The day I wrote a song about you

Chapter 18: Cute

Cara kept her promise. She allowed me to see her twice that week. Since she was free during lunch, I invited her to a restaurant with really good healthy options where she could stay on her diet. I could sense she felt more comfortable around me, she laughed and talked a lot more. She also joked a lot. She wasn't embarrassed now to goof off and I discovered how imaginative and silly her mind could be. She would come out with the weirdest things, and I always stared at her dumbfounded.

Halloween was on Saturday, it was my favorite holiday and Luca and I decided to throw a party. Costumes were optional, booze was on the house. I was planning on asking Cara when I saw her on Friday, but Monsieur Grincheux had other plans for me.

"You might need surgery again."

The blood drained from my face.

No.

Not this again.

I couldn't go through all that again. Flashes of the time I spent in the hospital passed through my eyes. The pain, the rehab, the loneliness, the pain, the fear of not being able to walk again, the pain.

Oh, did I mention the pain?

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." I said drily as I zipped up my jeans.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." My physiotherapist, Phil, mimicked my French accent and I decided then and there that I hated him just a little bit more. "No, I'm not kidding, Nicolas." There might have been about ten thousand times in the period of my life that I knew him, that I told him not to call me that. It reminded me of my mother. "I'm sending you to a specialist, that pain you suffer everyday it's not normal. Plus, I'm sensing a little lump in your groin that I'm not liking one bit."

Why did he have to talk like that? Seriously.

"A lump?" I asked confused.

"Yeah, you know. Like a little-" he tried to show me with his fingers.

"I know what a lump is." I shook my head, waving him off. "I mean..." I swallowed hard. I didn't wanna show it but it had been a long time since I didn't feel so scared. "What can that mean?"

Phil frowned and sighed. I didn't like that he sighed, why was he sighing? "It can be a cyst, it can be a tumor, it can be nothing."

Placing a hand on my chest, I got down from the stretcher and went towards the door. I'm pretty sure I looked as white as snow.

"Nicolas, wait. You need the referral note for the specialist."

I took it from him and got out of the room, slowly making my way outside. I was in utter shock, I needed some air.

"Nico, hey." I heard someone say from behind.

I couldn't breathe. This feeling... I hadn't had it for a long time now. My heart wasn't even beating faster, it seemed as if it had stopped completely. My hands felt clammy, my vision started to get blurry. I closed my eyes hard. I couldn't breathe. I forgot how to.

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"You scared me." Cara handed me the glass of water. After the episode, Cara didn't know what to do, but she managed to calm me down and drove me to her house. I sat on the porch when I saw the steps just as we arrived and Cara went inside to get me some water.

I gulped it down in one go and glanced at her sideways. "I... I didn't have one of those since I was twenty three."

"One of..."

"Panic attacks." I explained. Poor thing, she didn't even know what that was. She nodded in understanding. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that."