Just One Week (Just One Song)

by Stacey Lynn

  I can’t even look at him. I can’t bring my eyes to his because I know it will hurt too much. I knew. I knew this was going to happen. I never should have gone along with his idea for one stupid week.

  I can feel the pain and confusion he’s feeling. It’s choking me.

  “To New York?” He’s breathing so hard he sounds like he’s just been for a run on the beach.

  “Home,” I repeat.

  He practically hurdles his bed and grabs onto my arms. My head snaps to his, but I focus my eyes on the stress line on his forehead in between his eyes instead of looking at him directly.

  “Talk to me.”

  I close my eyes, unable to look at him. He wants too much from me. He’s always wanted too much from me, and yet I’ve given it all to him anyway. As if any of that matters now. I won’t let him hurt the way I’ve seen so many people hurt.

  “Oh God …” I choke the words out and collapse against Chase as the enormity of what I’m facing hits me. I don’t have an official diagnosis. Yet. I still know what’s coming, though. I’ve lived through it before. His arms wrap around me, holding me to him, as I lose myself in him for one last time. This will be the last time I might see Chase and for better or worse, I let myself soak in his scent, the feel of his hard chest underneath his soft and worn shirt.

  “Talk to me, Mia,” he repeats as one of his hands go to my hair. He strokes it soothingly, as one would hold and gently caress a newborn baby. It always amazes me how this large man with callused hands can be so gentle.

  I shake my head against his chest, wiping my runny nose against his shirt. I don’t care if I’m getting snot on him. I doubt he’ll care either. But still, I can’t bring myself to tell him the truth.

  Once I’m able to stop the flow of tears again, I pull away and wipe my eyes. “I can’t,” I say, and take a step around him to continue packing. “I have to get a flight back to Minnesota.”

  “Who’s Dr. Gibbins?”

  My eyebrows pull in and I frown. “Who?” I ask, risking my first glance at him. He’s standing in the same spot, rubbing his hands together like he’s trying to stop himself from touching me or throwing my clothes out of the suitcase again.

  “When you were on the phone you mentioned a doctor taking a case. Who is he?”

  “Dr. Gilbrath is a woman,” I begin, walking to the bathroom and grabbing all my make-up. “She’s my mom’s doctor.” It’s not a complete lie, but it still feels like I’ve just swallowed a rock. Please stop asking questions, I think to myself.

  And then I catch the sight of my favorite and expensive shampoo. It brings tears to my eyes, but I quickly blink them away. Will I need shampoo anymore? Or will I lose my hair? I get a quick flash through my mind of a memory of my mom wearing hot pink bandanas wrapped around her head so we never saw her bald from the chemotherapy. I saw her once though, in the bathroom when she was throwing up all over the place, sick from the treatments that were killing her more quickly than her cancer.

  Will that become me?

  I stumble over nothing and catch myself, my hands bracing on the counter top. My head falls down and I close my eyes. I can feel the panic rising. Bubbling to the surface as I try to take slow, deep breaths to calm down. I can’t fall apart now.

  But with my eyes closed all I see is my future and it’s a scary, blank picture in my head filled with nothingness.

  My eyes snap open and I shake the thought from my mind, except now what I see is worse because Chase is behind me, keeping his space even though I can tell by the way his hands are clutching the back of his neck it’s killing him to do so.

  His eyes pierce mine and I can’t tear them away, even as my eyes become wet and cloudy all over again. “Talk to me, Mia. Tell me what has you so scared right now.” He looks so serious and sad at the same time. Like he knows this is it for us. If he had x-ray vision he’d see me trying desperately to repair all the walls he’s broken down over the last week. I don’t want to feel anything anymore. His eyes continue searching mine and I can tell when he finally realizes I’m not saying anything more.

  “I need to go.”

  His shoulder slouch forward and he exhales.

  He’s given up. It’s really for the best. That lie hits my stomach and hurts. Worst of all, I don’t want to let him go. I want to tell him how much I love him and let him whisk me away to the safety of a castle tower and let us live happily ever after. Except I quit believing fairy tales were possible years ago.

  This is reality and reality bites. It’s better to end it now than take him down with me.

  “At least let me help get you a flight or take you to the airport.”

  I nod, letting him have this last moment. We walk out to his truck once I’m finally packed and I half listen to him on the phone with an airline, purchasing a first class ticket for me on the first available flight out of here. I’ll have to wait for a few hours, but I don’t care.

  We don’t speak a word on the trip to the airport. I’m constantly replaying the phone call from my doctor in New York and remembering my mom.

  “Hi mom,” I whisper quietly as I take several hesitant steps to her side of the bed and slide down on the chair next to her. The giant bed is gone and I hate that I’m not tall enough to see her over the rails on her bed that some company dropped off one day while I was at school.

  The room doesn’t even smell like her anymore. I can’t smell her make-up or her perfume. She doesn’t wear lipstick anymore and someone else comes to give her baths, but none of it smells the same. Her teeth are yellow and her skin looks funny.

  “Hey, baby girl,” she whispers and her throat sounds scratchy so I pour her a glass of water and help her sip through the straw. “Ready for school?”

  I don’t want to go to school anymore. I’m good at it, and I have lots of friends. I love seeing Nicole and practicing putting on lip gloss and talking about boys in the bathroom outside of our science classrooms, but lately I’m afraid to leave this room where my mom looks so sick. I know what the doctors have said. I know what the nurses have said. There’s nothing we can do. We can make her comfortable, but she doesn’t have much time.

  They’ve been saying the same thing for a year now.

  I want her here, where she can teach me how to put on make-up so I look pretty and teach me about dresses and boys like all cool moms are supposed to do.

  I want to keep her with me, but she looks so sick and sad all the time that I also just want her to go away so I don’t have to look at her gray skin and smell the soap the nurses use.

  And then I cry because I’m terrified that every time I walk out of her room that makes me feel cold and uncomfortable, it may be the last time I ever see her again and suddenly I don’t care if she smells bad.

  I shiver at the thought of not knowing what’s best anymore and feel the tears come to my eyes when her cold and clammy hand grabs a hold mine through the plastic rails.

  She’s smiling at me, or at least I think she’s trying to, but her smiles don’t look right anymore.

  “Go to school, Mia. And smile and have fun today, okay? For me?”

  I sniff my nose and look away from her so she can’t see the tears in my eyes. She hates it when I cry for her. I’m thankful when the door opens and Elijah steps into the room. He comes over and gives my mom a kiss on her forehead followed by telling her softly that he loves her before turning to me.

  “We need to go, squirt.” His eyes don’t smile at me the way they used to anymore, and I know that he’s just as sad as I am.

  “Mia … babe?” I’m once again brought back to the present with Chase’s deep voice calling my name. I look at him through blurry vision and it’s not until his thumb swipes across my cheek that I realize I’m crying. He closes his eyes and then slowly opens them. “Where were you?”

  “Thinking of my mom.” I turn my head back out the window and see that we’re at the airport. “Thanks for the ride.”

  As I begin climbing out of his truck,
his hand grasps my thigh and I stop moving.

  His dark gray eyes are dull and there’s a frown on his perfect lips. He lets go of my leg and runs his hands over his face, almost looking torn at what he wants to say.

  “I love you, Mia. I know I said I would wait to say it, but I feel like this could be last time I see you.” He pauses and his eyes search mine, as if he wants me to argue with him. I say nothing. The rocks rumbling in my stomach remind me that I’ve already lied to him enough for one day. He sighs, dejectedly. “I won’t chase you. I’m not like Zack and I’m not going to get on a plane and chase you halfway across the world when I feel like I’ve been chasing you for two years now. But I want you to know that I do love you, and if you ever need anything, I’ll be here. I will always be just a phone call away.”

  More tears prick the corners of my eyes except this time I’m fully aware of them. I’m also fully aware of the blast he just made to my heart. He’s absolutely right. He’s chased me enough and I’ve never been able to fully give him what he wants or what he deserves.

  The words he so desperately wants to hear jump into my throat, but saying them now will only give him false hope. So I wipe away a tear and climb out of his truck, meeting him at the back as he’s unloading my luggage.

  “I didn’t ask you to follow me.” I throw my carry-on bag over my shoulder as he grabs my larger suitcase. I feel like such a bitch and the pain flashes through his eyes, but he shakes his head and closes his eyes. When he opens them, they’re as blank as mine.

  He watches me turn to walk away, but I look back over my shoulder at him. “Can you do me a favor?”

  I expect him to tell me to fuck off. His arms are crossed against his chest, and he’s got his Cocks hat on again, but this time it’s backwards, so I can see his eyes. He blinks slowly and lets out a loud exhale.

  “What is it?” he asks between gritted teeth.

  “When Nic gets back from her honeymoon, please don’t tell her about this.”

  He rubs a hand across his forehead. “You going to tell her then?”

  Maybe. When she’s back from her honeymoon. It’s not like there’s anything she can do for me. “Yes.”

  All the lies I’ve forced out of my lips in the last few hours compound so heavily inside of me that I have to force myself to take a deep breath. Otherwise, I might expel everything in my stomach all over the cement.

  He presses his lips together and then finally nods. “I won’t say a thing as long as you promise to talk to her soon. You’re keeping too much shit from your best friend. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, but you have to talk to her.”

  I nod. “I’ll talk to her.” I give him one last wave. “Good bye, Chase.”

  “See you around, babe.” He flashes me a sad smile but there’s a hint of a smirk in there.

  For two weeks, I have been poked and prodded. I have been x-rayed, and MRI’ed, and biopsied. At the end of every test, I have curled up in my big brother’s arms and let him take me back to his little bungalow house on the North side of Minneapolis where we have drank ourselves into oblivion with the help of Jimmy, Jack, and Jose.

  All the results have come back the same. I have one cancerous tumor in my right breast and calcification deposits in my left. I have been constantly told the good news. Due to my family history and my annual screenings, they caught it early. The successful treatment rate is very high. I can choose a lumpectomy with radiation. I will have eight weeks of treatment leading to possible severe burns on my skin, deformed breasts, daily pain, and the surgery can leave my breasts looking deformed or asymmetric. Or I can choose a double mastectomy with an immediate reconstruction surgery that will take at least six weeks to heal.

  These figures and rates and procedures have been discussed and dissected until I leave every doctor’s appointment feeling like a walking encyclopedia with a vast knowledge of medical terminology a twenty-seven year old woman should never have to understand.

  Everything that made me beautiful as a woman, everything men have found beautiful about me, will be gone. I never felt like I was a vain person until the threat of it being taken from me smacked me in the face. Neither option is something I’ve ever truly thought I would have to think about – even though the possibility of both is what has formed all the choices I’ve made in my entire life.

  True to his word, Chase hasn’t called. He hasn’t sent a text message or an email, either. I should feel relieved as I sit in my brother’s living room pretending to read a book that is sure to have a sappy, unrealistic happy ending. The truth though is that I miss Chase like crazy. I lay in bed at night with the room spinning from too many shots of Jose, and I’m not thinking about cancer survival rates or the nightmares of my youth that began occurring when my mom got sick.

  Instead, I’m imagining Chase and what it would feel to be wrapped up in his arms. I imagine his fingers running softly through my long blonde hair and how he would simply comfort me with a look or a hug.

  My finger has hovered over his name on the contact list of my phone almost every day, like my appendages have a mind of their own and my head breaks in at the last possible moment and ends the call before it begins. He won’t chase me, but he’ll always be there for me. I wonder how true those words are when I imagine calling him to tell him the truth. Would he still be there for me once my body is scarred? Or would he count his lucky stars he was able to get out before the end of it? Would he still love me if I end up stuck in a bed, my body slowly withering away to nothing? The answers don’t really matter – it’s too much to expect from him.

  “Hey brat.” I roll my eyes at Elijah’s affectionate term for me. He may be only two years older than me, but to him, I’m still his annoying teenage sister.

  “What up, douche?” I can play the name game too.

  He rolls his eyes and takes a seat on a couch across from mine. Elijah’s place is the typical bachelor pad. Dark leather couches that are old and worn. Empty bookshelves and a layer of dust so thick it’s allowed me to draw little sad faces with my fingertips all over the place on the most mind-dumbing days.

  “Mom’s coming over to talk to you.” He leans back and raises one eyebrow, silently telling me to go ahead, argue with him.

  “Are you kidding me?” It’s incredible my mom miraculously recovered from her cancer. None of the doctors could explain it. She was given a second chance at life, and while that’s awesome, and when I was a teenager I was so glad to have my mom back – she also came back changed. As if she came back with only the ability to see life through rose-colored glasses. It allows her to only see good things, avoid the negative, and most definitely look past my dad’s alcohol issues with one excuse after another. The last thing I need is her talking to me, encouraging me, or trying to make my decisions for me. “Why would you do that to me?”

  “Uh … because she’s our mom.” He gives me that “don’t be stupid” look.

  I shoot him my “don’t be an ass” look.

  “Look, brat,” he begins with a smirk. “You need to talk to her about this. You’re avoiding making your decisions on treatment and I just thought she could help you wrestle through this all this crap. I don’t know shit about it.”

  It’s amazing my brother is a successful criminal defense attorney with a vocabulary as colorful as his.

  “I’m not avoiding anything. I just don’t know which one to choose and even the doctor said no one can make this for me.”

  “Yeah, but maybe mom can help. She went through this all too, you know.”

  “I know.” I snap. Like I wasn’t there every day, watching her waste away and turn into a gray-skin colored, pale-eyed, bald, fragile human being. She barely looked human – and she definitely didn’t look like a woman. Her hair still isn’t the same either. It grew back, but it’s drier and more wiry than it was before.

  I don’t want to see my future staring me in the face.

  “She’s already on her way. You might as well take a shower and w
ash the smell of tequila off you before she shows up.”

  He shoves my head playfully into the side of the couch cushion before he leaves the room. My heart starts beating a little faster. I wish he would mind his own business.

  “How you doin’ honey?” My mom’s arms wrap so tightly around me that it’s difficult to breathe.

  “I’m good, Mom. Really. It’s fine.”

  She pulls back, her hands on my upper arms and gives me that mom look. The same one that all moms somehow learn while their babies are in utero.

  I smile and shake my head as I pull her hands off me and head toward the kitchen.

  “It’s not like I haven’t been expecting this. Want something to drink?”

  I get her the water she asks for and sit down across from her at the table.

  “If only we could go back and remove our cursed genes from you. I wish so much you didn’t have to go through this, but you’re stronger than I was. You’re a fighter and you always have been.” I can see the tears bubbling up in her eyes and all I want to do is change the subject. She’s so wrong. I’m not a fighter. I’m an avoider and a runner and I do both swiftly.

  “How are you?” I ask to change the subject.

  She takes a slow deep breath. I look around, wondering where Elijah has disappeared to. Of course he would make me face this on my own.

  “Everything is fine,” she says with a sad smile. Like she knows it’s simply better to give in to my avoidance than fight it. “I talked to Sharon and Daniel. They said Nicole’s wedding was beautiful. And your dad thinks he may have a new job working at a production plant.”

  I fight the urge to roll my eyes. My dad’s been in and out of work ever since she was diagnosed with cancer. If he has a job, he’s sure to lose it in a few weeks when he shows up drunk and stumbling. Or so hung over he falls asleep on the production line. He wasn’t always this way, but the longer he stays the same, the harder it is to remember the man I once knew.

  The silence grows thick around us. The chasm between us grows larger than the kitchen table that separates us.