02 | vending machine therapy

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02 | Jason

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02 | Jason

I didn't keep my promise.

Instead, I was wandering around the empty floor, doing everything I could to avoid going inside that damn meeting room because honestly, it was fucking humiliating.

God, when my aunt left, it was like being dropped off to kindergarten, but not in the kind parenting way. It felt more like I was punted like a football, and Sae left me on the field with no other warning except "hey there will be people like you who'll be there shortly"!

Of course, Sae meant well. She was my aunt, my only family left, and honestly, I didn't expect her to read my mind twenty-four-seven. So out of kind consideration, I shoved my asshole-ness aside for a little bit, put the effort to look all happy and shit just so Sae wouldn't worry much.

She had enough on her plate, and what I felt didn't really matter anyway.

I, however, was bored. There wasn't much to do on my floor except walk around and hope I didn't bump into some random nurse that would snitch about me playing hooky to my aunt, and like, there was no way I'd approach the support group if Dr. Kim was to catch me.

I could manage, maybe. If my terminal illness wasn't going to kill me yet, at this rate my boredom was sending me on the path to extinction.

It was just an hour, but for some reason time liked to drag when you weren't doing what you were supposed to be doing. Eventually, pacing circles and scrolling through my phone— which, mind you, barely had anything on it — got old fast.

But thirty minutes in, I found a fucking jackpot: a vending machine.

Sae was interesting in many ways, but I didn't really agree with her idea of nutrition.

She was a health freak: worked out, ran every morning, and ate some weird, vegan (or was it vegetarian?) diet that she also basically forced me to eat because apparently me being sick meant I had to eat healthy too.

The thing was, she wasn't the vegetarian that had a bunch of cheat days in between. No, she was actually really healthy. Like, so healthy she was featured on fucking health magazines. I couldn't eat junk food or drink soda, and everything I ate had to be green or organic or some type of oat.

I could barely give a shit anyway about nutritional health. It wasn't like I had any muscle mass to build anyway. There was barely any fat on my body from all the ruthless rounds of chemo and medication, and the weight I did gain was next to nothing.

Sometimes I would cheat without Sae knowing, and that "sometimes" would be right about now.

In seconds, I was standing in front of the vending machine, eyeing that chocolate bar, mouth a bit damp as my stomach seemed to gurgle on cue. I ate that morning, but hey, there was always room for some chocolate.

Unfortunately, I didn't have cash when I patted down my jeans, only to come up with my wallet that barely had crap in it. I carried it just for the sake of having a wallet. Sue me for wanting to look normal.

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