Heartbeat || M.G.C. ((REWRITING))

One

My mind was focused on the television screen, I was playing some game on my old Nintendo 64. I preferred the classics rather than the new game systems that would attempt at making pixelated characters look like real life humans. Everything was better when video game characters had their crummy quality and shitty glitches. This was how I spent most of my Sundays, locked up in my room with the curtains closed and my mind focused on Donkey Kong Country.

I was startled by mom opening my door with her smile that seemed too big to be real plastered along her face, "Lillian, it's Sunday you've been inside this room for a week. Aren't you feeling claustrophobic?" It was like this everyday and the time had came to the point where I could choose to a) be a total bitch to my mother and refuse to come out or b) cooperate with my mother and go outside for once.

"No mom, I'm not feeling claustrophobic, for the ten millionth time you're claustrophobic and I am acrophobic, which is the fear of heights in case you didn't know," I spoke while climbing off my bed to turn off the game system. I thought choice a and b seemed better when mixed together. My mother had a shocked expression on her face probably because of the fact that I turned off my game system for once.

"We're going to the mall, so try to look at least a little presentable for the public. Please honey." Mom said, while walking out of my room. She forgot to close my door, which triggered my biggest pet peeve. I don't mind if you walk into my room. I don't care if you climb onto my bed. I don't care if you turn off my game system, well maybe not that but the point is, is that you close the door when you leave my room. Easier done than said.

I walked over to my wardrobe that was half the size of me and had a very caramel color painted onto it. The first drawer I opened was filled with shirts that weren't neat, I am positively sure that about a handful of shirts in there haven't been washed or even worn but I don't care. I randomly selected a shirt it was a long sleeved shirt that was a solid black. I bent down, so I could reach the second drawer which was filled with mixtures of jeans and shorts that I've gotten about three birthday's ago but refused to wear. I grabbed jeans that were unbelievably skinny.

I dressed myself and headed out into the kitchen where my mother stood cleaning the dishes from this morning's breakfast. As soon as she saw my outfit she had the look of disapproval but she went along with it. There was only one reason why she never yelled or argued with me and that was because of my cancer. That was another pet peeve of mine, she treated me different because I was suffering from something that is everyone's enemy. I grabbed the hairbrush from the island and pulled it close to my hair, brushing it slowly trying to untangle each knot for each day of the week.

The knots soon became undone and my mother and I headed out the door to the car. We got inside the car and drove our way to the Chicago Ridge Mall, I haven't been here in what seems like years but it was really about two months ago. The mall wasn't as filled as I thought it would be. I already knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to get.

"Lillian, let's go to Victoria's Secret and buy you some new clothing. You'll look absolutely great and you'll be like a normal teenager!" That word, that one word pulled the trigger making my blood boil. I wasn't "normal." How could I ever be normal? I was a teenage girl with medullary thyroid cancer and I had a low chance of survival. How do you have the audacity to call that normal?

"Mom, I can't be normal, to refresh your memory, I have cancer. I can't ever be normal, but if I ever do become normal God bless me." I spoke in what was almost a yell which earned a few stares.

She had the look of sympathy back on her face and I could see tears trying to escape her eyes. I could apologize to her but there would be no reason to. I spoke the truth and the truth hurts more than lie. Mom wiped the tears that were nearly escaping her eyes and pulled me into the tightest hug, I felt as if my organs would be squished together into one piece.