Stay With You (Anthony Rizzo)

8

Maliyah

Every cancer patient has their good days, every cancer patient has their bad days. It's never all good or all bad, it's like yin and yang. In the good there's a little bit of bad, and in the bad there's a little bit of good. It's the balance in life that keeps us human.

As for me, my bad days were pretty bad. There's not a lot I can do for myself. I can't walk, I can hardly stay awake. Can't feed myself or even sit for a while without having to lay down. I throw up about 10 times in a day and I can barley open my eyes at some points. No two bad days are alike, but they all most certainly do suck.

As for today, today was a pretty bad day. I couldn't do much of anything. I just laid there in bed and slept a lot. My body hurt and I had a killer headache. I wasn't in the mood for most anything. I didn't eat much and I slept on and off throughout the day. Tamara took good care of me, made sure I was still alive and taking the medication I needed to on time.

After about 8 at night I decide I should probably get ready to go to sleep for the night. I take 20 minutes to just change into my pajamas by myself and now that I am done with that I was going to go brush my teeth and call it a bad day. But I get stopped when my door starts to open. I continue to sit on my bed as I wait for whoever it was to say something.

"Are you decent" a deep voice asks.

"I am" I say.

Anthony walks in and I smile really big. The first real smile I've had all day today. He had on shorts and a nice shirt and his hair was super curly. He was such a cutie pie.

"Anthony, what are you doing here" I wonder.

"I have a surprise for you" he claims.

"What is it" I wonder.

"A date. I know it's kinda late, but if you're up for it there's a ice cream bar set up on the roof for us. We can go look at the stars and dream for a little" he says.

"That sounds wonderful, but I was having a pretty bad day today. I don't know how long I can last" I admit. If I can even get up there without crying.

"It's not about how much time we have, but what we do with the time given to us" he claims and I smile.

"Alright. Can you get me into my wheelchair" I ask.

"I have a better idea" he smirks.

He walks over to me before picking me up bridal style. I wrap my arms around his neck just a little afraid he would drop me. He holds me close as I open my mouth to argue with him but he cuts me off.

"No I'm not gonna get your wheelchair" he teases and I smile.

"Fine" I mumble, too weak to argue with him.

He carries me to the elevator and we ride up to the roof. He gets out and carries me to the ledge before sitting me there. That's my favorite place to be, as long as he's up here with me.

"Alright. What do you want on your ice cream" he wonders.

"What do you have" I wonder.

"Everything. We got caramel, hot fudge, cold fudge, peanuts and sprinkles and crushed up candy, we have vanilla ice cream or chocolate or strawberry or cookie dough. And of course whipped cream" he says.

"I'll take a bunch of scoops vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and crushed snickers. And just bring the whole thing of whipped cream over here" I insist and he laughs.

"Will do" he assures me.

He makes us a bowl of ice cream and sits down next to me. He takes a big spoon full of ice cream and sprays whipped cream all over it before feeding me.

"Mhmmm. This is so good" I mumble and he smiles. He sets the spoon back in the bowl as I finish off my food.

"Do you like it" he asks.

"Who doesn't like ice cream" I ask.

"Alright. You got me there" he admits.

"So what's going to happen to all the extra food we're obviously not going to eat" I wonder.

"I'll give it to the kids tomorrow. But for right now it's all for our date" he explains.

"I'm sorry we have to do our dates at the hospital" I sigh. I hated that he wanted to do these cool things with me and the bottom line is I just couldn't do them.

"I'm sorry this is even happening to you" he counters and I just shake my head.

"How did you get through this? You know, constantly feeling like shit and everything being so painful but still pushing on" I ask.

"Motivation. I wanted to get better so I could play again" he says.

"I don't have baseball. I feel like I'm going to get out of here and have no idea what to do. How will I know if it's worth all this crap" I wonder.

"Only you will know if it is. I sure hope you think it is though" he admits.

"You make it pretty worth it" I smile.

"I was hoping I could" he admits.

"It's only because you bring me yummy ice cream" I tease.

"Oh yeah" he asks.

"Yeah" I smirk.

"Would you like some more" he wonders.

"I would love some more" I admit. He feeds me a few more spoonfuls before it starts to get messy. He thinks he's funny and gets whipped cream all over my mouth. Finally he stops trying to be funny and helps me clean up.

"Do I look like Santa Claus" I ask and he laughs.

"Santa wishes he was as cute as you are" he teases.

"I don't think he does" I insist.

Anthony grabs a napkin and wipes the ice cream and condiments off my mouth. And once it was gone he continued to wipe the napkin all over my face until I find enough strength to shoo his hands away.

"Alright. I think you got it" I giggle.

"Nope. There's still some whipped cream left" he claims.

"Shoot. Where at" I ask as I wipe at my mouth.

"Right here" he says before he presses his lips to mine. I quickly pick up on his little game and kiss him back with all my might, which wasn't all that much.

We slowly break apart and I open my eyes. I see all the stars reflect in his and it makes me smile. This is by far the best bad day ever.