Seventeen | Soulmate AU | ✔

43 | Forever

My treat ❤

Chapter Question: do you guys prefer Sophie's perspective or Keefe's perspective more?

Chapter Forty-Three – Seventeen

These days I've been on some sort of high. For once in my life, everything seems to be falling into place like a puzzle, as though each pieces was meant to form my bigger picture in the way it has. There are some rough edges, but everything joins together so perfectly and so naturally that I can't help but question if it was always destined to work out this way.

My ratty sneakers sound against the pavement as I step up the long, spaced out steps. Every step feels fragile. It all feels like a dream, one that can shatter so violently with a flick of someone's wrist or the pop of a finger bursting a bubble. I'm too scared to hope, but too hopeful to let myself be disappointed before I know anything.

The usual pit forms in my stomach as I glance up at the words on the building, the small, white, neon flashing sign. It reads familiar words that I've heard far too many times in the past month, but I take comfort in the recognition the way I always do. Right now, this place may be my future, but hopefully it will soon be my past.

The Healing Center. The door jingles as I open it, hitting some bell above me that I don't bother craning my head back and searching for anymore. I'm no longer a kid, smiling at soft jingles or laughing at the absurdity of every situation I came across. Better yet, I'm no longer the broken, hurt child that lashed out when she could. I'm no longer who I used to be. I wonder if this place changed me, or it was inevitable to happen anyways. I'm perhaps still in the beginning stages of life with Keefe, still learning to really, truly live.

This time, I walk into The Healing Center alone, registering myself the way Edaline usually does and seating myself in a small chair tucked into a corner. It's the appeal of hole in the wall that I never seem to get enough of.

I check my phone, a small smile curving at my lips when I see it light up with a text. It's Keefe, letting me know that he wants a call the minute I'm out of the center with news of my results. I let it sit there, not responding, but grateful that it's on my lock screen for now.

"Ms. Foster," a nurse with a clipboard says, tapping her pen impatiently along the wooden side. When I come over she holds the door for me despite her cold demeanor. "Please, follow me."

At this point, I'm not entirely sure why she bothers guiding me to the correct room. I recognize nearly every face in the hall, I know every turn, and I know every corridor. My room number is 305C, and my room is blue with abstract clouds lining the walls. I'm here to see Dr. Elwin, a cancer doctor. I'm a cancer patient currently undergoing chemotherapy.

And this could be my last time here.

I don't dare hold my breath, but I'm so reluctant to let it out, so I let it out in small streams of doubt and uncertainty and mental finger crossing. This is it.

"He'll be here shortly," the nurse tells me, not bothering to offer her name. Sometimes they stay and ask for different measurements and things from me. For some reason, she doesn't this time, and some part of me wants to believe that Dr. Elwin might not need anything because this might be it. This could be it.

It's a perfectly rehearsed routine, but I feel my body alive. I'm buzzing with some sort of nervous energy and anticipation all in one. My leg practically vibrates as it taps against the floor, anxious. I've done this same thing a million times before, but this time I'm hoping.

I'm hoping for a better future.

It takes me a minute to realize that maybe I am holding my breath. I want this. I want this so badly that it hurts in my chest and I'm not sure when I came to feel this strongly about this. It never used to be particularly significant that I was alive and living and deserved to be and wanted to be. Whether or not I deserve to live, I can't deny that I've never hoped and wished and wanted something more in my life before.

Something's changed in me. I don't know whether it's been because of cancer, whether it's been because of Keefe...or maybe, something else. Maybe my parent's death – my coming to terms with that, finally. Either way, something is exhilarating in the best way.

For the first time in a while, I feel good. I'm not sure what that means, exactly. I guess that I'm healthy. I guess that life is going right, for now. That might be messed up in a moment.

Almost as though reading my mind, the door handle jerks, and I almost flinch. Elwin is revealed in his nerdy glasses and blinding white doctor coat, smiling at me as per usual. "Sophie! How ya doin'?"

Maybe even after I'm long gone from this place, if ever, I'll come back and visit this man, I muse. He is quite deserving of that, at least.

"Actually, pretty good," I say tentatively. I hope there isn't a neon flashing sign somewhere over my head saying something along the lines of please don't make pretty good turn into pretty bad.

"Good, good. No symptoms? Headache, fatigue, collapsing, nothing? Physical symptoms? Emotional symptoms? No nothing?"

"No nothing," I say, a smile tugging at my lips as I look at him rolling around on his rolly stool.

"Atta girl, that's what I like to hear," he says, leaning over to give me a high five. "You know the drill. We're just going to get some bloodwork done to do the confirmations to make sure your blood cell count is level and right. I have exciting news, though. If you're doing well, I think that we won't do another cycle of chemo."

"Actually?" I want to gasp, the air letting out almost involuntarily and traversing past my lips in more of a pfft sound.

"Actually," Dr. Elwin says, prepping all of the bloodwork stuff. "You've been making amazing recover strides, Sophie. You're a real fighter."

I mull over his words while blood's being drawn out of my arm. A fighter. That's a new one.

He doesn't need to say anything else, only disappearing for about ten minutes with a smile and the clack of the door shutting behind him. I'm not going to lie; I do tear out a few eyelashes while waiting. Something about the sharp second of pain and the white flash of pulling it out brings me back to reality, as stupid as that sounds.

Then he's back inside the room, beaming at me as he waves the test results like some sort of acceptance letter into a college he wanted to get into. "Sophie!"

"Elwin!" I match him, really, really holding my breath for this.

"Results are positive, you're off of chemo!" he cheers, pulling me into a hug and handing me a file of the papers. "I'll just need you to come check in with me one last time before I give you the all-clear, hopefully forever."

"Oh my god," I breathe out, breathless just at the word forever. "Oh my god."