Until We Meet Again

36

"Alex you have to eat," I beg him to eat some of his soup but he still refuses to.

"What is it to you, I'm going to die anyways so what's the point?" He looks at the soup and then at the wall. I give out a sigh, setting the soup back down on the rolling cart beside his bed.

"That's not what they said," I tell him even though it basically was what they said just not in the form of the words you're going to die.

He looks at me and I don't even recognize the Alex I know staring back at me. He was severely exhausted, the dark circles under his eyes telling all there was to it and he had gotten really pale since the first day we were here. I don't know how many times he woke up in the middle of the night and ended up puking up blood. We've been here for almost a month already and no progress in recovering from this had been seen yet. He has more than one doctor now and they're both saying that the chemotherapy has yet to take effect which means if it doesn't soon then there would be nothing else to do for him. I could tell that the chemo was taking a heavy toll on his body as he couldn't walk anymore on his own and he couldn't keep a single bite of food down.

"Oh so you didn't hear the words I'm going to die?" He waits for my answer, staring me down.

I shake my head, "no that's not what I heard."

"Stop lying to me...." he starts coughing and I grab the trash can just in case he starts to puke.

His coughing goes on for a couple of minutes but no puke comes out, instead blood as usual. He looks at it for a while and I could see a world of different emotions swimming in his eyes. I could tell he was about ready to give up on this and just say pull the plug. Thinking about it made my throat close up.

I hand him a tissue and he wipes the blood off his hand.

"How's our boy?" His mom saves me from any other uncomfortable talks with him that was to come.

He looks up at her, "fine," it comes out as a grumble.

She ignores it as it had become a normal thing now. "We brought you some things from home that we thought you would like." She sets down a couple of books, some that I don't recognize and others like Harry Potter that I do. I look at Alex and he must have known what I was thinking.

"Yes I read, go ahead enjoy my nerdiness."

I shake my head, letting out a laugh. "No nothing to enjoy here."

He lets out a laugh, the first one in what seemed like ages and I think it relieved some of the tension in the room. A knock comes from the door, revealing Alex's two doctors. I searched their faces for some kind of emotion that would tell me what kind of news they were about to deliver.

"How are you feeling today, Alex?" His lady doctor starts out the conversation.

"Fine, just like all the other days." His mother gives him a harsh stare for his rudeness, but Alex just shrugs it off. It doesn't seem to faze his doctor as she just smiles at him and continues writing down stuff from his bed chart.

"So we have good news and bad news, what would you like first?" His cancer doctor states.

"Bad news so that way the good news might soften the blow, who knows anymore." Alex shrugs his shoulders.

"Bad news the cancer has spread to his lungs," I look over at his parents to see how they were taking the news. His mom looked like she was about to burst into tears but were holding them in just for Alex's sake and his dad well his dad had no emotions at all on his face that I could read. I, on the other hand, felt nothing at all as I had been down this road before. So, I was just waiting for them to tell me how many months he had left.

"Good news the chemo started working and it seems to be doing just a fine job at slowing down the spread of the cancer."

"So what does that mean?" I ask for everybody in the room.

He looks at me and then at Alex. "It means your survival chances just went up by a bunch."

His words allowed a weight that was sitting on my chest to be lifted. I could tell the tension that was in the room seemed to disappear a little bit and the look of relief on his parents face covered the fact that his cancer was spreading but not as fast as it could be.

"Thank you doctors," his mom thanks them as they leave the room.

I sit down in the chair, taking in all this information. I didn't know what to think of it, he still had a chance of dying but not as big of a chance as before. I look over at Alex, watching him smile at his parents for the first time in a while.

Was Alex going to live or die?