𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗧 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗛 𝗜𝗧? ✰ w. bjerken

•2•

PERREY'S POV

"Mom," I whisper. I tap my mom's shoulder. She doesn't wake up. Squinting through the dark of my parents bedroom, I walk as best I can around the bed and tap my dad's shoulder.

"Dad. Dad, I need help."

He blinks his eyes a couple of times and groggily sits up.

"What's up?"

"It's my leg. It's hurting again." I collapse onto the bed, holding my leg. "It's so bad, I can't sleep."

Dad grimaces. "I don't know what to tell you. Did you take the pain medication? I keep telling you we need to go to the doctor and have it checked out."

I sigh. "I know. I know. But the American Cup is in a week. I need to be there. We can get it checked out after my meet. Besides, it only hurts during the night. When I'm at practice, it's fine."

He shakes his head. "Ok. Do what your body tells you." He gets up from the bed. "Let me get you the sleep medicine and the pain reducing stuff."

When he comes back with the medicine and a cup of water, he asks, "What kind of pain is it? Where does it hurt?"

I shrug. "I don't know...its not muscle pain. I think it's bone pain. Hopefully it's not anything serious."

"Yeah, you'd better hope. If it's anything very serious and you're not getting it checked out, it's going to be your fault." Dad says, seriously.

"I understand. But I'm about to have a great meet, and I can't compromise it."

++++++++++

WHITNEY'S POV

Blakely, my younger sister, jumps onto my bed. "WHITNEY!!"

I blink slowly and sit up. "Hey, Blakely."

"You're home!!"

"I know!" I give her a quick hug and then scoot off the side of the bunk bed. I can't come home too often, so its always a treat when I can.

I hurry across the hall into my parents bedroom. Mom is still sick, and we got here late last night, so I haven't seen her yet.

"Mom!" I run in and give her a big hug. "How are you? I've missed you."

She smiles and squeezes my hand. "I've missed you too. I'm ok. I'm having a doctors appointment tomorrow."

"What kind of sickness it is?" I plop down onto the bed.

She runs her hand through her hair. "I'm not quite sure. I'm just in pain, and I'm really tired and nauseated a lot."

"I hope they can get it figured out before next week. I really hope you can come to American Cup with me."

"I hope so too. Now run and get ready for church. I don't think I can come with you, but you guys are still going." She gives me a quick kiss and I hurry off.

+++++++++

I do a giant into a half pirouette, and quickly pull a piked jaegar that leads swiftly into my pak salto.

"Yeahhh, Whit!" Delaney claps.

A quick shaposh gets me back to the high bar, and a kip gets me swinging into the giants before my twisting double to land. I stick the landing, and my arms go up in a salute.

"Nice. Good. Good. You had good height in your jaeger." Coach Pete says.

I let out my breath. Delaney comes over and pats me on the shoulder.

"You stuck the landing!!" She squeals.

I grin. "I know!! I just hope I do that for Classic..."

"I'm sure you will." Delaney winks at me.

"Ok, Delaney, let's see you over here." Coach Pete calls.

We're running through our routines one last time because we leave for the American Cup tomorrow morning! I'm super duper excited, and I actually feel confident and prepared.

Delaney runs through her routine very cleanly, and makes the landing with a small step. I give her a high five as she passes.

"That was so clean, it was cleaner than my mom's expectation for my bedroom." I joke, and we laugh.

"Hey, honey," my other coach comes over. "Take off your grips and you guys have to stretch now."

We start stretching, and then I see my dad in the gallery, recording. I wave at him and make a silly face at him. There's this meme account that memes all the silly faces I make during videos, like this:

It's pretty hilarious, actually. After we finish stretching, we pack up our stuff and head out. Dad meets us by the front desk.

"Hey, girls." Dad greets us, as normal.

"Hi, Mr. Bjerken." Delaney chirps.

"Hi, Mr. Bjerken," I say, mimicking her. She rolls her eyes at me.

"I belive your mom wants us to take you home, Delaney. Then I have to talk to you about something, Whitney." Dad says, seriously.

Ok, I'm worried now. What did I do?

After we drop of Delaney at her house, instead of heading back to our condo, Dad starts taking the route to go home.

"Why are we going home?" I ask.

"Whitney..." Dad pauses.

"WHAT? You can't keep me in suspense like that!" I plead.

Dad pulls over to the side of the road. Puzzled, I turn to face him. "Ok, now what's up? Is it something I did?"

"Whitney, I don't think you can go to the American Cup tomorrow."

Bam. Just like that. What? "What do you mean? Am I in trouble?"

Dad shakes his head slowly. "Mom....has cancer."

Stunned, I stare at him. I have no words. My mother? Cancer? I take a gasp of breath and let it out quickly, trying to process all of this information.

"It's ok. I think the doctors can take care of it. It's good they caught it pretty early. But -" he looks at me in the eye, "Your mom is going to need me more than ever. We can just leave her like this."

I'm torn. I want to scream out, 'I can't just let go of all the work I've been slaving away for! What will my fans think? I'm going to let them down! I was looking forward to seeing my friends again and competing!', but something in the sadness of Dad's eyes keeps my mouth shut. Instead, I lower my head and nod.

"Ok. I get it, I guess."

Dad looks at me intently. "I know. I'm sorry. I really am."

"Is there any way..." I stop, and I start to cry. Either because I can't go to the meet or because my mom has cancer, I'm not sure.

I don't cry often. That's something most of my fans admire about me. I can't let them see me cry. I have to be strong. But I really, really, want to go to the meet.

Lying in bed later that night, I pray to God. "Dear Lord, please let there be a way for me to be able to compete and to make Mom better. Amen."