voice on the other line. It was my brother, Avril. He seemed to be in panic. “Just tell her to come back tomorrow. I do not exactly know what time I will get home.”
            “Okay. Are you fine? You sound lonely. Are you with Jane now?” he asked, noticing how dull my voice was.
            “I’m not with her. She is on her duty. Avril?”
            “Yes?”
            “I love you.”
          I heard Avril’s laughter on the speaker, and a tear escaped from my eye without me even noticing. “Of course, I love you, too. Is there something wrong? You should be happy. I’m getting married soon, Midori. Don’t you want me to get married and have my own family?”
          After a tear, another one fell. And then followed by another one. And another one again. Until tears started to gush like torrents on a high waterfalls. They kept falling, all in a hurry, chasing one after the other. And no closing of eyes could stop them from escaping.
          Then suddenly, questions popped up in my head: What will happen if Avril knows that I am sick? That I am very sick and no Paracetamol could cure this? Will he still take care of me like what he did when I used to have fever? Will everything change once he got married? How about me? Will I be alone? Who will stand beside me as  fight this impossible battle?
          I hung up first without answering his questions. I did not want him to hear me crying. It was not that I did not want him to marry. Actually, I was very happy that my brother would soon have his own family. I knew him for a long time, and it was pretty unexpected that he would have the guts to court Flip. He was never the guy who would have that much interest on a girl. He had crushes, but it only ended up to that point. I would always push him to some pretty girls in the campus but he would always ignore me as he said, “There’s a perfect time for that.” But now, I could not even imagine that he would be marrying one of the prettiest faces I had ever seen in my entire life.
          I could not just tell him. I should not. There must be a perfect timing. He was so happy and excited by his dream coming close to reality. Maybe, it was my turn to say, there’s a perfect time for that.
          I would just talk to him as soon as I got home.
          But for now, I just wanted to sit here, be alone, and wonder. I would just stay here as I gather the strength I need to face them and tell them the truth.
          “You might need this.”
          I looked at the handkerchief held in front of me. Lifting my head to see who was holding it, I saw a fine young man; his face seemed to sympathize with me… even though I did not exactly know what it was that I was feeling.
          I smiled as I got the handkerchief from him and used it to dry the tears on my cheeks. “Thank you.”
          He sat beside me, hands on his pockets. We were just staring at the homeless children on the other side of the street. They were playing, not even realizing how sad their fate was. “Why are you here… alone and crying?” he asked without looking at me.
          “Why are you here, too?” I asked back.
          He shook his shoulders. “Because you are here? I don’t really know.”
          “Where is your twin brother?”
          Dwaine looked at me as if asking, “Still him?”
         “Dwaine, I’m just asking where he is. Whatever happened between us back in college, just forget it. Get over it, okay?”
         “It’s not easy.”
         “Dwaine…” I looked at him with pleading eyes.
         Dwaine had been my classmate since high school until I reached my third year in college. Within those seven years, Dwaine had always been asking me about ‘courting’. He would always insist that he was responsible enough to have a relationship and he was not the little brother I had been with anymore. We were separated when we reached our last year in college. But during that time, his twin brother, Shian, had been my classmate. Shian was exactly like Dwaine, only that he was less serious. Shian and I shared the relationship as I had with Dwaine. We also became good friends. And that unexpected time came. It was Valentine’s Day, and of course, there were roses and flying love letters everywhere. I received one. From Shian. And Dwaine saw how Shian asked me, “Can we go out? Like… a real date?” But I denied his offer. I could not just go out with someone I only had seen as a dear brother, and who exactly looked like someone who had been asking me the same question for seven years.
           I did not know what really happened after that. I graduated without even seeing the two. The last news I heard was about Shian and Dwaine caught exchanging punches, until it came to the point that one of them must leave the country. It was Shian who left. And the last time I saw him was when I rejected him.
           And I knew, deep inside me, that even though I did not do anything wrong, their relationship was broken… because of me.
           “Just love me. That’s all you have to do, Midori.”
           “Can we not talk about it? Why don’t we just forget—”
            “What is it that you hate about me? Am I ugly? Am I a bad guy?”
      “Dwaine, it is not that I hate you. I never hated you. I like you. But only as a friend. And we could only go that far.”
      “Because of Shian?”
          “It’s not because of Shian. It’s just that I don’t want a boyfriend right now.” Dwaine looked away. Silence gapped between us. There was again the sound of the car engines. The chirping of the birds. The rattling of coins inside a can being shook.  “Dwaine, there are things in life that we want but are not meant for us. So we just have to accept the reality… We have to accept the fact that we have to leave them behind and accept what is yet to come.”
          He laughed softly as he patted his head. “Why Can’t You Love Me by Kyela Marjorene, right?”
          I gave him a weary smile. Kyela Marjorene was our favorite band. I first heard their song when I was listening to my brother’s iPod, and from that day on, I already liked them. And it was just funny how I unconsciously applied the messages of their song in my personal life.
          “They say the best things in life are for free, but why isn’t she? I just want her… want her a lot. It’s just that ‘we’ is a ‘cannot’.”
          I just sat there, watching Dwaine as he sang Why Can’t You Love Me. A pleased smile slowly formed on his lips as he was singing. Dwaine was one of the people I cherish the most. Even though there were things that we could not agree upon, just like how he kept insisting his feelings to me, admittedly, I still needed him in my life. He was one of the persons I trusted the most. He was one of the few people who never left my side. I needed him. I needed his strength as I hold on to the few pillars that would help me stand still and fight this impossible battle.
          “I guess I just have to leave this big bad mess. I’ll leave her behind, then I’ll move, move forward. I’ll accept what’s coming and accept that she’s leaving. But still, but still, but still, answer me: Why can’t you love me?”
          I suddenly had the urge to push myself to Dwaine and hug him. “Dwaine, I need you. You have been a great brother to me. I will not afford to lose you. But I cannot offer anything more than being friends. So just bury those feelings of yours. Because if you keep on insisting that to me, I might just wake up one day and know that I already lost you.”
          “Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry,” he patted my back and hugged me tight before he let me go. “So, I guess, this is how it all ends. I’ll still be here, don’t worry. I’ll just leave my crazy feelings behind and accept what’s coming.”
          “Thank you.”
          Accept what is coming. There are still tons to come, Midori. There are endless of them.