Contents
Prologue
1. The Treatment
2. The Internship
3. Meet and Greet
4. Who’s that boy?
5. Not Creepy
6. One More Time
7. At It Again
8. Cafeteria Date
9. Bonding
10. Fitting In
11. Getting Ready
12. Friends
13. Lover Boy
14. The Move
15. The Roommate
16. Caught
17. Hanging Out
18. Welcome Party
19. Date
20. Another Visit
21. Meeting the Girls
22. Bowling Night
23. Football Game
24. Victory Celebration
25. Another One
26. Not Your Charity Case
27. Confrontation
28. What Am I Doing?
29. Blacking Out
30. House Calls
31. Saying Goodbye—Saying Hello
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Gianna Gabriela
Better With You
Prologue
Chapter One
Not The Same
Prologue
Not The End
Prologue
Fighting For You
Bragan University Series (Book Two)
© 2018 Gianna Gabriela
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, or by any other means, without written permission from the author. The only time passages may be used is for teasers, blog posts, articles, or reviews, so long as the work isn’t being wrongfully used.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, events, and incidents portrayed are solely from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual places, people, events, or other incidents is coincidental or are used fictitiously.
Cover Design, Editing, Proofreading, and Formatting by Lauren Dawes (Sly Fox Cover Designs).
To My Mother.
Thank you for fighting cancer, Mom. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. You are the embodiment of a strong woman. You fought for not just yourself, but for me too. I love you.
To Nayelis.
I know you’re looking down at your family from heaven.
Prologue
JESSE FALCON
Every time I near her door, I struggle to go inside. I hate being in the hospital. The smell is a mixture of things, all inescapable. The most prevalent is the jumble of two emotions—happiness and sorrow. Some people laugh. Some people cry; it all depends on the day.
I force myself to stand outside her door for a few more minutes. Who would’ve thought that I’d be here? Who would’ve thought I’d be spending my afternoons in a hospital entertaining her while she fights for her life? Not me. And I’m sure as hell she didn’t expect to be here either.
No one should expect to be here because no one ever should.
Although my feet want to remain frozen, I take a deep breath and force myself to knock. I wait a few minutes, but no one answers. I press my ear to the door, hearing no noises coming from the other side. Maybe she’s sleeping. I should come back another time, I tell myself, but I know I’m just trying to find a reason not to go into that room. Instead, I do what anyone in my position would do; I fight my cowardice, my desire to run away.
I open the door and let myself in. I’m immediately greeted by an empty space. Even for a hospital, it looks too clinical. The bed is made, the machines have been put away, and the flowers that were here yesterday are gone. There’s no sign that someone was here. No sign that she had been here before.
Immediately, I get the feeling that something is wrong.
ZOE EVANS
Cancer.
That is the word ringing in my ears.
I have cancer.
Cancer.
Me.
I have it.
The word continues to loop like a bad soundtrack in my mind. It’s on repeat, but I struggle to comprehend it. I hear my mother’s cry and turn in her direction just in time to see my father bringing his arms around her to keep her suddenly limp body from hitting the ground. Her reaction is what tells me I’ve heard the doctor right.
I think back at how I ended up here. One second, I was on the phone with my mother, telling her about this fever that wouldn’t go away. Even with the fever, I remember telling her how excited I was to finally get a break from school and spend my time with her and Dad. She kept insisting I get myself to the hospital, but I refused. I thought it was nothing…but it persisted. The fever didn’t go away, so I finally decided to listen to my mother.
A fever. That’s all I thought I had, but I was wrong.
I have Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
Leukemia.
Cancer.
Me.
I have it.
The rest of the doctor’s words are lost on me as I feel as if I’m not really in my body anymore, I’m not in this room anymore. Suddenly, I’m lightheaded and my vision blurs.
“Are you okay, Zoe?” I think I hear someone say, but before I can answer, everything goes dark.
1
The Treatment
Zoe
Three months. That’s how long it’s been since the day I arrived at this hospital. That’s how long it’s been since I was told that if I wanted to live, I was going to have to fight. I didn’t get the luxury of just having a life; I had to work for it—I had to beat cancer.
I’ve had ninety days of treatment, each of which I’ve lived in a hospital, only seeing the outside world through windows and glass doors. With that passage of time, I’ve lost a lot, including the desire to continue fighting.
Doctors come in and out of the room like it’s got a revolving door. That part hasn’t changed since the day I arrived. Something else that hasn’t changed is my parents. Well, I guess they’ve changed a little. They’ve become more informed, learned everything they could about Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Not only have they made it their mission to educate themselves, but they’ve educated me on it too. They’ve even started calling it “ALL”, which, they tell me, is the medical acronym for it. The doctors say ALL is the most common childhood cancer, and although I’m not a child, it didn’t want to exclude me.
The crazy thing is that because ALL is a childhood cancer, the only place that can treat it is the Children’s Hospital. So, despite being an adult, that’s where I’ve been. In a way, I’m lucky that I’m in a place where the walls are brightly painted and the nurses are kind. Still, seeing other kids fight this disease is probably harder than seeing the adults. Kids have so much life ahead of them that they may not even get to live.
Another thing my parents told me is that cancer research funds don’t necessarily award children’s cancer research the same amount of money. When I found out why, I was pissed. Apparently, cancer research for children isn’t a lucrative business since the kids can’t pay for it. And when you’re not old enough to vote, Congress doesn’t give a shit about what happens. They don’t answer to you, so they don’t have to pass policies or budgets that will help find a cure. Instead, they hide under the excuse that “childhood cancer is rare”, and so researching it doesn’t make sense.
I think that’s bullshit.
You know what else is bullshit? Watching my body deteriorate with each passing day. Seeing my hair fall out in chunks. I decided to just shave it off; it was easier that way. Instead of seeing red locks on my pillow or the shower floor
every day, I saw just them all disappear at once. I ripped off the Band-Aid because they say it makes it easier… I’m not sure that it does.
I’ve seen every part of me that I love stripped away by this malicious illness. Still, my parents want me to follow the treatment plan, so I do. They want me to fight, so I do. I do it for them because if it was for me, I’d have given up a long time ago.
I’ve already finished the induction phase. In that phase, I was given intrathecal chemotherapy, which just means that the chemo was injected into my spine. As an added bonus, the drugs also cause my hemoglobin platelets and white blood cell counts to drop significantly. Now I need frequent blood and platelet transfusions in order to restore them. Hooray for needles.
I hate science—always have. But now, now I find myself interested in every aspect of it. Who would’ve thought cancer would do that? Anyway, the low counts and crappy immune system are the reasons why I haven’t gone home yet.
I’m confined to this hospital—to this room.
My current round of treatment only makes it worse. I have to be isolated after every cycle of chemo so I can recover. Confined. Nauseated. Achingly lonely. After a while, the smells, the whiteness of my hospital room walls, the lighting in the room become almost unnoticeable. I wake up in the hospital every day, and while that made me anxious in the beginning, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to not be here. Oddly enough, I even find myself missing the constant shuffling of the medical staff as they come in and out of my room.
This is my new normal.
Whenever the ban is lifted and I can finally have visitors—to see my family—I breathe a sigh of relief. I value every moment I get with my parents because I don’t know which one may be the last. I miss them when they can’t be near me.
I miss my friends, too.
They used to come and see me every day, but they’ve slowly stopped. At first, they would wait outside the door, and the moment the doctors said it was okay for them to come in, they’d run into the room and take a seat next to my bed. But those visits became less frequent and, eventually, nonexistent. I don’t blame them though. It’s my fault. I’ve changed. Enduring this battle has changed me, and not necessarily for the better.
For a long period of time, I stopped being the Zoe they knew—I’m still not. I was not the jolly, happy, enthused Zoe they had come to love. Instead, they saw a girl who had become a fraction of herself, one who’d lost all hope. After I found out I had cancer, Fear extended its hand to me, and I took hold of it. I allowed it to lead me to the dark. I let myself become consumed by the illness and the very high possibility that I wouldn’t overcome it. After that, I pushed my friends away little by little. Their jokes no longer made me smile. Their stories no longer interested me. And so eventually they stopped trying. They stopped showing up.
Now it’s just me and my parents. Despite my constant mood swings, my parents are always there for me. They understand that I don’t want to get my hopes up because if it doesn’t work out, it’ll wreck me. Literally. It doesn’t mean they aren’t hopeful. As I near the final leg of my treatment, they’re praying it works. I’m praying too.
The doctors tell me I’ll be able to go home soon. The treatment isn’t over, but the last leg is a little easier. I’ll have to return to the hospital every single day, and some days I’ll even have to remain for a while longer, but it’s something—small victories and all.
I’ll take anything at this point. I’m even excited about getting to see a wall that isn’t one of the ones I’ve been facing for the last few months. I can’t wait to wake up in my own bed. I want to try and gather the pieces of my life, the pieces I’d abandoned when I didn’t know if I would ever have the chance to live again.
I’m hoping I can put those pieces back together, but I’m also hoping that cancer doesn’t tear apart the puzzle. Again.
2
The Internship
Jesse
I turn off the shower, grab a towel and exit the shower rooms. Practice is over, and while my body is screaming in pain, my mind knows I’ve gotta keep going. I can’t stop now.
Work hard, play hard. That’s supposed to be the motto of my life, except it couldn’t be further from the truth. The summer has just started, but as both a football player and a pre-med student, this doesn’t actually mean I’m free to do whatever I want.
In reality, it means the opposite.
Not only am I busting my ass running up and down the field for practices and scrimmages, but now I also get to run up and down the halls of a hospital for my internship. All for the sake of my future—an internship at the Children’s Hospital that’s wanted by many, but only given to a lucky few. I’d like to think the only reason I got it was because I earned it—because I work my ass off, that my grades are among the top of my class, but I’d be a fool to think my parents didn’t influence the decision in some way. They’re connected to this hospital, and, in more ways than I’d like to admit, so am I. If it weren’t for all of these things coming together, I wouldn’t have the internship. I’m not sure I’d even want it.
“Are you good?” Colton asks behind me as I start changing into my scrubs.
“Yup, just running over to the hospital for the first day of my internship,” I remind him.
“Think you’ll be able to deal with being there every day?” he asks, and I know exactly why—he’s worried.
“If I want to help fight cancer, I’m going to have to be,” I assure him. Colton nods his head, seemingly content with the response I’ve given him—it’s the same one I’ve used every time he’s asked before. He knows me well enough to tell that I’m nervous and scared to return but determined enough to push myself through it. I’ve been playing alongside him for a while now, and I know he cares about each of us. Despite his sometimes… unfriendly demeanor, he’s a brother to all of us—to me especially.
“Do you think you’ll be good for practice tomorrow? I can tell Coach you’ve gotta miss it if you want?”
“I should be good. I signed up for this, so it’s on me.” I pat him on the shoulder. “Thanks though.”
“No need. You know you’re family.”
“I appreciate that, man. How’s Mia?’ I ask, switching the subject. I retrieve my book bag from my locker, and when I turn, I can see his expression has transformed—softened. The moment her name is mentioned, he turns into a different man.
I remember that feeling.
“She’s good,” he says, unable to stop himself from smiling.
“Good,” I answer. I’m happy to see he’s found happiness. I just hope he can hold on to it for as long as possible.
“Alright, well, I’ll see you tonight,” I add, turning towards the exit. I’m ready to get this first day over with.
“Maybe,” he says, and I shake my head without looking back at him. This means he’ll likely be spending the night at Mia’s. Since they’ve started dating, and in the aftermath of Abbigail, Colton and Mia have been inseparable. The guys joke that we barely get to see him anymore. We all give him shit for it, but I think each of us has appreciated how Mia has made him a happier person.
I hop in my car, turn on the engine, and peel out of the parking lot. I drive to the hospital in silence, mentally preparing myself to take this on. I devise a game plan, trying to account for all possible contingencies. I tell myself that it’s all going to work out. But the closer I get to the hospital, the faster my heart beats. My pulse is racing, and the fear is creeping in. I’ve driven this way too many times before, and while the reason I drive in this direction today is a little different, it isn’t really. It’s the same.
I park my car in the very familiar lot and open the door. After one final calming breath, I head towards the entrance. Despite the weight trying to hold my feet in place, I force one foot in front of the other and move towards the revolving doors. I know why I’m here. I know I have to be here if I ever want to become a doctor—I will become a doctor. I assure myself of these things with every
step, convincing myself that turning around and walking away won’t help me achieve my goal. It won’t help me live up to my promise.
When I’m finally inside, I take a look at the interior, noticing all of the changes that have occurred since I was last here. The white walls are now covered with art. I guess it’s to make it look livelier—less like a hospital. Another wall is painted with an ocean scene filled with a multitude of fish, coral, and sea life of all sorts. The other wall has a huge tree with bright red apples everywhere. I commend their efforts to make this place look less stoic. Children’s hospitals aren’t supposed to scare the children or be devoid of all creativity, art, and expression.
I take a deep breath and head straight toward the receptionist sitting at the front desk.
“Hi,” I greet her with a shaky smile.
“Hello, how can I help you?” she answers with a smile of her own.
“My name is Jesse Falcon, and I’m one of the interns starting today,” I inform her.
“Oh yes!” she says, nodding. “You’re the first to arrive. I’ll let Dr. Roman know.”
“Perfect, thanks.”
Fighting For You (Bragan University Series Book 2) Page 1
