A Friend in me

I was 13 years old when it all started, by it I mean this story, my misery started long before that. My father was a drunk and a gambling addict he would blow away his entire paycheck on cheap liquor and priced horses. My mother worked at a grocery shop, but when she gets paid my dad would take her money and blow it away too, if she ever refused that means she and I both got a beating. After a while my mom asked the store owner to pay in supplies for home and my school, this drove my dad furious and we got beaten more often but my mom had made sure that we will always have a full stomach and that I will always go to school.

Anyhow the story I was going to tell you happened after my father died of alcohol poisoning, obviously. He was my dad but I actually felt a relief after his death. After that me and mom had enough money to buy new clothes, we renovated the house, we were actually happier. This was the time I met my best friend James, I was sitting alone in the school cafeteria one day when he came and sat at my table he was a nerd just like me.

Within a couple of weeks we were really good friends. He helped me study, we hung out a lot. Meanwhile my mom had a lot of debt she had to pay off all in courtesy of my dad. So she was really busy but James kept me company all the time, because his house was really close to mine.

Several years passed and I was around 16 when I started getting mild headaches and problems with my eyesight. For 7 months I hid it from my mom because she had a lot on her plate, she was doing two jobs at the time and I didn't want to be another problem to her blessed heart, infact the only person who knew about it was James and I had him sworn not to tell anyone. But James really tried his best to encourage me to see a doctor, he was genuinely worried about me but I was too stubborn and too determined not to worry my mom.

Almost a year passed like this and one morning I was having breakfast and James had come over, and just entered the room, I was eating cereal when I felt my whole body go numb and I fell down from the chair the last thing I remembered was mom and James coming to my help. When I woke up I was in the hospital my mom was right beside me.

"How do you feel honey?" She asked.

"I feel fine mom, it must've been a migraine or something" I said trying to calm her down.

"Ethan, the doctors checked you honey and they say- " my mom stopped mid sentence and was crying.

"What is it mom?"

"They say you have a brain tumor Ethan" at this point she was crying really hard.

I was shaken to the core, a tumor? I couldn't believe it, why me? I have never harmed a single living thing in my entire life, why does bad things always happen to good people? I was lost in my own mind for which was about twenty minutes but felt like a decade at the time. I was pulled out of my trance by the doctor entering the room.

"Hello Ethan, am I right?" The doctor was trying to be pleasant, but I was broken down.

"Yes doctor, this is Ethan" My mom answered for me.

"So I went through Ethan's tests, it seems that the tumor Ethan has is a stage 0 tumor, which is good news because it is completely removable, but we have to do a couple of more tests and we can get you into surgery as soon as possible."

"Thank you doctor, finally some good news Ethan" my mom had a bright smile on her face after the good news.

"Ethan i have somethings i need to discuss with the doctor honey, i'll be right back okay?" Said mom and followed the doctor out of the room.

"Hey man how you doin" said a familiar voice. It was James

"Oh man i was so bored i'm so happy to see you" i said.