by Clara James
CHAPTER SIX
HOSPITAL VISIT
Pulling herself from the depths of an overwhelmingly powerful sleep, Allie struggled to open her eyes. Almost instantly, she was blinded by the brightness of a light directly above her head, which caused her to groan in discomfort. As the sound left her lips, she felt her hand being squeezed. She felt sure that something was being said, she could hear a voice coming from somewhere in the darkness, but she could not distinguish between the words. Instead the sound was little more than white noise to her.
Gradually, her eyelids flickered and she adjusted to the light. The vision in front of her was blurred, but she could make out the outline of a person. Instinctively, without being able to discern any of his features, she knew who that person was.
“Allie,” he said, his words hitting her ear like the sound of a video being played in slow motion. “Are you okay?”
She smiled, but was unable to move anything other than her lips. Blinking, she forced her eyes into focus. He was standing by the side of the bed, leaning over her and examining her face with worry on his brow.
“Can you hear me?” he asked, his hand lifting to her cheek and gently stroking it with the backs of his fingers.
Again, Allie’s mouth crinkled in a smile. “Yeah,” she mumbled. Feeling heavy, her eyes slipped closed, before she wrenched them back open. She shifted them away from Reece and began to inspect the room. It was then that she realized where she was; the white sterile walls, cheap art prints and starched sheets all seemed familiar in a most unwelcome way. “I don’t know,” she began slowly, “what they’ve given me, but I feel...”
“What?” he wondered, settling into the chair by the bedside, as he realized she was not in any great pain or distress. “How do you feel?”
“Pretty good,” she smiled, her lethargic lips forcing the words out sluggishly.
Reece tried to offer her a weak smile in return, but it fell flat. “Do you remember what happened?” he asked.
“Did I faint again?” she asked, stifling a yawn.
He nodded as his fingers laced through hers and he gripped her hand tightly. Even in her semi-conscious state, Allie recognized the pensive expression on Reece’s face.
“It’s all right,” she told him softly, turning her hand, so she could squeeze his in return. “It’s probably just because I haven’t been getting much sleep lately,” she added, offering him a weary wink.
“No,” Reece said quietly. “It’s worse than that, Allie.”
It was unusual for him to be so brutally honest, especially when it came to things he knew would upset her. She found his candor even more alarming than the exhausted and worried face he wore. “What is it?” she asked, swallowing as she prepared herself for the inevitable bad news.
Suddenly Reece lost his nerve and merely shook his head. “Maybe we should wait for the doctor,” he suggested, tipping his head to the door behind him.
“No,” Allie insisted, her strength gradually returning to her. “I want to hear it from you,” she explained. “Please.”
His blue eyes scanning the room, he chewed nervously on his bottom lip. “You’re getting worse,” he whispered so quietly that he hoped Allie wouldn’t be able to hear him. “The cancer is spreading fast. Really fast,” he added. “They said...they think that, if they don’t do something, you could possibly die within weeks.”
Despite his deliberately muted volume, Allie heard every word and didn’t need to ask him to repeat himself. However, she didn’t respond. The news wasn’t exactly unexpected. As soon as he’d claimed things were worse than she assumed, she guessed things had taken a turn for the awful. And she’d had several months to get used to the fact that her time was limited. Nevertheless, she was not quite able to imagine just how swiftly things would creep up on her and just how little time the doctors had given her. Determined to face it bravely, so as not to distress Reece, she took a deep breath. “I always knew this was going to happen,” she mumbled, managing a lazy smile. “It’s all just happening a little quicker than I’d expected, that’s all.”
“How can you be so calm?” he asked, his voice shaky.
She shrugged in return. “What choice do I have?”
Reece still didn’t understand and knew he probably never would. So, with a shake of his head, he dropped the subject. “Is there anyone you’d like me to call?” he offered. “Your parents?”
“Umm,” she hesitated. “Not right now. You could maybe get in touch with Rosalind, though.”
“You’re friend?” Reece probed.
“Yeah,” Allie responded. “Have I mentioned her?”
“No, but she kept calling your cell phone last night,” he explained. “Eventually, I answered and she seemed to know you aren’t well, so I told her where we are.” He looked questioningly at her, belatedly seeking her approval.
“It’s fine,” she dismissed his concern. “She knows about everything.”
Desperately, Reece searched for something else to say, preferably on a topic that would help coax Allie’s mind away from her present situation, but he came up dry. Not that the silence bothered Allie. She was quite content just to be in his company and to feel the reassurance of his hand. They remained that way, nothing but the sound of their breathing filling the room, for around twenty minutes. As the clock rolled around to eight in the morning, the peaceful, companionable silence was broken by the opening of the door.
Allie recognized the doctor from her last visit. Again, he was wearing jeans, but this time they were black and could more easily be mistaken for a dressier pair of pants. On his top half, however, he wore a plaid shirt. No white coat; a stethoscope tossed around his shoulders and an ID badge clipped to his breast pocket were the only things that indicated he did indeed work there.
“Morning, Ms. Mclaren,” he said, smiling warmly. “Have you been awake long?”
“Err,” she mumbled. “About half an hour, I suppose.” She glanced at Reece, as if to ask him to confirm and he nodded his agreement.
“Okay,” he nodded, slipping his thumbs into the belt loops at his waist. “I don’t know if Mr. Bardell has filled you in at all,” he stated, his eyes moving between the young man and woman in front of him. “But I’d like to talk a little bit about your options, if I may.”
“Reece has explained things are bad,” Allie stated. “And I don’t think I need to know my options. It’s a little late for all that now, isn’t it?”
With a sigh, the doctor lifted one hand and scratched the back of his neck. “Well, we certainly don’t have the choices we had before. Things are much too far advanced for radiotherapy to have any hope of working,” he told her matter-of-factly. “But that doesn’t mean we just sit back and wait for this to kill you.”
“No?” Allie responded a little tartly. “Then, what do we do?” she added as sarcastically as she could muster in her weakened condition.
“There is a very cutting edge treatment,” he sighed, his face grave with no hint that he was trying to put an unduly optimistic spin on things. “It’s only something that’s been tried a handful of times, but so far it’s looking positive.”
Allie sensed that there was a ‘but’ coming and remained quiet. Watching the doctor closely, she waited for him to continue. However, she was surprised to note that there was no sense of discomfort or fear in his countenance. He was only too willing to be honest with her, and she respected that.
“But,” he sighed. “Because the cancer is beginning to affect your organs, we are going to need to conduct some surgery. And that, in itself, could prove problematic in your current condition.”
“What do you mean?” Reece piped up, sitting upright in his chair.
“Because Ms. Mclaren is weak, any kind of surgery is more dangerous than it would otherwise be,” he admitted frankly. “So, what I’m offering you is by no stretch of the imagination a miracle cure. I can’t make any guarantees, but it’s an option. There is a chance,” he added firmly.
&
nbsp; Breathing deeply, Allie closed her eyes. Her instinct was to simply say ‘no’, but something had prevented her from making that knee-jerk call. As much as she wanted to tell the doctor to go away; as much as she would have given to have been able to forget everything for a short time, reality refused to let her dismiss what she was being offered. At least, she could not dismiss it out of hand. The reporter in her suddenly kicking into life, she determined that she had to know more.
“What will the surgery involve?” Her first question was met by raised eyebrows from Reece, who clearly hadn’t expected her to greet the doctor’s words with any degree of interest.
The corners of Doctor Luitger’s mouth began to twitch, as he too was taken aback. “Okay,” he nodded, wandering around to Allie’s left side, and taking a seat opposite Reece. “Okay,” he echoed, sitting down and dragging the chair closer to the bed. “First, we would need to remove the cancer from the organs it’s currently affecting,” he explained, placing his hands on the bed cover and lacing his fingers. “Then, we’d start you on strong course of the new intravenous treatment, which is targeted at destroying the leukemia cells.”
“Then what?” she asked.
“We might need to give you some chemo or radiotherapy, just to ensure that the cells attacking your organs don’t make a resurgence,” he told her. “I’m not going to pretend that it will be easy or pleasant, Allie,” he added, “because it won’t be, but there is a possibility that his could save your life.”
“Or end it,” she pointed out frankly.
Leaning back in the chair, he settled his hands in his lap. “Yes,” he openly admitted. “There’s that possibility, too.”
Although it seemed inappropriate, Allie gratefully smiled at the doctor. “I appreciate your honesty,” she told him. “So,” she breathed, deciding to get back to the details. “Which of my organs are affected and how badly?”
He ran a hand across his brow, before shuffling forward in his seat once more. “It’s difficult to say how bad things are at the moment,” he acknowledged. “It won’t become completely apparent, until we can get a look inside you,” he added. “But your stomach, liver and one of your kidneys have very definite signs of abnormal growths.”
“Permanent damage?” she wondered aloud.
“I hope not,” he responded. “However, even if there is damage done and we have to book you in for more surgery, as long as we can get rid of the cancer, you should still survive it.”
Allie tossed her eyes at Reece, who simply stared open-mouthed at her. He was still struggling to come to terms with the fact that Allie was ready to entertain the possibility of any form of treatment. “All right,” she nodded. “So, what are my chances?”
Doctor Luitger shuffled in his seat, straightening his posture. “It would be impossible for me to give you an accurate percentage, because this treatment is still experimental. But in the interests of full disclosure, I’d still say the odds of your survival are slim.”
Allie calmly nodded her understanding. “Okay,” she breathed. “Can we have some time to think about it?”
“Of course,” the doctor quickly agreed, leaping to his feet. “If we’re going to do this, we need to do it as soon as possible, though,” he warned as he reached the end of the bed. “The longer the cancer is left, the further it’ll spread. And, at this stage, it’s spreading rampantly.” The doctor walked to the end of the bed, his eyes moving between the young couple, before leaving the room.
Allie’s gaze followed him, until she shifted her focus from the closed, white door to the open-mouthed expression of shock on Reece’s face. “What?” she asked.
He replied with a question of his own, “We want to think about it?”
“Well,” she began hesitantly, shuffling in her attempt to sit upright. “I thought that it was something you’d want to discuss,” she added. “I know what I said before,” she continued, nervously. “But you know I value your opinion and this isn’t something that I want to do alone.”
Reece broke into a grin, his eyes studying hers closely. “You know how I feel,” he said sincerely. “I think anything that offers a chance is worth pursuing.”
“But you understand it could mean I leave you a lot sooner than we’d hoped,” she warned.
His gazed moving over her pale, drawn face, Reece shook his head. “If we don’t go for this, you’re still going to leave me much sooner than I’d hoped,” he replied. “I mean,” he sighed. “I don’t want to do anything that would endanger your life, and I know this surgery will do that...I just don’t think we have a choice.”
Slowly, Allie nodded. “I think I want to try this,” she agreed. “If it doesn’t work, at least I won’t be lingering on in pain,” she added, almost hopefully.
However, Reece did not share her enthusiasm for that particular thought. Instead, he stared gravely back at her optimism.
“Anyway,” she continued, sensing his discomfort. “I’m willing to do this, but I really think I’ll need you. You will be here with me, won’t you?” she asked, an edge of fear causing her voice to creep up a register.
Reece jumped out of his chair and settled on the mattress by her side. Carefully, he picked up her hand and brought the backs of her fingers to his lips. Tenderly kissing her, he didn’t take his eyes from hers. “Of course I’ll be here,” he said insistently. “Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Maybe you’ve got to work, that’s something we never talked about. You’ve been spending all this time with me, and I don’t even know whether you should be.”
“Nothing is more important to me than you,” he said honestly, managing to smile warmly.
She gave him a weak half-grin in return. “This isn’t going to be easy,” she stated. “Things could get pretty ugly.”
“Let them,” he replied dismissively. “Let everything in the universe try to tear us apart,” he added, gripping her hand a little more tightly. “It won’t succeed.”
“You sound very sure,” she noted with a hint of amusement.
Reece’s face turned deadly serious before he opened his mouth again to say, “I have to be, because I can’t lose you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
BEST FRIENDS
Allie wasn’t aware of falling asleep again, but she must have done, because her eyes were suddenly met with bright light once more. This time, it wasn’t the hideous artificial light above her hospital bed though, now it was bright sunlight streaming through the window on the left hand side of the room. She was lying on her side, directly facing that window and she realized that it was that warmth on her closed eyelids that had woken her.
Unwillingly dragged into consciousness, she grumbled nonsensically, when she learned that her previous spell of cognizance hadn’t been a dream. No, she was indeed, back in one of those ghastly gowns. Pulling the scratchy bed sheet up to her chin, she slowly forced her eyes open.
She was met by the sympathetic smile of Rosalind. “Hi there,” she nodded, tossing the magazine she’d been reading to the floor and shuffling forward in her seat. She flicked her blonde hair off each shoulder, before resting her forearms on her thighs. “How are you feeling?” she asked, immediately shaking her head. “That’s a stupid question,” she chided herself. “But you know what I mean.”
“Ros,” Allie mumbled, smiling at the very welcome sight of her best friend. “What are you doing here?” she asked, ignoring the question that had been asked of her, as she gradually tried to lift her head off the pillow.
“I had to come and see you,” she sighed, as if it were obvious. “The stupid nurses wouldn’t let me in your room, but Reece saved the day. He’s very charming, you know, he can get just about anyone to do anything when he gives them that cute, dimpled smile of his.”
“You’ve met him?” Allie responded, a rhetorical question that simply suggested she was pleased that the two had finally come face to face.
“He’s a nice guy,” Ros nodded. “I can see w
hy you love him.”
Wrenching her head over her shoulder, Allie examined the chair that had become ‘his’, but found it empty. “Where did he go?” she wondered, her face slowly returning to her friend.
“He wanted a cup of coffee that didn’t taste like mud,” she reported. “His words not mine. He was worried about leaving you, but I told him I’d stay right here in case you woke up.”
With a bashful smile, Allie settled her head back on the pillow. “I don’t deserve you two,” she commented, mostly to remind herself of the fact.
Rosalind dismissed the sentiment with a scoff and a wave of her hand. She then quickly changed the subject, firing questions about Reece. She wanted all the juicy details, even going as far as to ask, “What’s he like in bed?”
“Ros,” Allie blurted, as if scandalized by the line of inquiry.
“You’re right,” she responded casually, before deliberately misinterpreting the reason for Allie’s outrage. “Of course he’s good.”
The pair giggled like teenagers, Rosalind trying to wheedle as much information as she could about her best friend’s love life, while Allie maintained her good-natured defensiveness over the topic. The truth, of course, is that this wasn’t new conversational territory. Many times Allie would listen to Rosalind’s latest conquest – and her friend was never shy in sharing every single detail. Sometimes, Allie had listened with only passing interest, while on other occasions, when she’d been feeling a little lonely and depressed about the choices she’d made, she would sit rapt by the tales of lustful abandon.
However, it was very different having the tables turned on her. If she were completely honest with herself, she knew that she would have been quite happy to talk about any of her other sexual escapades over the previous months. Reece was different, though. To be more precise, the time she spent with Reece was different. She didn’t like to use the word sacred, because that seemed silly. But she did feel very protective of it. Sharing aspects of it with someone else seemed wrong.
