Hey Everyone! This is something I've been playing around with for a while now. I hope you like it. Read and review and let me know if I should keep going!
Caroline sat in the wooden porch swing, tears slowly slipping down her rosy cheeks as the sun set in the sky. It had only been eight hours, she thought to herself. Eight hours was how long it took for her life to change forever. Eight hours and a sprained ankle, she amended. That was all it took.
Caroline sat beside Tyler in matching dark brown leather chairs that squeaked every time she moved, waiting for the doctor to come back into the office. She glanced at Tyler who was speed reading on his tablet to pass the time. Campaigning stopped for no one it seemed. It was silly that he came, taking off work from the Mayor's office, but the doctor had insisted.
"I can't believe the Mayor is stepping down," she commented, but Tyler didn't look up.
"He's not really stepping down, Care. He's going to run for Governor and he's suggesting me to the council to succeed him."
"Has the committee given him their answer yet?" she asked, glancing around the beige room and noticing the diplomas from the Ivy League universities. She felt the light touch of Tyler's hand in hers.
"As soon as I know, you'll know and we'll celebrate."
She smiled as he kissed the diamond ring that sat on her finger. "Think of the party I'll get to plan," she teased, but her face dropped when the doctor lumbered into the room.
The white haired man sunk down into this chair across from them with a slight humph before shifting through the files in front of him, organizing and bidding time.
"Doctor Minx, what's going on? Did the MRI come back okay?"
The older man took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before his brown, solemn eyes met hers.
"It was suspicious that your ankle wasn't healing right. You tripped and sprained your ankle eight weeks ago and it still hasn't healed correctly. Even taking into account your age and your past family history I thought it could still be a possibility." The man shook his head. "I'm sorry, Caroline. I would like to do more tests of course, but we've found cancer."
Everything in her world came to an abrupt halt. It was like she had been on a roller coaster and it just…stopped. Her entire body felt heavy as lead sitting in the chair and even the trees outside the window seemed to pause in their swaying dance. It couldn't be happening, this wasn't her life.
"Cancer?" Tyler asked disbelievingly, dropping her hand to lean in toward the doctor.
The deep voices around her were a distant buzzing in her ears as she sat in shock. She was only twenty six years old. She never missed a morning jog or even a day of work from being sick. She was healthy. She ate everything organically for God's sake! If she had cancer she would be in pain, right?
"Caroline?" the doctor repeated and she became aware of the two men staring at her. One stared with pity as the other stared with a mixture of disbelief and anger. "Caroline, I know this is hard to hear, as it is for everyone, but we need to talk about your options."
"Options," she croaked, dazed from how fast everything was suddenly speeding up. The buzz in her ears started again, but she could pick out a couple of words. Stage four. Chemotherapy. Comfortable. She looked to Tyler who sat listening to everything the doctor was saying, nodding, but seeming more distressed than she was.
Finally after what seemed like hours they left the doctor's office, Caroline's purse close to bursting with pamphlets on how to live with cancer and copies of her test results. The drive back to their new Victorian home was quiet, both distant in their own thoughts. Even when they walked up the wrap around porch and through the front door, Tyler went and poured himself a glass of scotch in silence as she kicked off her two inch red heels. She stared down at the shoes, pristine as ever and thought about picking them up, but stopped herself. What did it matter if her shoes were left out? Usually her irrational tendencies would get the better of her and she'd clean up the shoes or take the papers out of her purse and put them in reading order, but she couldn't muster up enough emotion to care.
"What will you do?"
She heard Tyler speak from the big kitchen archway, but couldn't bring herself to answer.
He sighed and came to her, taking her limp hand in his. "You need to deal with this, Caroline. This isn't something that will go away."
She nodded and her watery eyes met him. "We'll deal with it." His eyes shifted away and in that moment she knew. They wouldn't deal with it. She'd deal with it. Alone. "You're breaking up with me." She meant it more as a question, but she knew. Tyler was a born politician. He was careful with his words and not a word was ever spoken without the utmost care or deliberation.
Her hand dropped and he went back into the kitchen, pouring more of the amber liquid into a crystal glass. "I may be campaigning soon and you can't come if you're sick. This isn't something I expected."
She scoffed at his callousness. "I have cancer and you're making yourself to be the victim? I didn't expect this either." She crossed her arms and walked toward him until they were toe to toe. She wanted him to look her in the eyes. "You expected me to be your Jackie O? Is that it? The pretty little figure that stands beside you and makes you look good?" When he didn't say anything she grabbed the bottle of scotch from the counter and lobbed it through the air with every ounce of her anger behind it. The dark green bottle exploded against the white subway tile backsplash she'd painstakingly picked out for the room as she seethed.
"What the hell, Caroline," Tyler yelled, looking back and forth from her rage filled eyes and the liquor that coated the wall.
"We were engaged," she stated calmly, but her chest heaved as if she'd just sprinted a mile. "You were supposed to promise to love me through sickness and in health."
"Well, I'm glad we found out that wasn't something I could follow through with now rather than later," he spit back fiercely, intentionally trying to hurt her.
"Leave," she said lowly, her voice dropping dangerously before she walked away from him and the mess she'd created.
She wiped at her wet cheeks with the sleeve of her sweater, keeping her eyes on the oranges and purples in the sky as Tyler walked out the door. She heard him pause at the door, but he said nothing as he started moving again and making it to his black Audi. The trunk closed with a finality that sent another tear seeping from her eye.
"Take care of yourself."
She wanted to scream and find more things to throw at him, but instead sat still and continued ignoring everything besides the darkening sky in front of her.
oooOooo
A nurse in Loony Tunes scrubs led Caroline through the stark white halls of the cancer wing. It was her first day of chemo and her heart was racing a mile a minute. She'd finally brought herself to read the many pamphlets the doctor had supplied her with, explaining what cancer was and how the different treatments would affect her. She even took to the internet and the forums dedicated to bone cancer sufferers. Perhaps there had been people out there that had it worse than she did, but after the multitude of tests the oncologist had performed, the diagnosis was the same. Bone cancer, stage four and it was spreading. They'd taken biopsies of her liver and lymph nodes and it was confirmed there too. They said chemo would prolong her life. As it stood, she'd only have about six months, but with the help of chemo it could be eight. Two lousy extra months. The doctor had reminded her that those two months would help her get her affairs in order and it would mean more time with her family and friends. It was too bad that she had none of those things.
Her parents had died in a car accident six years before, both only children whose parents had passed away decades ago. After the funeral she'd closed herself off and eventually her friends had stopped calling. It was when she moved to a new town to start over that Tyler had brought life back into her. He'd asked her out multiple times before she'd finally agreed and then he became her world.
"Here we are," the nurse announced brightly and led her through a doorway and into a single windowed room, lined with reclining chairs. The walls had once been painted a happy canary yellow, but had since faded into a putrid mustard.
She glanced around the room, still standing in the doorway as the nurse stood by the blue padded chair that was to be hers for the next five hours. She could feel the sweat start to bead on her temples as she looked around at the three other people in the room who were at some stage of their illness. A couple people in the small room were bald from the chemical treatments while another lay back in his chair, mouth hanging open as he slept. But what they all had in common was the sickly grey or pale white color of their skin and their malnourished looking bodies.
One step back. Two steps back.
"Miss!" the nurse called as Caroline dashed from the room. She didn't know how she'd made her way through the maze of hallways, but was glad when she finally tasted fresh air. She gulped it down as if she'd been drowning, but kept running until she finally reached the parking garage. Once locked away in her car the wracking sobs shook her whole body and she couldn't stop.
"I'm young! This can't be happening! I've done nothing wrong!" Her angry tears were like a river flowing down her cheeks. She hit the steering wheel with her fists, hoping the physical pain would take away her mounting frustration. "Tell me why!" she demanded to the heavens. She didn't know if anything or anyone listened, but she wanted an answer nonetheless.
Finally her sobs calmed and her body felt numb. She thought back to her parents and how they'd probably tell her to fight and keep going. She wondered that if they'd known they were going to die that night if they would have lived any differently. Would they have had that extra milkshake at a diner or would they have traveled somewhere exotic? She always remembered how much her mother had wanted to see the world, but had never gotten the chance. Instead she'd met Caroline's Father and started a family. Caroline still kept the photos from the magazines that she'd found tucked away in her mother's jewelry box after the funeral.
Her grip on the steering wheel tightened and she started the car, knowing what she'd do. She wasn't going to sit in a stuffy room getting poison pumped through her veins only to spend the rest of her life wishing to die from the pain the chemicals would give her. She didn't want to spend her last moments in a hospital bed. She'd do what her mother didn't live long enough to do.