The Kissing Booth - Chasing Noah

Chapter 21

A/N: This is the edited version of Chapter 49 and 50

...

When I was little, I was like any other girl. My dad was my hero, my mom was my best friend, I would even go as far as to say my life was perfect. I even loved my brother in spurts. My family never had any problem with Lee being my best friend; that I never had any real girl friends. Until my sixth birthday when my mom was dying to try out all of these princess themed crafts for my birthday party. Honestly Lee didn't care because 'any excuse to cross-dress', but all of my other friends were guys. Lee and I were always inseparable so I always ended up hanging out with him and his brother, or going to soccer games with the guys.

I mean, I never actually rejected girls when they tried to hangout with me. I was just more comfortable around guys. When Rachel came around and she was easy to hangout with, it was awesome. But before her, the closest I got to having a girl friend was the OMG girls, and they stabbed me in the back. Which only proved that I had been right all my life; guys were way less drama.

So for this birthday party that my mom was begging me to have, the only people on my guest list were Lee and his mom. I wouldn't dare invite the other guys and embarrass myself like that. Which made my mom so upset that she collapsed. I told her that we wouldn't need as many treat bags as she was planning on making. She collapsed later that day, while she was on the phone cancelling the real-life princess. We took her to the hospital, and the entire way there I thought that it was my fault that it had happened. If I had just made an effort to invite more people to my birthday party, maybe she wouldn't have gotten so upset that she fainted.

I never told anyone that I thought it was my fault. I was scared that if I did, I would get in trouble. It didn't help that the doctors said that there was nothing wrong with my mom. If only we would have known that that was one of the earliest signs of her cancer. But until I was fifteen, I actually thought that I had upset my mom to such an extent that it had made her sick.

So when I woke up in the hospital, my first thought was that I was sick. I was going to end up just like my mom, living in the hospital, having Christmas with my family every year in the cafeteria, until it was over. My mom was gone four years after she was diagnosed. But maybe mine was more advanced. Maybe I only had weeks instead of years. How was I supposed to even start to say goodbye to my family? To Lee? To Noah?

I had so much more that I wanted to do. So much of the world that I wanted to see. I wanted to get into Trinity and drive down the East Coast, to New York and Florida. I wanted to get married and go to Britain with Lee just like we planned when we were twelve. Lee loved their accents.

"Mr Evans, your daughter is severely malnutritioned. Looking at her labs, she has dangerously high levels of caffeine in her system," my doctor explained, his brows furrowed in an almost rehearsed expression. My mom's doctors looked the exact same way. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, sitting up in my incredibly uncomfortable bed. I remember mom always complaining about how even the pillow felt like a piece of tissue paper. My dad must have seen me move because he jumped out of his chair and to my side.

"Elle, how are you feeling sweetheart? Can I get you anything?" he rambled. I shook my head, looking for my phone. It had been in my pocket. I reached for it, but quickly realized I was now in a paper gown. My hand inched up my right arm, touching the spot where they had stuck the IV in.

"Actually sir, we should probably talk about her treatment plan before we get her anything to eat. After a patient is diagnosed with malnutrition, it's very important that we put them on a strict diet right away," he explained. I read his name tag, but my eyes were still groggy. I think it said Alex, but it might have been Abe. I decided to call him Doctor A.