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**Chapter Seventeen**

Okay, so life totally sucks! I know I have never been good at keeping journals, such as you...but hey, I am lonely. I no longer have Kevin here to talk to about everything, and the others aren’t exactly friendly towards the young, such as myself. Therefore...telling a book everything is my only hope.

It’s been sixty-five days since Kevin left...sixty-five days, three hours, twelve minutes. Pathetic that I know this, but him leaving was emotional. I remember the date, the hour, the minute that he walked out the door saying goodbye. I should have known something was up by the strange way he was acting. I thought nothing of it though. But shit, he still hasn’t even written me. I deserved at least that much, right? A postcard to say “Hey, all is well, hope you’re okay. Have a nice life.” Sure, it would have hurt, but...I’m sitting here every day waiting, and nothing comes. I miss him, but maybe I never meant a flying fuck to his ass. But then there was the way that he looked in to my eyes...ya know...the way he held me, telling me everything was going to be alright. That was real. I know it was. I guess I am just confused. I hold on to hope that he’ll contact me though. It has only been two months, and I know that he and the Boys were going to get on with the touring life and all. Maybe he’s just busy?


Anita looked at what she’d just written, chewing on the cap to her pen thinking of something else to say. She knew that there was more, but she just couldn’t find the words to say it. How could you explain how you felt when your boyfriend left never to be heard from again? Anger, hurt, confusion were some of the feelings, but it went much deeper than that. Much, much deeper. She just couldn’t place a finger on the right words to describe it.

With a sigh, Anita shut her eyes, closing her journal, which was nothing more than a pad of paper provided by the hospital. It was nothing special, and not even the least bit private, but it would due. It wasn’t like she was writing anything that needed to be hidden anyways. It was no secret that she hated the hospital, or that she wanted Kevin back. It just sucked that things had turned out the way that they did. It sucked a lot.

Opening her eyes, Anita looked around her again. Nothing had changed. She was still in the small room, receiving her chemotherapy treatment of the week. She’d adapted to them to the point of being able to deal with out too many complications, but she missed being able to hold Kevin’s hand during them. He always had known how to comfort her. Now, she had to get through it herself with nothing more than her own positive mind set.

“This your first time?”

Anita looked over to see a girl in her mind twenties. She was new, that much was obvious. It was her posture that gave it away. She sat upright and stiff, her hands fidgeting with anything and everything that came in to contact with them. Anita smiled inside, but not out of satisfaction that the girl was troubled. It was because she remembered a time where she was in the same position. It was so long ago...seven months or so, she assumed. She’d been a complete mess inside. On the outside, Anita presumed that she’d looked no better.

“Far from it,” she told the girl kindly, figuring it wouldn’t hurt for her to be nice to some of the fellow patients, “I’ve been here for over half a year now. How about you?”

The girl nodded, “First time...kind of. I hit remission two and a half years ago...but I guess it wasn’t meant to last. So, I’m trying again to fight this thing.”

Anita nodded, understanding why the girl looked so upset. She’d already beaten this thing once. She’d thought that she was out of the woods, ready to get on with her life again, but then cancer had struck once more, setting back her goals and plans. Anita felt bad for her, but silently hoped that she herself would never be in such a predicament. She hoped that if she hit remission, that would be the end of it.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Anita told her, not really knowing what else to say to her about it. What could you say to a girl who was in this
position? “I’m Anita by the way.” she gave the girl a friendly smile.

“Emily,” she replied, “Nice to meet you...it’s always great to meet and see friendly faces around here. Most people are so grumpy or stuck on themselves or just don’t want to be bothered with others.”

Anita laughed. Boy did she know how that was. It had been Kevin so many months ago. She wondered if that was his attitude all long until she had appeared. Maybe she had given him some strange reason to change his attitude? Or possibly he really had just been bitter due to the phone call he’d mentioned right before their bumping in to one another. This memory caused her smile to fade as she shook the thoughts away quickly. She didn’t want to think about Kevin and what could be or might have been at the moment.

“So, do you have a boyfriend?” Anita asked her, trying to take her mind off of her own relationship troubles and possibly concentrate on somebody else’s. In a way, she hoped that they could get through a breakup together.

“Kind of...” Emily’s voice trailed off, “I don’t know. I guess you could say that I do. He hasn’t been around much since all of this came up again. I think he’s just afraid...he just lost his mom to breast cancer three months ago, ya know?”

Anita nodded, sort of understanding why he’d be backing off, but on the other hand, it really was no excuse. He should be there for his girlfriend no matter what. Whoever this guy was reminded her of Kevin’s ex girlfriend whom left as soon as he was diagnosed. The two were no different and probably deserved each other to be miserable together in their shallowness and conceited-ness.

Seconds later, a nurse came up to Anita, unhooking her IV which fed her the chemo drugs. Anita looked up at her, knowing the drill all to well already.

“All done for the day.”she informed her, “Will you be needing help getting back to your room?” Anita shook her head, “The doctor will be running some tests later today to see where you stand. You have another appointment for the same time next week.”

Anita nodded, putting herself in to a wheelchair to take her to her room. She hated how weak she felt after the sessions, but she was always feeling better by the next day. God, how she hoped these test results were different than the others.

“It was great meeting you, Emily,” Anita told the girl, “I guess I’ll see you around.”

Emily smiled, picking up a magazine next to her to read while she went through her turn in the torture chamber, as everyone liked to call it. Another day was done, and although Anita didn’t know if she’d made a friend of Emily or if she’d even ever see her again, at least there was potential for something to be made there until one of them was free to go home.

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Anita sighed dramatically as she stared up at the clock. Dr. Robertson was due in sometime that afternoon to give her the results of some tests that had been done a few days before. Her next chemo session was in three days already and she was hoping that these test results would give her reason to step in to it with confidence and a happy attitude. So far, the tests and blood work always came back with negative answers. She was still the same, or the drugs weren’t working and she’d have to try something different, or take a stronger dose. Each time, she was disappointed, wondering if she would ever get better or if all of this was just a waste of time and health insurance money.

Flipping on the TV in her room, Anita settled on Room Raiders on MTV. Never in her life did she ever imagine a half hour show could drag by so slowly. One by one, a boy by the name of Ryan went through each girls room, finding all sorts of dirty clothes, kinky sexual things and stains on the sheets from a black light, lord only knowing what they were. Each invasion of a room seemed to take an hour alone, but the clock told no lie. The show was dragging. Life was dragging, as she waited. All she wanted to know was if she was getting better. It was what had been on her mind since the tests. So naturally, everything else was going by in a blur, her going through the motions as she waited, stationed in her room so she wouldn’t miss the doctor coming for her. She wanted to wait patiently, however she felt herself getting antsy with anticipation with each minute that passed.

So when Anita was about to give up, three hours later when the clock hit 9:55, Dr. Robertson entered her room. He stood tall, holding a clipboard and her charts and a thick folder. She figured that he held in his hands her entire medical history, including the time she went to the doctor with the chicken pox when she was six, and when she went on birth control at fourteen to regulate her monthly cycle. She knew that the vast majority, or at least a good half of the stack, pertained to her leukemia. It was cancer, after all. There was a lot of stuff there that had to be kept in her records. And on the top of the stack were the results of her latest tests. She felt her palms start to sweat as her body grew hot and tingly. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at him, waiting for him to speak to begin everything.

“Hello, Anita,” Dr. Robertson greeted after a long, drawn out pause, “Good to see you.”

Anita nodded in his direction, deciding it would be best to bite her tongue against her sarcastic remarks that kept popping in to her mind. She’d seen the doctor maybe ten times since her admittance. Pretty much, the only time she saw him was when he was giving her test results or the occasional stop by.

“How are you feeling lately?” he asked her, crossing his arms across his chest, the files tucked securely in to them. He looked at her, waiting for a response.

“Um, good,” Anita told him, “I’ve been feeling better...a little more energy and all. I’m not as tired as I have been for the past months.”

The doctor nodded, and Anita couldn’t read if that was a good or bad thing as he wrote some stuff down. He was torturing her with not cutting to the chase, but Anita knew that she’d have to be patient. She’d waited this long, a few more minutes wouldn’t kill her.

“Are your chemotherapy sessions getting easier?”

“Yes,” Anita told him, “Not as torturous as they used to be, but still not on my top ten list of things to do.”

Dr. Robertson chuckled, “Well, I’m sure you’re probably wondering what your tests told us, aren’t you?”

“It would be nice,” Anita told him, “To know...what’s going on with my situation.”

“Well...I don’t wait to get your hopes up too high, but everything looked great,” he
begun, “Your counts are closer to where they should be...a lot closer, in fact. The other tests showed improvement too. All in all, I was very impressed.”

Anita blanked at hearing this. Was she hearing things or had the doctor really said that she was improving? It almost seemed too good to be true. She’d been stuck there for months without so much as one affirmative word that she was getting better. Now though, all of a sudden, the doctor sounded hopeful instead of worried. Anita truly believed that she’d blanked out the doctors true negative words, replacing them with hearing what she wanted.

“Ar...are you serious?” she asked.

“Keep up the positive attitude, Anita, and I can see you hitting remission and being able to get out of here.” Dr. Robertson told her, giving her a pat on the back before exiting the room to tend to other patients.

Anita smiled widely. In as little as a few weeks, she could be free from all of this, considered to be in remission. Her life could get back on track, carrying on with it as if none of this had ever happened. Anita couldn’t wait. She was going to be okay. Her smile slowly faded though as certain memories came back to her. If only she were still talking to Kevin, then her homecoming would be all the more special.