by Mia Archer
I jumped. Did I jump? Everything was moving so slow. The water was coming up to meet me, but everything felt wrong. I was moving so slow. I could see people in the stands around us cheering, but the cheering was stopping for some reason. I saw Sarah staring at me but she looked horrified.
I hit the water at a weird angle, but it didn’t hurt beyond the slap against my bare back. I was under water. I needed to blow out of my nose but it wasn’t working. At least I didn’t try to breath. I couldn’t move my legs. My brain was telling my body to move and my body wasn’t listening.
Damn it.
What was wrong? I knew this wasn’t right, but I couldn’t get anything to work. Everything went black around me.
Flashes of life. Was my life flashing before me? If it was it was showing me things that had never happened before.
Sarah wrapping her arms around me in the water.
Floating at the edge of the pool on some hard surface.
The natatorium ceiling flew past me as I floated on a cloud of air towards the door.
The sun and sky overhead. It was a little overcast and really cold. I mean not too cold, but the air hitting my wet suit and skin felt downright chilly. Fall was coming.
Someone growling at someone else. That sounded like Sarah. Darkness again. A strange white color and Sarah hovering over me.
Darkness.
When I woke up again there was beeping all around me. I was staring up at something bright and white. What the heck was that? I looked to the side and saw a bunch of machines. Sitting next to those machines were Sarah and my mom, and neither one of them looked too happy.
Of course Sarah didn’t look happy because she was leaning forward and staring at me with worry. My mom didn’t look happy because she kept glancing over at Sarah as though annoyed she would dare to be there.
I opened my mouth and tried to talk but it was hard. My mouth felt dry. I couldn’t get anything out. My voice croaked.
Sarah leapt into action first. She reached over to a tray I didn’t even see beside my bed and put a straw to my lips. I drank without thinking and water flooded my mouth. That felt good, but for some reason I still felt dizzy and weak. That was really weird. Usually that feeling went away pretty damn quick. Why was it staying?
A bit of fear and panic was starting to hit me. Something was very wrong. I should’ve listened to Sarah when she wanted me to get checked out.
I finally found my voice after that drink of water.
“What happened?” I croaked.
I winced. Okay, maybe I hadn’t quite found my voice. Oops.
“You need to sit back and not worry about that,” mom said. She said it in that voice that told me she was hiding something from me. Really not good. The last time she did that was when I fell out of a tree and broke my leg and she thought it would worry me too much if the doctor told me what was actually wrong.
I looked at Sarah instead. “Can you tell me what’s going on here?”
An irritated glance from mom to Sarah. I didn’t care. If she wasn’t going to tell me what was going on here then I’d talk to someone who would, damn it.
Sarah sighed. “There’s something wrong with you and they’re not sure what.”
Mom cut in. Apparently her desire to be the center of attention overrode any desire she might have to protect me from the horrible truth of whatever was happening to me.
“Now that you’re awake a doctor is going to come in and talk with you,” she said.
“Yeah,” Sarah continued. “And you need to tell them everything that’s been going on with you lately. Everything.”
Sarah glanced to my mom and then back to me real quick. The meaning was clear enough. She knew there was something going on but she wasn’t about to say anything in front of my mom and cause me any more trouble. I suppose the least I could do is actually be honest about this for a change, as much as I hated it.
As much as I dreaded hearing my mom making a big deal out of it.
I felt another wave of dizziness and exhaustion pass over me. I closed my eyes and some of the beeping grew erratic for a moment. I had no idea what any of that meant. It probably wasn’t good that it was making all sorts of weird beeping noises though.
“Alyssa? Honey? Are you okay?” mom asked. “Is this too much for you? I don’t want you exerting yourself too much!”
I felt the world slipping away again. Yeah, this felt like shit. I shouldn’t be slipping in and out of consciousness like this. I should be celebrating a win at a swim meet. The first win of the year.
Shit. The meet. They probably lost that race because of me. And if Sarah was here that meant she’d missed her events too. We were going to be in a whole lot of trouble over that.
“I think you need to go,” I heard mom saying, though her voice was funny. It was like I was listening to her from the end of a long tunnel or something with her voice echoing quietly down that tunnel.
“What? I’m not going,” Sarah replied. Her voice sounded funny too. Weird.
“Well you don’t have that choice, do you? Alyssa is sleeping now and I’m her parent and that means I make the calls here missy. I don’t want you giving me any lip. I don’t know what’s going on with the two of you, but you need to get out of here before you cause her any more trouble!”
Mom’s voice was getting louder. Like she was really upset about something. Great. That would be just like her to start shouting in the middle of a hospital room.
No. I couldn’t go to sleep with that happening. Somehow I clawed towards those sounds. It was so tempting to go under again, but not while they were having a shouting match. Not when I could do something about it. I opened my eyes and mom was on her feet pointing an accusing finger down at Sarah.
“You need to get ou…”
“Mom. Stop,” I said, putting as much force as I could behind those words. Which admittedly wasn’t much. It was enough to get my mom to turn to me and pay attention though.
“What was that honey?” she said, her voice suddenly dripping with false concern. I hated it when she acted like this. With anyone else I might think she was actually concerned. With her I knew she was just worried that she’d been caught.
“I said you need to stop. You can’t kick Sarah out of the room like that,” I said.
“And why can’t I? I have to say I don’t like this new rebellious streak you’ve gotten in you missy. I am your mother!”
Fury burned inside me and replaced some of the worry I’d felt. I suppose I could thank my mom for that, at least. Why couldn’t she realize that I was in college? I was here on a scholarship I’d earned. I was paying my way. Except for their health insurance I was independent, and I didn’t have to put up with this crap anymore.
It was a stunning revelation. I didn’t have to put up with this crap anymore. I could tell her where to take her false concern and stuff it. I glanced around the room to see if dad was around but he’d gone missing. It was down to me and my mom.
“You don’t tell me what to do and you don’t tell my friend what to do,” I said. “I want her in here and that’s final. You don’t get a say in who comes into my hospital room.”
“I think as your mother I do! What’s so important about this girl that you want her around anyways? Can’t you see you haven’t been acting like yourself since she came around? She’s probably the reason this whole thing happened!”
Sarah opened her mouth to defend herself and I held up a hand to stop her.
“She’s important to me,” I snapped. “That’s all that should matter to you!”
“Well it doesn’t matter to me! I’m your mother. Is she more important to you than your mother?”
“Yes! She’s my girlfriend! Okay? Now would you back off?”
Sarah looked stunned. Her eyes darted around the room as though she’d suddenly rather be anywhere but in the room with me and my mom. She looked over to the door like an animal looking for escape but to her credit she stayed rooted to the spot. Even now sh
e wasn’t going to leave me, and for that I was glad.
The stunned look on Sarah’s face was nothing compared to how stunned my mom looked, though. Her mouth worked like she was trying to say something, but it looked like my admission had short-circuited her brain for a moment. She looked between the two of us and her expression darkened, but before she could get her mouth working again a doctor walked in and glanced around with an eyebrow raised.
Great. He’d probably heard the whole shouting match and thought we were crazy. Just wonderful.
At least it kept the shouting match from continuing though. As coming outs went, I figured this was a hell of a way to let my mom know that her little girl was gay. Not that I could do anything about it now. The cat was well and truly out of the bag.
“Everything okay in here?” he asked.
Dad came in behind him. Huh. So that’s where he’d been. Probably off telling the doctor that I was awake now and they could come in and talk to me. The exertion of arguing with my mom was starting to get to me, but I figured I could handle a brief chat.
I looked at my mom. “Could you please go? Having you in here is stressing me out.”
Mom looked at me and Alyssa again. She looked over to the doctor and my dad as though she was expecting some sort of support from them. The doctor merely busied himself looking at some notes on a clipboard in his hand and dad shrugged.
How ironic that she was doing the very thing she accused Sarah of. Ironic, but not very surprising.
“Fine,” she said. “But this isn’t over missy. Not by a long shot.”
Mom stalked out of the room. Sarah squeezed my hand and mouthed “thank you.” I gave her hand a squeeze back, but it worried me how weak my hand felt.
The doctor moved in and sat down next to me. “Right. Alyssa? We need to talk over some testing results we got and have a discussion about how you’ve been feeling lately. Do you feel up to it?”
I didn’t feel up to it. Mostly because I was afraid we were going to come to a conclusion that I wasn’t going to like, but the time for ignoring problems was gone. It was time to face the music.
“Yeah, we can talk about it,” I said with a resigned sigh.
At least I had Sarah here to provide strength. She was doing what she always did. She was there for me. As long as I had that I figured I could get through anything.
I hoped I could.
22: Awkward
Sarah:
Awkwardness. My life was awkwardness. I was supposed to be there for Alyssa but all I could think about was her mom swishing around the back of the room like a cat with its tail lashing. Every time she stared at me it was with pure hate.
There was an explosion coming. The only thing keeping it from happening right now was that Alyssa was awake and she was looking between the two of us with a scowl. I comforted myself that the scowl wasn’t for me, at least.
Still, awkward. It had been awkward for awhile now. It didn’t help that I really had to pee. I didn’t want to go, though, because with Alyssa’s mom around I was pretty sure that if I left the room I wouldn’t be let back in. It was a silly feeling, but I knew it was true.
“Are you sure you don’t need anything honey?” her mom asked.
Alyssa turned her attention away from the TV. Some sitcom that had been popular back in the ‘90s and now it only had a life on late night cable TV in hospitals where there was a large enough population of people old enough to remember the show. Something to watch while they were ticking time down to the end.
Now there was a morbid thought. I squeezed Alyssa’s hand. I really hoped she wasn’t ticking time down.
“For the last time mom, if I need something I’ll be sure to tell you,” Alyssa said. “Now can I please watch this show? It’s one of my favorite episodes.”
“You always say they’re your favorite episode,” her mom replied. “Have you been doing nothing but watching TV since you got to college?”
She turned and rolled her eyes at me. I suppressed the urge to giggle. Something told me this wasn’t one of her favorite episodes. She hadn’t mentioned this show or watched much TV the entire time we were in the dorms. The TV was strictly for movies, and even then we didn’t pay much attention to the movies we watched since there were far more interesting things to do.
Someone appeared at the door. I thought it might be Alyssa’s dad and felt some relief. For some reason her parents didn’t spend much time in the same room together. Almost as though they were doing shifts or something. Except it wasn’t her dad.
It was the same doctor she’d talked to a couple of days ago before they started subjecting her to every test imaginable. And I didn’t like the look on his face one bit. The guy really needed to work on his poker face, because that wasn’t a face that said he had good news.
My heart leapt for Alyssa. I felt panic at the thought of something bad happening to her. This couldn’t be happening to her. We were so young and in shape and we were in love and it wasn’t fair that something bad could happen to her.
I forced myself to calm down. I was letting my brain run away without really thinking this through.
“Do you have a moment for me to talk to you Alyssa?” he asked, finally remembering to plaster a smile on his face. Too little too late in my opinion.
“Yeah, I guess now’s as good a time as any,” Alyssa said. “What’s up doc?”
The doctor grimaced. Something told me this wasn’t the first time he’d heard that joke.
“Well I need to talk about some of the test results,” he said. He glanced pointedly first to me and then to her mom. “This might be something better discussed alone.”
I fought the urge to let out a frustrated growl. I was sure all the staff on this floor knew all about the battle between me and Alyssa’s mom at this point. Certainly the doc here had been doing his best to step lightly around us as though he was afraid we were going to launch into an argument again any time now.
“No, whatever you have to say you can say in front of them,” Alyssa said. She turned to look at her mom. “I want you to be on your best behavior whatever he says.”
Her mom sniffed as though she’d been greatly insulted, but she kept her mouth shut. I suppose that was the best we could expect at this point.
The doc shrugged. It was obvious he could tell how awkward the moment was, but he was staying out of it. Instead he focused on the paperwork in front of him and frowned. That panic started to return. If he was frowning then he didn’t have anything good to say. Damn it.
“So your blood work came back with an abnormally high white blood cell count which led us to run some more detailed tests and I’m afraid we’re going to have to get you into treatment almost immedia…”
I felt dizzy. I felt like I was going to be the one passing out now. I didn’t really hear the words the doctor said after that. I just got an impression of what he was saying. Picked up the important bits.
Whatever it was, it was something they were used to dealing with. The doctor made it sound like it was as routine as you could get with a life threatening illness and I suppose that was a good thing. Alyssa was going to have to go into treatment immediately.
It didn’t help that her mom started wailing and going into hysterics as soon as the big “c” word was mentioned. The way she went on you’d think she was the one who was diagnosed with the disease and not her daughter. The only thing that kept me from reaching across Alyssa and smacking the lady was that I needed to be here for Alyssa. This was about her, and not how therapeutic it would be to leave a big red mark on her mom’s cheek.
It got so bad that the doctor finally looked up.
“Ma’am, please. If you keep that up I’m going to have to insist that you leave the room,” he said.
Now that got her to shut up right quick. It was amazing. One moment she was screaming at the top of her lungs and the tears were coming and the next moment she shut up and the tears were completely gone with a quick wipe of her hand.
&n
bsp; Damn. This lady really was crazy.
“So be honest with me doc,” Alyssa said. “Is this thing survivable? What are my chances?”
He smiled. Finally I had the feeling that there might be an island of good news in the supreme shit sandwich we’d had to deal with lately.
“The good news is that caught this early in a person as young and healthy as you are the prognosis is usually pretty good as far as these things go. Of course there are also no guarantees, and when I say that…”
Alyssa held a hand up to stop him. “How about we just leave it at that doc? I liked it when you stopped at people can survive this at my age.”
The doctor smiled. “Fine. If you want to leave it at that then you can leave it at that.”
Then they were back into talking about all the treatment options they had. I didn’t pay attention to much of that. I wasn’t going into medicine or anything related to science so it wasn’t like I’d be able to understand what it was. The upshot was that it was going to be a pain in the ass and it was probably going to kick Alyssa’s ass.
When he was done she miraculously still had a smile on her face. That was enough to bring a smile to my face. All that overwhelming stuff happening to her and she still managed to keep a pretty positive outlook on things. Next to that I couldn’t not smile.
“The important thing in the next month or so while you’re undergoing treatment is that you have a support network there to help you out,” the doctor said. He turned to look at me and her mom. “A strong support network filled with people who provide a calm loving environment can be critical for people who are going through a tough time.”
The way he placed a strong emphasis on calm and loving left no doubt in my mind exactly what he was worried about. Well that was entirely on her mom. I was going to do my best to be the nicest most Pollyanna bitch anyone ever knew while Alyssa was going through this. My life was all about making hers as easy as possible from here on out until this was over.