A/N- I'm happier with the direction things are unfolding now. I'll probably rewrite this mini-chapter later, but I thought I'd post what I have as a thank you to all of you who've been adding alerts &/or submitting reviews. If you keep it up, so will I!
Running Up That Hill Part 2
Rachel flinched at the words "brain tumor." They never said those words in her house. They never talked about the year she was out of school. Of her headaches, her mood swings, her seizures, or her blackouts. They never talked about how even before the surgery she'd been too sick to sing, too weak to dance. They never talked about how Noah had shaved his head for the first time on the same day she had. And they never ever talked about how something had gone wrong on the table and it had taken her months of rehab to get back to normal.
If she was honest with herself, she'd admit that she was glad that some of her memories of that time were fuzzy. It embarrassed her how weak she'd been. How she'd had to rely on those around her for everything. She remembered how awful she'd felt, and how scared she'd been that she'd die. She'd never told anyone that, not even Noah and she'd told him everything else. He'd been her everything then.
It hadn't started off that way of course. They'd been friends since the first day of Hebrew school when they were both four years old. As they years passed their relationship had started to change and they'd flirted the way tweenagers do, but it had been innocent and pure. He'd been her first kiss the night of his bar mitzvah. When he'd asked her to be his girlfriend the summer after eighth grade she'd wanted to say yes but her fathers had set very clear rules about dating and boys.
But somehow Noah had gotten her parents to toss those rules out the window after she'd gotten sick.
He'd been amazing. Everyone but Noah had been surprised when he'd started coming to her house every day after school even before she'd been diagnosed. At first he'd used the excuse of dropping off her homework for her. He'd catch the bus from McKinley to Carmel, pick up her assignments, and then catch the bus to her house. Later when it was clear that something more was going on and she'd been forced to take a leave of absence he'd come straight from school to sit with her and keep her company. Sometimes they'd play video games, sometimes he'd read to her, and other times he'd just sit on the floor next to her bed and play his guitar as she shivered under her comforter after a particularly vicious round of treatment.
The funny thing was that before she'd gotten sick, Rachel had just liked singing and dancing. It was Noah who'd made her fall in love with them. Music and the theater didn't become her life until he'd shown her how she could loose herself in them. Pretending to be someone else had been easier than living her own life. Her obsession with fame had emerged after her love of musical theater and was rooted in the fear that she'd die before anyone had known she'd even really lived. She needed to be a star so she'd always be remembered. She'd needed Noah because he made her remember that she was alive.