I stared at the white washed wall, tying to ignore my throbbing headache. Ella, my sister, put a cup of steaming coffee into my hand and sat down beside me silently.
"I hate the anesthetic smell of hospitals." She finally said to break the silence.
"I couldn't agree with you more." I gave her a reassuring smile.
"Max-"
"Don't worry. I'm sure it's nothing. Dr. Melrose probably just called me back to tell me I'm being paranoid and to prescribe me some synthetic crap that will waste away in the back of my medicine cabinet. "
"But what if-"
"Calm down El, everything will work out for the best." I gave her another smile.
I could see in her eyes that she didn't believe me. Of course, I had always been the optimist of the family.
She was about to reply when a red-haired nurse interrupted, "Maximum Ride, Dr. Melrose is ready for you."
I stood and butterflies flitted through my stomach. I was nervous. I would never let Ella on though because Lord knows it would just give her more of a reason to be pessimistic about the situation.
"Luck..." Ella whispered meekly. I gave her two thumbs up as I disappeared from her view in and into the waiting room.
The nurse mirrored the consoling smile I had given Ella, but it was directed towards me. I read her name tag: Brigid Dawyer. Nurse Brigid began to take my pulse, height, weight, and asked me some standard questions. She nodded after my final answer and quietly shut the door behind her.
I didn't have to wait long until a man strutted into the room beaming with self-confidence. His dark hair fell into his eyes, which were black and cold. A pair of glasses were slipping off the tip of his nose, which he pushed back up promptly. He was staring at a clipboard, a pen in between his teeth.
"Dr. Melrose?"
"There is no other," he answered indifferently, taking the pen from his mouth and tapping it on the clipboard. He looked up to me and met my eyes. Then he made his way to his stool and sat, comfortably reclining. I comforted my nervous stomach with the fact that no one could be so relaxed if they were giving out detrimental news.
"Mrs. Ride, I'm afraid to tell you that you have a diffuse pontine glioma, a brain tumor that is extremely rare for adults. Usually, when an adult has one, it's a minor case."
"Usually?"
"Well, your's seems to be more like a child's, it's very odd, I don't understand why." He paused for a moment, and the 'I don't understand' seemed very foreign to his tongue. "The diffuse pontine glioma grows on the brain-stem. The tumor cells grow around normal cells and therefore, it's very difficult to treat. To sum everything up, you have nine to twelve months to live." How can Dr. Melrose's eyes be so blank and uncaring while he is giving such... big news? What will I do? Twelve months maximum? That's no time! There's still so much I would love to do! The thoughts were running through my head, but the fact hadn't quiet sunken in.
"Oh," I whispered. It barely qualified as a whisper. That 'Oh' sounded like a breath a boxer would inhale after the shock of a breath-taking blow. This was a breath-taking blow for me.
I stared at the wall for several minutes, readjusting myself to the hardest of times. I would be like Darwin's finches, and the survival of the fittest. I stood and asked, "Is that all?"
He nodded coolly, "That is all."
I avoided any contact of my skin to his own as I passed by him. I was scared that his body would reflect what I believed his innards to be: ice. Maybe even colder than ice, dry ice. But, ice can be melted, which I eventually found was the same for .