by Magan Vernon
Mom turned and shook hands with Trey. “Well, I’m glad that you’re keeping her in line. Someone has to.”
He briskly shook her hand. “The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Wilder.”
Then Mom’s eyes flitted over to John. Mom was petite like me so he towered over her. He was in his usual backwards hat and an AM hoodie. Not that I expected him to dress up to meet my mom, but it didn’t look like he was trying to impress her in any way. Maybe he didn’t think he needed to make a good impression if we weren’t dating.
“You must be the boy that Valerie was just telling me about.” She stepped in front of him.
“Um, I don’t know what boy she was talking about, but I’m John. Melanie’s friend.” He shook her hand, his eyes jerking around nervously before they landed on mine and he offered a small smile.
“Friend? You must be a very good friend to come here for her surgery. I’m sure she appreciates it very much.”
He nodded, letting go of my mom’s hand with his eyes locked on mine. “I’d like to think so.”
Luckily the awkwardness was broken up when the nurse came in with a wheelchair to take me to surgery prep. “Um, I don’t think I need this. I’m not an invalid or actually sick or anything.”
The peppy nurse smiled, bobbing her head. “Sorry, it’s hospital policy.”
“Fine.” I reluctantly sat in the wheelchair.
“And are you all family?” She looked at the entourage I had gathered.
“Yes,” Mom said, not letting anyone else speak.
“Okay, then, follow us and I’ll point you to the waiting area.”
As I was wheeled down hallway after hallway, I thought about all of the steps that led me to this point. The mistake of being too trusting with my ex—and here I was facing a disease. And, ironically, it was my quest for bedding John that led me to getting checked out by a doctor in the first place. If I’d never met John or decided that I liked him, would I be where I was right now? Or would my condition have gotten worse?
The nurse wheeled me to a curtained off area with a small bed and different machines surrounding it. She pulled a gown from a drawer and set it on the bed. “You’re going to need to get completely undressed and put on this gown. Another nurse and tech will be with you shortly to get you prepped. Have a great day and good luck.”
The rest of my entourage was standing around the bed. I didn’t exactly want to get undressed in front of everyone, so I was glad when Monica spoke up. “Um, I think I’m going to head over to that waiting room she talked about. Is that cool?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” I nodded.
Monica leaned over and gave me a big hug. “Good luck in there. We’ll be waiting.”
“Yes, good luck, Melanie,” Trey said, before he took Monica’s hand and they walked out of the room.
“Are they engaged yet?” Mom asked.
“Mom, they just started dating. Not everyone gets married right away,” I said. At least the scrutiny was off of me.
“They will,” John said in a low voice.
Valerie turned and looked at John. “Do you know something that we don’t?”
He shrugged. “It’s just obvious. That’s all. When you care a lot about someone, it happens.” His eyes nervously searched the room, briefly falling on mine before he looked down.
The room stayed silent for what seemed like forever until my mom broke the silence. “Okay, we’ll step outside the curtain here and let you get ready.”
“Sounds good.” Mom, Valerie, and John stepped outside of the curtain. I thought John would follow Monica and Trey to the waiting room, but when the nurses opened the curtain, he was still there.
He stayed while the nurses hooked me up to IVs and asked me medical questions. He leaned against the wall, not saying a word, as they told me what would happen in the procedure. Mom sat in the chair next to me, holding my hand and Valerie stood on the other side of the bed. I felt like I was being wheeled to my death, like this was the last time they’d see me. Mom didn’t cry, but I could see that she wanted to. I was trying to be the strong one. To not think about what was going to happen to me.
“Mom, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to be okay,” I said to her in almost a whisper. Whatever medication they gave me was starting to kick in and I started to drift off to sleep.
“Yes you are, Mel.” She patted my hand.
“People survive this all the time. I’m going to survive. We’re survivors. You and me.”
“I hope so, baby. I just wish I could have been here for you. Took you to your doctor’s appointments. Asked them questions. The only thing I know about any of this is what you told me and what I found online.” I could see the tears welling in her eyes, which didn’t help the ones I was trying to hold back.
“You’ve always done what’s best for me, Mom. Even when you didn’t think you did. I’m glad that I had friends to take me to those appointments and there’s nothing more you could have done.”
“But I could have been here. I could have held your hand. I could have...” her voice caught in her throat as tears streamed her cheeks.
I squeezed her hand. “You did everything just fine, Mom. I’m going to make it through this. We’re going to make it through this.”
When Dr. Rodriguez came in, dressed in blue scrubs, everyone stood up. My mom and Valerie wiped the tears from their eyes and put on a brave face, even though I knew both of them were just as scared as I was. Maybe even more.
“Good morning, Melanie,” she said in her thick accent.
“Morning,” I said, groggily. The medication was really kicking in now and I could barely form sentences.
“We’re going to get you wheeled into surgery now, so I’m just going to ask your family to head over to the waiting room.”
“Okay Dokay,” I mumbled.
“How long will it take? What should we expect next? What if this doesn’t work?” My mom fired off question after question.
Dr. Rodriguez turned toward my mom. “I assume you’re Mrs. Wilder? Yes?”
Mom nodded.
Dr. Rodriguez offered her a warm smile. “The surgery should be less than an hour, but then she’ll be in recovery for a few hours after. We’ll alert you when we have wheeled her into recovery. I’ll do a biopsy after we remove the cancerous cells and then another one in a few weeks after she’s healed. If there aren’t any more cancerous cells, nothing further needs to be done.
“And if the surgery doesn’t work? If she still has cancer?” Mom raised her eyebrow, her voice getting farther and farther away, but I fought my drifting, waiting to hear the doctor’s answer.
“Then we’ll talk about other options such as radiation and chemotherapy. But since we detected it early, I have no doubts that she should be in remission soon.”
“Thank you, doctor.” Mom and Valerie both squeezed my hand and kissed my forehead before walking out of the room, leaving me, John, and the doctor.
He walked over to the bed and leaned over, placing a light kiss on my lips before whispering, “I’ll see you when you’re out, Red.”
* * *
The thing about being put to sleep for surgery is that you lose complete track of time. I could have been out for years and not known it. I wonder if that’s what it’s like to be put in a coma. I didn’t dream. I didn’t even remember falling asleep. But when I woke up, I was in a recovery room and had no idea how I got there. And by looking at the clock, half the day had gone by, and I slept through it.
“How are you feeling, honey?” A gray haired nurse stood over me.
“Super duper.” Obviously the drugs hadn’t worn off because I couldn’t feel much and my brain was in a fog. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, but instead the lady kept asking me questions.
Luckily, my mom and sister came in and the nurse handed them papers and gave them information. They sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher and all I heard was ‘wah wah wah.’ But there was a voice that I was able to make out loud and clear.
It was sexy and flowed like caramel.
“I’ll ride home with Melanie’s mom and sister and just walk back to the house. Don’t worry.”
John was still there? And he was in my room? Maybe I had imagined it.
“Okay, sweetie, we need you to get dressed and then we’ll get you discharged before a volunteer comes in to wheel you out.”
I didn’t know if the gray haired lady was talking to me or somebody else so I just stared at Mom. She nodded for me and then the nurse left the room, closing the curtain behind her.
“Do you think you can dress yourself, Mel?” Mom was right at the edge of the bed, staring at me with her brows furrowed. I blinked a few times. God was I tired. If I slept so long, why was I so tired?
“I guess this means we’re helping her,” Valerie said.
I wondered if John really was still in the room. If he was, he would get to see a whole lot more of me than he bargained for.
I barely remembered my mom helping me to get dressed or the giant ice diaper that I wore home. The only thing I remembered about leaving the hospital was being wheeled out into the cold air and then leaning on a warm body in the car. A warm, great smelling body.
“Is she awake?” A faint voice asked.
The great smelling guy gently caressed my cheek. “She seems out of it.” It was John’s voice. It really was him that stayed.
I fluttered my eyes open slightly and looked up at his gorgeous, smiling face.
“Do you think you can walk to your apartment?” he asked.
“Sleeping sounds better,” I mumbled and nuzzled against his rock hard chest.
“This is going to be fun,” Valerie said from the front seat.
“I’ve got this.” John’s smooth voice carried over me and before I knew it I was being lifted in the air. Was I dying? Was this all really just a dream sequence that was leading me to death?
I was floating. Floating and cold. Sweatpants are not meant for November weather. I shivered, but then I was pulled tighter to the warm body and I buried my head against it. It smelled so good, like fresh laundry and sandalwood.
Then as quickly as I was floating, I was brought back to earth. My back pressed against a soft surface and my warm bodied angel wasn’t against me. I moaned and turned to my side, the weight of my ice diaper shifting and causing a trickle of water to run down my leg. “Cold, freezing, cold.” I couldn’t speak in coherent sentences. My tongue was numb.
“Are you okay?” John’s warm breath was on my face. I opened my eyes, slowly. It felt like pulling them through wet cement, but the sight I saw when I opened them was worth it. He was crouched down next to me, his eyes brimming with concern.
“You’re here. You’re really here,” I whispered.
“Of course I’m here, Red.” He ran his fingers along my jawline. “Now tell me what you need.”
“Sleep. And ice on my hoo haa.” I closed my eyes and buried my face in the pillow. My pillow to be exact. I knew that because it didn’t smell sterile like the hospital pillows or like John, so it had to be mine.
His laugh tickled my cheek. “Valerie, I think you can handle the ice part.”
“Will do,” Valerie said. “Can you just help me get her up? I know it’s weird, but you can go after I get her to the bathroom and Mom can help me.”
“Are you sure? I can stay as long as you need me to.”
All I wanted to do was sleep, but I couldn’t stop listening to their conversation. My eyes wouldn’t open, but I tried to keep my ears open and fight the sleep that was overcoming me.
“No, you probably need to get home to your family.” My body was lifted off of the bed, and then I was on my feet.
“I’ll stay here as long as she needs me to.”
Valerie’s laugh tickled my hair. “For a guy that’s not her boyfriend, you’re doing a damn good job of taking care of her.”
“Sometimes you don’t need a title to show that you care about someone.”
I tried to listen, but the longer I stood the more I drifted.
“I think she fell back asleep,” Valerie’s voice traveled over me.
“I’ll put her back in bed.”
My body was lifted in the air and then back onto my bed as if the movements were effortless. I could have dreamed the whole encounter, but it was a dream that I never wanted to wake up from.
Chapter 17
My eyes opened to darkness and the sound of my mother snoring in the living room. I moaned and tried to get up, but all I managed to do was turn to my side and then groan when a shooting pain between my legs made me see stars. I closed my eyes hard and bit down on my lip so I wouldn’t scream.
“Hey, are you okay? Do you need a pain pill?” Valerie was at my side, turning on the lamp on my nightstand, with a glass of water and a giant white pill in her hand.
I nodded and slowly, very slowly sat up. My body felt like it had been stuffed in a suitcase all day and it was hard to even stretch out. “Thanks,” I said before downing the pill and the water.
“Here, you better eat something with that. These are pretty potent pills.” Valerie handed me some graham crackers. I didn’t eaten all day and didn’t have much of an appetite so I just stared at them.
“I’m going to sit here until you eat these. So you’re either going to eat them or it’s going to be a long night,” she said, no nonsense written all over her face.
“Fine. Fine.” I rolled my eyes and took a small bite of the cracker.
“How are you feeling? You’ve been pretty out of it.”
“Like someone took a laser to my lady bits.” I said it without any humor and took another bite of graham cracker.
“Ha, well they kind of did.”
“I didn’t say anything too stupid while I was loopy, did I?”
“You did keep telling your hot, non-boyfriend that he smelled really good.”
I blinked. “So he really did stick around?”
“Uh, yeah,” Valerie spoke in a valley girl-like voice. “For not being your boyfriend, the guy seems really into you. He even carried you into your apartment and to the bathroom a few times for me to change that giant ice diaper.”
“Seriously?” I widened my eyes. I thought he’d seen me at my worst, but now the guy was carrying me around when I was out of it and had to take me to the bathroom. There was no way he was ever going to think of me as more than the broken girl.
“I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that. Even Mom was impressed with him. You should probably try to not fuck things up with this one.”
I rolled my eyes. “Val, I’m not going to fuck things up more than they already are. We aren’t together. He just feels sorry for me.”
“Will you cut that out?” Val’s words stopped me. Her normally perky voice turned sharp and got my attention. “You’re always getting down on yourself. Just because that loser, Robby, cheated on you and Dad was a jerk, doesn’t mean that every guy is going to be like them.”
I shook my head. “Valerie, you don’t understand. This guy is a walking one night stand. He’s been with a lot of girls and I even caught another girl giving him a lap dance in his room.”
“Seriously? Maybe you don’t know what you saw. Maybe the girl wanted him and he was trying to get away,” she said, half shocked and half defending.
I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t defend him. You weren’t there.”
Valerie raised her hands. “Hey, you’re the one that said you two weren’t dating. I’m just trying to get the facts straight.”
I sighed. “Val, I’m just trying to get through this cancer stuff right now. I don’t want to keep thinking about what me and John are or what we aren’t. I’ve got enough complications.”
“Okay.” Val nodded and then kissed my forehead. “I was just trying to keep your mind off of things. But I’ll let you get back to sleep.”
* * *
The rest of the week I was stuck in the same routine. I’d wake up, take a pain pill, and then go back to bed. I
felt like I was in some sort of old folks’ home and had to be taken care of 24/7. John texted me quite a bit from home and Monica was sporadic with her texts, mainly because she was staying with the Chapmans for Thanksgiving and was nervous as hell around Trey’s family. She promised that she’d be back after Thanksgiving to tell me all about it.
My family was never really big on holidays. My dad was an only child whose parents spent a lot of time in Florida and my mom’s family didn’t really do much. Thus, I didn’t feel like I was missing out by not having a big Thanksgiving. It was one day that Mom didn’t actually have to work, so she came to my apartment, carrying an already prepared Thanksgiving meal from the grocery store that she set up on my coffee table.
“It’s nothing fancy, but it’s not like we’re fancy people,” Mom said, jokingly, but there was a hint of sadness to it. This wasn’t our first Thanksgiving without dad, but it still felt like there was something missing but none of us wanted to say it. I didn’t think Mom even talked to him anymore. He probably had no idea about my cancer and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell him. I didn’t know if I wanted to open that can of worms.
“So, how have you been feeling, Mel? Do you think you’re going to be able to go back to school on Monday?”
I spooned some turkey onto my plate. My appetite didn’t really come back, but Valerie was always making sure I was eating so I didn’t throw up my pain pills. “I think so. I have to go back to work as well, so I’d better be.”
“Geez, you just had some major surgery here, can’t they give you a break?” Valerie asked.
“Sorry, not all of us got a scholarship for college,” I muttered.
Valerie dropped her fork on the table, which would have made a bigger impact if it wasn’t plastic. “Seriously, Melanie, get over yourself.”
“Excuse me?” I looked at my sister, who had her fists clenched on the table.
“Valerie, stop. Let’s just have a nice dinner,” Mom said, putting her hand on Valerie’s arm.
Valerie shrugged off Mom’s hand. “No. I’m tired of this. I’ve been here taking care of you all week, Mel, and listening to you bitch.” She let out a deep breath. “Yes, it sucks that you have cancer, but look at all the awesome things you have. You have a mother and sister who love you and one of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen cares about you so much. I don’t know if you’re too blind to see it or you just think you’re going to get hurt, but you have to get out of this rut, Mel or you’re going to bury yourself.”
