When I Die [Wattys 2016]

Chapter 31: Left Out

I wish this part were more exciting. I wish there was something to say that hadn't already been said. I wished that I'd wake up and something would be different, but for days nothing changed. If anything, I guess I got worse, breathing got more difficult, my head ached. I slept. The days were bleak, they were weary. My mind began to go to places I was afraid of going. These places I'd been so afraid of for so long, the dark places I'd tried to push away started to seep through and would come up at night when I was awake, when my mom slept beside me.
There would be no more Christmas. There would be no more change of years, no more trips to faraway places, no more going away to university, no more future. I'd have no kids, I'd have no wife, I'd have no home of my own or a car. And I always pushed these things to the back of my mind until I let my guard down and they all flew forward to the front of my head and filled it up, giving me a headache.
I woke up to the pain in my side. I wasn't entirely coherent at first, but my mom reminded me that they'd drained a bit of fluid from my lungs and that the drain remained in place still. I was so tired of coughing. I was so tired of aching, God, the constant, never ending ache that filled my body sucked all the energy from me... Would it ever ease?
My mom would sleep when I was able to sleep soundly, which wasn't often. She was afraid I would stop breathing in the middle of my sleep and nobody would notice.
Nobody, none of the many, many nurses who constantly knocked on the door and bothered me would notice. Whatever, mom, I'd said.
My mom took it upon herself to feel the full weight of that responsibility.
I hadn't spoken much in a couple days. It was my seventh... maybe eighth day in the hospital. They still had no clue what was going on, what was causing my body to suddenly revolt. They were running extensive tests and full body scans, drawing blood and testing marrow. Nurse Angela thought they'd know something by the end of the day.
I was given a morphine pump to click when the pain got too crazy. I ashamed myself at how quickly and desperately I began pressing it. I sat it down on the nightstand just out of reach. I didn't want to become what I was becoming.

"Leo, are you okay?"
My mom was studying my face. I wasn't okay. The sharp pains in my ribs were back and I felt dizzy. I knew my face said it all.
"'M fine." I mumbled. Words were hard. They were frustrating.
There was a knock at the door and a doctor entered the room. He was Asian, short, and older. He walked in ahead of a brown-haired technician who followed pulling a machine.
"Hello, Leo. Nice to finally meet you. I am Dr. Kahn. This is Olivia, she is from the radiology department. We have some things to discuss with you and your mom."
My mom moved to the edge of her seat and stuck a hand out, shaking his over my bed.

Olivia smiled gently at us, waving at me, shaking hands with my mom, too.

They maneuvered the machine around to the foot of my bed and set up the scans they'd taken earlier that day on top of a light board. I saw the hesitation on his face, he breathed in a slow breath and then clicked the button on the side of the screen. I knew it couldn't have been good.

My mom audibly gasped when the light turned on.

The dark parts of my body were swallowed whole by the dots of light and color. The cancer had spread. It was everywhere. Everywhere. I was becoming cancer.

The tears didn't start then, both my mom and I sat, bone dry and silent.
Dr. Kahn spoke gently, kindly. He measured his words carefully and was compassionate towards my mom.

I would be okay as long as she was.

She looked over at me, trying to gauge my emotions, I'm sure. I honestly couldn't tell her how I was feeling. I was afraid to start thinking about it too much. My mind had been known to go to deep, dark places. I didn't want to go there again.
"Leo? Leo?"
My attention snapped back to Dr. Kahn.
"Do you have any questions?"
I paused for a second, wincing at a passing pain. I looked down at my hands, then back at the doctor. I swallowed back my emotions and asked,
"What is on the menu for dinner?"
Dr. Kahn half-laughed, and then looked at me like he expected me to be kidding. Then, he nodded and pursed his lips. He looked at my mom, who looked at me.
"I'll find you a menu."
He left without another word.

That evening, the reality set in. I started kicking my foot, twitching my hands, running my eyes. Anything to keep moving. Anything to keep my mind moving.
All I could think about, though, was the cancer eating away at me. It was eating me up inside, swallowing me up. It was destroying me from the inside out. I was really going to die. I'd known that, but not really. How can that reality hit you when you feel so far from it? But now, well, I was so close to it. There was no turning back. There would be no miracle. There would be no waking up from this nightmare. The dream ends with the end of me, and that reality was shockingly new.
My eyes darted around the room. I counted ceiling tiles. I counted pictures. I counted the times I coughed. I counted shaky breaths, and I counted normal breaths. The shaky ones started to outnumber the normal ones the more I freaked out.
Calm down, calm down. I said this in my head and tried to force myself to listen.
I was dangerously close to hyperventilating. I stopped. I paused. I made myself sit and not breathe for a second, then with a bit of fear, sucked in to make sure I still could. I forced myself to breathe at a regular speed.
You're good, you're good. This is okay.
My mom was right next to me, sleeping on the tiny cot, which wouldn't be fit for a toddler. I looked at her, all scrunched up. I knew she was never really asleep. She might not have really slept since my diagnosis. She looked about as weary as I did.

And then I thought about Myra. And I thought about May, to my surprise. I thought about Eno and Reid and Aaron and Hattie and Sam and Lara and baby Leo and Mr. Dr. Faulkner and... and I thought about them, all these people who had, in maybe even a small way, played a role in what I'd become. I'd become this... And at times I wasn't proud of what I was or who I was. I was a whiny, entitled brat at times. This was something I knew. But I also knew I was kind. I was generous. I cared about others. I tried hard to be a friend most of the time.
They'd all passed something to me, I'd picked up small gifts from each of them. Reid had given me happy-go-luckiness, a positive attitude I'd try to remind myself to keep. My mom had made me compassionate. Although I was only a percentage of the way she was, I was grateful it had rubbed off on me. I was strong willed, determined. I thanked my father for that, for the determination he passed along to me. Aaron gave me humor and Sam gave me thoughtfulness and Hattie let me see the light around me when my world was swallowed by darkness.
May had given me three years of happiness and when I really tried to think about it, she taught me how to love.
Myra had picked up where she left off and given me joy in a bad place.
And I knew that the worst part of any of this would be saying goodbye to them. I'd never liked to be left out of anything. I'd always been the last one asleep at a slumber party, the last one to leave a function, the one who couldn't miss class. When I realized things went on without me, I hated it so much. And now, things would just keep going and going. I'd never know what would happen to all of these people who made me.