Edward

November 29, 2016

"Alrighty," A curly-haired nurse by the name Maggie said as she capped the butterfly-shaped plastic piece that sat partially in in my neck, partially outside. I consciously took a breath through the cannula on my nose, filling my tight and achy chest with air. I hadn't had to think about breathing myself for a couple of days and it would take a while for the action to become reflex again. Inhale. I reminded myself. "You should be good." She snapped off her glove.

I grimaced and swallowed. It felt like I had something lodged in my neck. I technically did – the tube that ran from the hole under my adam's apple – and it was uncomfortable. I was in a constant state of gag, forcing myself to keep calm and overlook the fact that something foreign was stuffed into my windpipe.

But, that's not why I was grimacing.

Inhale. "I thought you were going to take it out." I whined my first words in three days to this nurse, my voice crackly and distorted as my vocal cords vibrated against this hell tube.

"During the day we're going to keep you off of it." She explained. "But, we have ventilate you at night because your sats drop too low when you're sleeping."

I writhed in my bed. Inhale. If I had a choice to push Hitler or the guy that invented this stupid device off of a cliff, I would choose the guy that invented this stupid device every single time. "I hate this." I crossed my arms and pouted.

"Baby," My mother scolded gently from her chair next to my bed. "It's going to get you well."

Inhale. "They're only leaving it in to torture me." I argued as I scratched at my neck. The trache tie – a plastic necklace piece that kept the trache from slipping out itched.

"I assure you." Maggie said. "Torturing is bottom of our list."

"You've never had thickened juice." I muttered. Inhale. "It's what they use on international prisoners Guantanamo Bay when the waterboarding and jumper cable methods fail."

The nurse laughed at my joke. "Well, no thickened juices this time around."

I threw myself back on my bed and stared at the acoustic tiles of my ceiling, wallowing in wretchedness and self-pity and reminding myself to take regular breaths. I wondered what Bella was doing on Tuesday at eleven o'clock in the morning. Third period. She would be in her SAT prep class, the desk in front of her empty because that's where I sat.

"Edward," Mom said again. "Do you want some ice chips?"

"No." I snapped and started fishing around my bedside table for my phone without tearing my eyes off the ceiling. I found it and brought it to my face, scrolling social media for the billionth time that day.

I looked at Mom. She had the novel she was forcing herself to read in her lap – some Jodi Picoult, Barnes 'N Noble thing with a nice looking house on the front and a swirly title. She'd get about halfway through a page when either I would interrupt her, a staff member would interrupt her, or she would interrupt herself to bug me. Her hair was tied into a braid that sat over her shoulder and circles rimming her eyes.

I sighed – something I could actually do now that I was off the ventilator. I was being unnecessarily petty. "Yes." I said gently. "That would be nice."

I watched her pop up and leave my room, eager to ease my suffering in her own mom way. I listened to the whooshing of the positive air pressure as the door opened and shut.

After being pumped full of antibiotics to the point where I assumed my anatomy was more hospital fluids than human, Dr. Hot declared that the pneumonia was 'handled' and I was good to be transferred to UW. I was taken to the humungous gray hospital that sat in the middle of Seattle, admitted to the children's cancer department, and moved into an isolation room – a special room made for people with glass-fragile immune systems like myself - and then spent the rest of the day sleeping because I had the mettle of a ninety-three-year-old lady now.

Today was spent prepping for chemo. While the pneumonia and my kidneys were number one priority so I didn't accidentally wear out my heart again, the AML was the biggest monster in the grand scheme of things. That had to be handled. Soon. Especially since my flavor had a gnarly reputation of spreading like wildfire to other parts of my body. They reinstalled my central venous catheter under my collarbone, took more blood, and did a chest x-ray to see how the pneumonia was looking.

I heard the faucet that sat in the little entryway right outside my door run and then my mother emerged carrying a foam cup of ice cubes. "A found a game room of some sort." Mom said as she set the ice cubes down for me. "Maybe I can steal Sorry or something and we can play later?"

"Sure." I said, knowing full well I was going to probably watch The Price is Right until I inevitably fall asleep for my mid-morning nap.

"Are you hungry?"

"For the souls of the damned." I said flatly and composed a text to Bella.

He speaks!

"Edward," My mom rolled her eyes. "Be serious."

"Nope." I glanced out my window as the rain started. "Can't. It's a symptom, I think."

"A symptom of what? Smartassitis?" She crossed her legs and opened her book.

My phone vibrated.

Praise the overlords! Does this mean I can call you?

My heart fluttered as I thought about talking with Bella. My only way to talk to her for the last 52 hours was text message. She wasn't going to be able to see me in person until Friday evening. I almost petulantly threw myself back on my bed again at that reminder, the familiar feelings of wretchedness and misery settling around me like a cloud. That was so long to be away from her. Too long.

I felt my eyebrows furrow as I glanced at Mom. I'll have to kick her out. I texted back.

Of course. When?

I watched the three little dots popped up as she formed her reply.

Approximately 33 minutes?

I smiled as I imagined her sitting on that bench in the front of the school I would wait for her in the morning at, kicking her boots and chatting with me on the phone during lunch. I glanced at the rain out of the window. That was probably not a realistic

Yes, please. Can't wait.

I heard whooshing and looked up to Dr. Hot, who was carrying x-rays. Dr. Hot and Dr. Bears both had split practices – sharing their times and talents between Port Angeles and Seattle. Although, I don't think Dr. Hot did that until she met Dr. Bears. She popped it into the light board and flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder. "How's it feel to be off the vent?" She asked with a smile.

I scowled, swallowing against the reminder of the hell tube. "I would prefer it if I didn't have the trache at all."

"Oh, we know." She rolled her eyes playfully at me. "All in good time, bud." She turned towards the lightboard. "Your lungs are looking good. The antibiotics did their job, so I'm going to give the thumbs up to start chemo."

"Great." I said flatly.

"We're going to continue monitoring your sats. You're sitting pretty at eighty-eight percent and I want to desperately get you back up to ninety-five, if possible." She said. "Any questions?"

I shook my head and stared at the milky, cloudy x-ray of my chest. I couldn't make out much. X-rays were impossible. But, I could see the scar from when I had my tumor resected. It cut across my lung like a comet, its pathway headed straight for my heart.

November 29, 2016

"We've been literally watching movies all day long." Bella said on the phone. "Both Spanish and Chem had subs."

"And what was the cause?" I asked, my fingers going to the cap at my throat to help my voice come through clearer.

Bella made a noise. "They're thinking the ham that was in the green beans served at lunch yesterday? They made a whole announcement about it this morning. They're cancelling Friday's game over it."

"You weren't affected?"

"Oh, no." She fell silent for a moment. "I wasn't hungry yesterday, so I didn't eat lunch. Jake was though." She said. "He was out today."

I felt my eyebrows knit together in concern. I looped my finger nervously through my cannula tubing and glanced out the window. "Is he okay?"

"Probably in the same shape as the rest of the people with food poisoning." She said. "I was going to check on him later."

"I'll call him too." I said, worry lacing through me. Of course, nobody tells me anything here. Someone in my immediate family would be dying and I would be the last to know. Just worry about getting well. I bit my lip.

"How's the hospital?" She asked, her voice quiet.

I snorted. "I've had a packed day of sitting on my ass and doing nothing." I joked.

"Don't overexert yourself." She joked.

"Excuse you. I'm going for gold." I retorted.

"In ass sitting or doing nothing?"

"Both?"

We both giggled. I loved her laugh - like wind chimes on a clear spring day. I looked at my lap, at the diamond-patterned hospital johnny I had to wear. I missed her laugh. I missed watching her laugh. The way her eyes would squeeze shut and her nose would crinkle.

"They're going to start me on chemo soon." I said solemnly.

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" She asked.

"Depends on the perspective." I muttered.

She was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry." Her voice was shaky like she was fighting tears. "I'm sorry you have to go through this."

"It means I'm one step closer to coming home." I said, eager to flip this conversation around. One step closer to having you back in my arms. My chest warmed at that thought.

I heard the whooshing of the door and looked up to Maggie, a bag of yellow fluid in her gloved hand. I saw the pink warning sticker that said in very bold letter that this was a dangerous chemotherapy drug on the front and gulped.

"That's true." Bella said. "I miss you."

I watched in silent horror as the nurse hung the bag up on its own little arm of the IV pole and then connected a free prong of my central line to it. Suddenly, the cancer felt so real. It was no longer an odd danger only mentioned in the abstract. It was here and I was fighting it right now.

"Edward? Are you there?"

"Yeah," I said, recovering from my momentary shock. "I'm here. I miss you too."

"Round one." Maggie whispered with a smile as she finished up with messing with my central line. "Ding ding."

December 1, 2016

"Baby," My mother cooed, her hands fluttering over me. "What can I do to help?"

Leave me alone to die. I thought desolately. I didn't answer though. I instead vomited into the pink bucket I gripped to my chest like it was a life raft, a cold sweat misting over my forehead and on the back of my neck.

I had thrown up a total of thirty-two times since Maggie hooked up the first bag on Tuesday. That bag went fine, just making me a little nauseous. Smooth sailing, I had thought. This isn't too bad. Poor, naïve Edward. If he only knew.

It was eight in the morning the next day when things started to tumble downhill. I threw up once, hacking up breakfast. The staff gave me some jello to help calm my stomach and then I threw that up. I drank some water and threw that up. I chewed on ice chips and threw that up. I sat up in bed too fast and threw up. I finally resorted to just sitting still as nausea twisted up my stomach. I threw up anyway.

Chemo didn't affect me this bad the last two times I went through it. But, apparently I was on a super-charged cocktail set out to destroy everything in its path, like some wrecking ball of apocalyptic proportions tasked to obliterate the leukemia. Causalities included 1) my stomach, 2) my immune system, 3) my sense of dignity as I failed to aim correctly and ended up nailing my hospital gown and had to be changed. Four times.

I felt a wash cloth on my forehead and looked up from my pink bucket to my mother, who was now relegated to wearing a surgical mask around me to keep germs from spreading to my crap immune system.

I sucked in a ragged breath through my nose and exhaled it out of my mouth. At least I didn't forget to breathe when nausea flipped over my stomach.

"You want me to wash it out?" My mom started for the bucket.

I retched dryly and spat into the bucket. "What's the point?" I answered, my knees curling inward. I glared at the chemo bag above my head. "I'm just going to mess it up again."

She pulled it out of my hands anyway and moved to the little bathroom off of my room. I wrapped my arms around my torso, trying to hold everything in.

I had a nurse swipe me a pen and a thing of post-it notes from the nurses' station yesterday. I'm not possessed, it's just chemo. Is what I wrote and stuck to the front of the bag this morning during a brief moment of respite.

"Mom." I said as a wave hit me, rolling through me starting from my stomach to my shoulders, my skin prickling as another cold sweat bloomed.

Like a superhero with the dexterity only moms could possess, she had the bucket under my chin the exact moment I started to heave. I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Oh, Edward." I felt her lips through the surgical mask kiss my sweaty temple and her arm wrap around my shoulders as I coughed and tried to spit out the burning acid taste.

I cuddled against her like I used to do when I was little, my head finding her shoulder. I felt so much better with her arms wrapped around me, protecting me even though the horrors were inside of me. "Mom," I croaked, partially from the trache, partially from the constant vomiting. "Thanks for being here."

She laughed. "Of course." She said as she moved the barf bucket to my table. "You're my baby boy."

"You know I'm not a baby anymore, right?" I said as I sucked in breaths.

"You'll be thirty-five with kids of your own and I'll still call you my baby." She said gently, almost a whisper. "You were my baby as soon as your Dad put you in my arms."

I felt myself smile. "Tell the story again."

Well," She started. "I get a call at three in the morning from your father. 'Sare,'" Her voice went deep as she mimicked Dad. "he said, panicked out of his head. 'Someone left a baby here!'" She made a noise. "And I said 'Well, you are a fire station. You're supposed to accept babies.' And he said 'I know that. But, I don't know what to do with him!' and I say 'You have two daughters and a son on the way and you don't know what to do with a baby?'"

We both chuckled. I looped my finger into my tubing, tiredness starting to press on me from heaving over and over.

"He said 'Can you come to the fire station. Just until the social worker gets here?'" She made a noise. "So I got up and got dressed and I went to the fire station, waddling around six months pregnant with Jacob, already big as a house and Billy handed me this little boy." Her voice went soft. "This little, tiny thing. Maybe a day old. You didn't cry or fuss or more surprisingly," She ran her fingers through my hair. "You didn't sleep. You just looked at me and looked at me. And I said 'Hi, sweet angel, you're safe now.' And then you reached out and pressed your little hand to my chest." She moved my fingers up to sit over her sternum. "And your little eyes slid shut and you fell asleep." Her voice cracked at the end with tears. It always did when she told this story. "And I knew that you found your Momma and I found a piece of my heart that I was missing."

Sleep started to taking hold on me, exhaustion making my eyes and head feel heavy. "I'm glad it was that fire station I was dropped off at." I garbled.

"Me too, baby." She said, her cheek pressing against my head. "Me too."

December 2, 2016

At three in the morning, I spiked a fever. This threw everyone into a tizzy, because fevers = infections and with my crap immune system and my crap lungs. I just wanted to sleep, convinced that any infection could wait a couple of hours for the sun to at least rise.

Unfortunately, as always, the staff and I didn't see eye to eye on that issue. I was sent through the ringer of testing. Blood was drawn out of my central line, my chest was listened to and I had my vitals done. Then, I had to answer a litany of annoying ass questions in the fucking dark because nobody cared about what I wanted. Which was sleep. I just wanted to sleep.

"Does your chest feel tight?"

It always feels tight. It was a stupid question. But, I understood what they were asking. Do you feel like you have pneumonia? I tapped my whiteboard. I had written yes and no and would poke at the answer as we played twenty questions. Is it an animal, vegetable, or mineral? Nope, it's Edward's failing body. That question was a no.

"Has your back been bothering you?"

I groaned silently. Stupid. These are stupid questions. Of course it's bothering me. I've been propped up on my butt since thanksgiving. I tapped yes.

The nurse – whose name I didn't bother to learn because I only knew her during the time where she would wake me up for five minutes in the middle of the night for vitals - dressed in a surgical mask and gloves ran her fingers down my side. They slid over a tender area and I winced, feeling my face scrunch in pain. "Here?" She asked and I nodded.

She went to the other side of my bed and squatted down and then picked up a bag that had about three inches of yellow liquid in it. "Coloring's good." She murmured like she was studying a crossword puzzle instead of inspecting my urine. "Output is low, though."

She replaced the bag and moved to pick up the chart that was sitting over my shin on the bed. "You might have a kidney infection." She said. "I'm going to consult the doctor and we'll probably start you on antibiotics."

I wiped my board. Chemo tomorrow?

"Probably." She said. "It looks like it's mild and we caught it early. Infections are inevitable, unfortunately."

I frowned at the thought of more chemo. I was starting to form mouth sores from the treatments. They were like having a canker sore, but twenty of them. And they burned like I had just finished gargling battery acid.

Popsicle? I wrote, hopeful. I liked the cold from the popsicle to numb out my mouth. I trick I learned the first time I went through chemo.

"Not while you're hooked up to the vent." She shook her head. "Sorry, hun."

I crossed my arms and scowled, letting my eyes slide shut. I got woken up at three in the morning. I have a kidney infection, probably. My mouth hurts and I couldn't even have a popsicle to relieve it. I started to fall back asleep. I fucking hate cancer.

December 2, 2016

I fixed my hair using the front-facing camera of my phone. Bella was coming. That thought kept me going all day long, kept me sane enough to endure yet another round of chemo and gagging and vomiting into my favorite pink bucket. I wouldn't even know what to do with myself otherwise. I probably would've snapped and started chasing people around with a broken bottle or something.

I don't know why I was bothering with my hair. I looked like an absolute wreck otherwise. The sores in my mouth were starting to creep outward, giving me red, swollen cauliflower-y looking lips. I was pale from the infection, which really set off the deep circles around my eyes. And then there was the trache that jutted out of my neck and my cannula attached to my face. I clicked my phone off and put it on the table, disgusted with looking at myself.

Bella was coming. I played with my tubing and looked out my window, my chest turning fluttery at the thought of her here with me. Her hands tangled with mine. Her fingers running down my face. Her-

I doubled over and threw up in my bucket on my lap, sniffing up the snot that came with it. She said it was going to take an act of God to get rid of her when she told me she loved me. I looked up at my post-it note on my chemo bag. Jesus saves, but cancer scores on the rebound. I wondered if chemo ranked above or below 'acts of God.'

"You want to watch TV?" Mom asked and tried handing me the remote.

"I'm okay." I croaked, my mouth lighting aflame. My fingers went to my lips and I winced. I either couldn't talk because of the trache or I couldn't talk because of the mouth sores.

"Baby, what's wrong? Are you in pain?"

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear that. Instead I stared out my window and my lovely view of the parking garage. When I was bored, I'd count the cars I could see. Sometimes by color, sometimes by type. Sometimes I would try to guess at the owner – like Bella did with her thrift store clothes we wore.

Bella is coming. I looked at the thunderstorm brewing. Bella was coming for me. Bella was giving me her bone marrow. Bella loved me - the cloudy, sad sky. Not the sun. Not the moon. Me.

A machine squealed behind me and I groaned – half-startled, half-pained, a stabbing right into the left side of my chest and flashing up into my shoulder. I forgot to breathe. I inhaled through my nose and out of my mouth.

"Baby, what's wrong?" My mom's eyes were wide over her surgical mask.

I couldn't answer though, I just gasped air and moved my hand to my chest, feeling my chest throb and watch the world go fuzzy as my shitty lungs overexerted themselves.

A respiratory therapist bustled himself in, a small Indian guy that I didn't bother to learn the name of because he was snappy and impatient. "Seventy-nine-,"

"No," inhale. "Vent." Inhale. "Please." I actually wanted to talk to Bella today instead of painfully write everything I wanted to say down on my whiteboard.

He regarded me for a second before rolling his eyes and pressing an oxygen mask to my face. "Deep breaths."

I did as I was told, inhaled deep breaths and watched the screen slowly increase and the pain slowly decrease with each breath. I made all the way back up to ninety before the RT dropped the mask. "Inhale through your nose or I'll have to put you back on ventilation." Was his final threat before he hurried out of my room.

I felt a hand on mine and I looked at my mother, whose eyes were shining. "Rest, okay?"

But, I couldn't rest. I heard Jake's voice and then the faucet turn on as everyone was forced to wash their hands before coming into contact with me and then he burst into the room, followed by Dad. They were both in surgical masks.

"Bro!" Jake shouted, his black eyes wide and shining over the edge of his blue mask.

"Shh." Mom scolded. "Jacob you're in a hospital."

Dad just chuckled. "Jacob was so excited to see Edward; he was literally vibrating."

I looked around. "Where's Bella?"

"Oof." Jacob put his hand on his chest. "Not even a 'Hi, how're you doing?' Cold, bro."

I scowled briefly before twisting it into a grin and then wincing because of the mouse sores. "Well, when you stick your tongue in my mouth-,"

"Edward!" My mother scolded.

Jacob laughed. "I've missed you, bro."

"I've missed-," A delayed wave of nausea rolled through me and I retched into my pink basin. It was mostly water now, since I couldn't keep anything down. Jacob snatched the bucket before Mom could and moved to the bathroom.

"Where is Bella, though?" I asked as I wiped my face. "I thought she was going to ride up with you?"

"She did. She got intercepted by a nurse." Jacob said from the bathroom.

I felt my lip roll into a lopsided pout. I wanted to see her. I wanted nothing more than to see her.

"How's chemo been?" Dad clapped me on the shoulder before taking the other plastic chair in my room, opposite of Mom.

"Rough." I answered and grimaced, my eyes glued on the door, anticipating Bella to walk through it, her hands damp from hand-washing and the wells of her brown eyes shining with adoration over the edge of her mask.

"She's coming, baby." My mom patted my hand again. "Just relax."

My cell phone buzzed and I snatched it off my table. It was from Bella.

They won't let me in. They say I have a fever and they won't let me see you, even though I said that I always run a tiny fever during my period. My phone vibrated and another text popped up. I'm literally outside the door that leads to the isolation rooms and they won't let me in.

I felt my mouth pop open as I read the text. Bella isn't coming. Something dropped hard inside of me. A million-ton weight of disappointment, dragging me down to the bottom of the murky, dark ocean.

"Baby, what's wrong?"

"They won't let Bella in." My voice cracked with tears. "They say she's running a fever."

"Oh no." Jake said, his eyes wide as he came back with my bucket.

"Well, let's see if we can talk to someone." My mom's finger hit the nurses' call button.

A dark-skinned woman with hazel eyes answered the call. She had the RN badge underneath her name one. "Hey, sugar." She greeted, her accent not from around her. "What can I do for you?"

I scowled at her. "Why won't you let Bella in?" I snapped, anger replacing the disappointment, tears on my face. It was all their fault. They – all the scrub-clad employees running this stupid place – were keeping Bella away from me.

I felt my mother's hand pat mine. "Edward was looking forward to seeing his girlfriend." She said diplomatically. "But, now she's not being let in?"

"Is that the little spitfire outside?" The nurse asked. "You guys are a good match. You're both feisty."

"I don't want to be teased." I snapped.

"Sorry, sugar." The nurse held up her hands. "Your girlfriend is running a fever of a ninety-nine point six and her glands in her neck are a little swollen. She might have a cold." She shrugged. "We're just being cautious."

"So, I can't see her at all?" I felt new tears on my face and a machine squealed behind me. I winced with the familiar pain in my chest.

The nurse came over and placed the mask on my face. "Breathe deep, sugar."

"I don't want to breathe deep." I retorted, my fingers flying to my chest. "I want to see Bella."

"Tell you what." The nurse strapped the mask to my face. "I'm here until ten. We usually make visitors wait forty-eight hours after a fever breaks to see patients but I will monitor her myself. As soon as she gets to ninety-eight point six, I'll lift the ban. Deal?"

I threw myself against my bed and rolled away from the nurse to stare out the window. I didn't have a choice when it came to my body. Not in a hospital. Cancer robbed me of luxuries like choices. "Deal." I muttered, sucked in a breath and started counting cars again.

mysticfighter111 - well without giving anything away, i think maybe we will see some other characters? idk check back in and find out!

tomboygirl2 - tbh this story will probably not go that far lol so whatever your headcanon is on that, I wholeheartedly accept lol