Lonely (a falsettos college AU)

A three part mini opera: part 2

Before

It had been happening for several months , too long for whizzer to not be concerned.

First he began to lose weight, he had always been a healthy size, but recently as he stared into the mirrors that surrounded him, he had began to notice some
Changes, subtle things like his face drooping slightly, his Collarbones and ribs being a lot more defined than usual. At first he blamed it on stress, collage was hard after all, and he had been skipping meals here and there to study, but it suddenly hit him one day, when Marvin showed him a photo from the freshers party and he realised just how skinny he was now.

And then came the cough. It felt as though nails were stuck in his throat and he was trying to cough them up. Each cough was more painful than the last until eventually he started coughing blood. For him the hardest part was hiding it  from other people. He began to get sideways glances from Marvin whenever his cough was horrendous, but he blamed it on hay fever in the company of others. Saying he had had it since he was a child.

But that was before the depression hit. Most days he could wake up, put on a smile, even if it was fake, and attend his classes, but sometimes there were days when he would not, no, could not get out of bed, he was numb, not able to move, not able to look at the sunlight. It hurt so much that he became desensitised to his own suffering, to protect himself. He told Marvin that he did not have classes or he was ill, but deep down he realised that something was very wrong with him.

Then he refused to go out with friends, he did not sleep anymore, he did not have sex anymore.

Most importantly, he did not feel anymore.

That was why he went home, to visit his doctor.

Cancer

The word hurt like a bitch, and that was when he actually felt for the first time in months. He was told his options and immediately chose to have surgery. He told Marvin that he was visiting his Mom. But instead he stayed at the hospital, alone. He did not have the guts to tell either of them, but he ended up telling Charlotte, making her promise not to tell anyone. In someways she already knew, her medical training helped her notice the signs, but she seemed to ignore them, thinking if she did not address them they would not exist.

That was the reason she wanted to talk to him after he passed out during the summer. She knew he was ill, but she underestimated how bad it was.

After the surgery he woke up with her next to him In an armchair, watching him in an extremely worried fashion. When she saw he was awake she leapt out of the chair and fetched the nurse. And then she left the room as he was told...

Stage 3, malignant and spreading fast.

He could hear his heart shatter.

Sobs racked his body, no longer anything in the world made sense. Charlotte ran back in the room and swathed him in blankets and pillows and her own hugs. He fell asleep as the little spoon to her big one after running out of tears, his head pounding and his throat burning, hoarse. And it reminded him of Marvin. When even though Whizzer was almost half a foot taller than him, he would always be the big spoon.

Charlotte cried after he fell asleep, knowing that his chances of survival after the surgery that had been unsuccessful were slim to nothing. He woke up to her crying. But he just lay there, not letting her know he was awake.

If someone training to be a doctor was crying, trying to hide it from him, then it must be bad.

And that was when he knew he could not live like he had the recent couple of months. It hurt too much. After his recovery he went back to the dorms and made his decision. He left a note for Charlotte, put it in her room, telling her she could not tell Marvin the real reason. He did not want to be a burden on him, he did not want to hurt him.

So he took all the pills he could find, drinking a whole bottle of vodka with them.

Then he got up onto the roof.