TRAPPED

39

Celine
TW: chemotherapy.

They do the cold-cap thing before I'm lead to another large room in a separate corner of the hospital. There are people in here already, hooked up to machines. An old woman sits in a chair, reading a magazine with an exhausted expression on her face.

     I look up at my dad. He smiles at me, wrapping a heavy arm around my shoulders as we follow the nurse over to a sofa chair.

"Sit here, honey." She tells me.

I look at my dad again. He nods encouragingly, and I move away from him to sit in the seat. She begins to hook wires into my arms, and I glance away from her as she does it.

"This will take three hours." She says. "You'll be able to go the toilet but you'll need to take this with you." She taps the thing that all the tubes are connected to. "You'll probably feel very tired afterwards. Have you eaten today?"

I nod.

"Alright. That's good." She says. She steps back. "If you need anything, I'll be right over there."

My dad pulls up a chair and sits beside me. I glance at him. He smiles again. "Maybe afterwards we can get you something else to eat. You didn't have much of your dinner."

I shake my head.

     "We can see." He tells me. "Maybe next time you should bring some school work to do."

     "As if."

     He smirks.

     I look up at him, then back down at the floor.

     "Are you okay?"

     "You don't have to stay here," I mumble.

     "You don't want me to?"

     "I don't really care." I say. "There's not really much point in you staying, though."

He frowns. He seems to think for a moment before saying, "how about I stay for this appointment, and then you can decide if you want me to stay for the next one?"

"Okay." I respond quietly.

He smiles. He brushes hair back from my face and leans down to kiss my cheek. "Are you comfortable enough?"

I nod.

"Are you sure? I think Nicolas and Mateo are gonna come soon. I can ask them to bring you a blanket or a pillow."

"I don't want anybody else to come." I say.

Understanding fills his features. "Okay, I'll tell them not to. You can see them when you get home. How was school?"

"Fine."

"What classes did you have?"

I shrug.

"You don't know?"

"Who cares?" I mumble.

"Your French teacher called me." He says.

I roll my eyes.

"You need to participate in your lessons, Celine—"

"Can you not start yelling at me when I'm hooked up to a load of machines?" I ask.

He sighs. "I'm not trying to yell at you, sweetheart. I just want you to do as well as you can."

"Well what I want is to not talk about school. I don't like it. I don't want to think about it. Why can't you just get that?" I ask.