It's a Sunday evening, I am as usual hanging out in Chase’s garage with the rest of the band, getting ready to go to our favourite ice cream shop when my mobile starts to vibrate. The caller ID is Mum.
“Hold on a sec” I say to the guys, to which they reply yes and quieten down.
“Alena” My mum sounds stressed and I know instantly that something’s up.
“Hey mum, is everything okay?” I ask, frightened for the answer. In reply she starts crying.
“Mum, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?” I ask impatiently.
“Honey, your dad’s in hospital” she sobs. My heart stops and I start to panic. This doesn’t feel like he’s just broken a bone or something.
“Mum, tell me what’s going on. I’m gonna get Liam to give me a ride to the hospital.” My throat is choking up and my eyes are forming tears as I look over at Liam. He understands the seriousness of the conversation and stands up.
“I’m sorry honey, he – he just collapsed. It happened so unexpectedly. Just please come as quick as you can. I love you.” She adds the ‘I love you’ hurriedly, like it’s the last time she will ever say it.
“I love you too, mum.” Then I hang up.
“Let’s go.” I say to Liam. He’s the only one there who drives. I sit in the back seat of his crappy old car and Lacey jumps in next to me. She puts her arm around me and I burst into tears of fear and worry.
“Alena, it’s going to be okay.” She says comforting me.
“You don’t even know what’s going on.” I say in between sobs. The car is on the road and Chase is in the passenger seat and has his hand on my knee. “My dad collapsed.”
“It’s gonna be ok, it’s gonna be ok” Lacey repeats this over and over again, rocking me back and forth.
My dad died 2 months ago today. It turned out that he had collapsed because he’d had a brain tumour growing in his head for months. I remember when the nurse came out to tell us that there was a possibility of cancer, and confirming it after all the scans. I remember that I threw up because of all the shock and worry building up in my stomach. When we went to see him, he was awake, but silent tears were falling down his paled cheeks. My heart then broke. My dad is the kind of man that doesn’t want people to worry about him, so it’d taken a lot for him to actually cry. I remember sitting down on the chair next to his bed, with my mum and the other side, and we both put our head’s on each of his shoulders. He held us tight and rocked us back and forth, repeating the words which were never true – “It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay.”
It was far from okay.
My dad slowly deteriorated from that day on. He wasn’t he usual happy go lucky self, he would now have mood swings and some days it got really scary, when he’d collapse or have a seizure. The tumour had been growing for a while before we’d seen the doctor, so he died quite soon. As soon as he died my whole world crashed. Some mornings I just wouldn’t want to wake up, so I would just lie there, and the hours of crying felt more like minutes. Lacey and all my friends would call, but I wouldn’t even get up to decline the call, as it was too much effort. My ring tone would just play until they decided to give up. I felt bad obviously, but I just couldn’t. My mum would bring in food, but I barely ate. I had lost one of my best friends, and it hurt like hell.
_________________________________________________________________________________Hey guys! This is my first installment of this story. I didn't really know what to call this part as it seemed longer than a prologue. Anyway, let me know what you think :))
