Growing Pains

Chapter 57 - Life has given me nothing but the worst of it

T R I S T A N

Someone had left a flyer by my bedside table. The title read, facing blood cancer together. I could have laughed but didn't, mostly because I didn't have the energy for it. I didn't have the energy for anything.

I had faced my cancer a lot of times before. Growing up, I'd had the same dream every night. It was having conversation with my leukemia.

"I will never leave you", it would say to me, again, and again, and again, and again.

I had grown out of those dreams, just like I had grown out of trying to find a cure in colorful infographics about chemotherapy. Richard had read all the flyers there were on it as soon as I was diagnosed. Sam had read them as soon as he knew how to, so he could fix me. Linda didn't care for any of it. The flyer had to belong to Zoey.

Zoey came in every day with Sam because school was out, and Sam refused to stay home while I was in a hospital bed, probably dying. Every day they would come in, and go about their days inside the walls of my sterilized room, leaving only to go have lunch in the cafeteria, or at the end of the day, when Richard came in, straight from work, always with an excuse for why Linda wasn't with him. I didn't need an excuse – I actually thought it was very nice of her not to show up, given that I didn't like her at all – but I didn't have it in me to tell Richard about it. Most days, all I did was sleep or pretend to.

The world dragged on, and I watched. Zoey came in her knit sweaters, big scarves, bigger jackets, a book in her hand, and Sam close behind her, ready to jump on my bed to hug me while she opened the curtains to let the sun in. He would never do it if he thought I was awake, so I always pretended to be asleep.

Sometimes, because it was so early when they came in, Sam would stay in bed with me, and go back to sleep, and Zoey would sit on the chair in the corner, and read. When Sam wasn't snoring next to me, he was working on his comic book, or doing homework with Zoey, or watching nature documentaries on the small tv hanging from the wall across from my bed. I didn't know how the nurses knew I liked a good nature documentary, but somehow when they came in to turn on the tv, that was always what they put on for me.

Some days, Zoey brought an old computer from home and worked on her college application, and so some days, I couldn't help myself.

"College's a scam," I said.

She looked up at me, knees pulled in, an oversized sweater on, her shoes off, the computer heating up on her lap, and her hand in a cast.

"You're up?"

I said, "No."

She made a face, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm not." She made another face, so I said, "I'm on painkillers."

She seemed like she needed them too. Then said, "Did you tell Richard to pay for my medical bills because I –"

"I did," I stopped her before she could go on. Richard said Zoey had broken her hand falling down the stairs. I had no idea why, because the truth was, I had broken her hand when I closed a door on it the night I had to be rushed to the hospital. I hadn't done it on purpose, obviously, but I had done it, and so I should pay for it. Not her.

She went on, "You had no right to –"

"I'm not having this conversation with you."

She took a deep breathe, and said, "You're already going through enough –"

"Just stop."

Sam was sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, watching a hippo fight a crocodile on tv, but he turned around to look at us.