Break Me

chapter eight

"Uhg!"

I throw my bag on the ground. I can't believe I lost my english notebook. I hadn't noticed until I needed it in class today and it wasn't in my bag. I figured I left it at home, but it isn't here.

I've decided to look around the living room and kitchen. I know it's probably not down here but I'm desperate.

"I'm going to ask the obvious question here" John says turning his attention away from the file that he's reading. "Are you looking for something?"

I sigh and put the chair cushion back in the chair. "I lost my english notebook, for school"

I sit down in the chair and he puts his file down. "Was there something important in the notebook that's got you so worked up?"

"Yes," I take a breath. "I was writing an essay about the book we're reading, To Kill A Mockingbird, and I am really proud of it. But...I was struggling with trying to write the perfect ending for it. I can't work on it if I don't have my notebook and it's due at the end of the week"

I huff sinking further into the chair.

On top of everything else, now I have to restart my essay.

"Well I can't promise that you will find your notebook although I hope you do, but I can offer you a quick distraction" he raises an eyebrow.

I nod my head for him to continue.

"I have this patient, they're young around your age. They have a tumor that needs to be removed and it's only an fifty percent success rate"

Those odds aren't good but I guess also not bad.

"If the patient doesn't get the surgery, they only have about two months. Now the parents are on board, it's the patient who I'm having trouble convincing that this is their best option"

"Wait," I cut him off. "if you have the parent's consent, why do you need the patients? Isn't having the parents okay enough to go through with the surgery?"

"Well yes but with a surgery like this, if the patient isn't one hundred percent on board and prepared to fight, then there is no point in trying. Surviving the surgery is only half the battle. With brain surgery, so many things can go wrong and we won't really know if the surgery was successful until the patient wakes up, and if they do, the recovery process is still long and sometimes painful, in more ways than one"

That's a lot of pressure. I can't believe he does this for a living.

"My question for you is, how do I try and make a person your age want to fight for their life"

Oh, wow.

How do I even answer that?

I didn't have the best life before the Harringtons adopted me, that's obvious. But it was because I never thought I would get adopted that I worked so hard. It became a second nature to me, it was the only thing that kept me going. I knew if I worked hard enough that when I got kicked out of the orphanage when I turned eighteen, I would be able to make a life for myself. That's all I wanted. I wanted to make myself have a life worth living.

So I give him the only answer I can think of.

"I guess you could ask them what they envision their life to look like in ten years and then ask them if they could make that same life happen in two months" I bite the inside of my cheek. "I don't think that people want to die, they just want something to live for. That something is different for everyone"

He looks shocked by my answer. Am I wrong? I don't even know why he asked me, he's the doctor.

"Did I say the wrong thing?" I ask after a few more moments of shocked silence.