Okay everyone, so please excuse these next two filler chapters they're designed for build up purposes to keep you guys guessing because I'm mean like that hahaha. But don't fret, I promise it'll be worth it because it will all come together with a big bang very, very soon.
So to all of you who have been waiting so patiently for a little bit of Jack and Sam action, this chapter is dedicated to you! Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 37: This is No Victory
Monday, December 19th, 2011
SAM
I don't think that it's exactly a secret that I've spent the majority of my life embracing the art of losing.
From the very moment that I was born I'd pretty much lost everything, the thing was, as time progressed, things never really got much better.
Maybe that's the reason I was so shocked with the fact that I'd spent the majority of my day so far winning in everything that I did.
It all started this morning. Despite the previously hellish conditions that had somehow managed to befall upon me yesterday, I'd woken up feeling surprisingly much better… I mean of course, by feeling surprisingly much better, I mean to say that so far today, I didn't feel like absolutely dying, and sure, my chest still felt like somebody had laid an anvil on top of it, and yeah, I was still heaving thick wads of phlegm up my throat every couple of minutes, but experience has taught me to take my victories where I can grab them, so I decided to keep my complaints to a minimum and do just that.
And now, here I was, propped upright against my mattress, pleased with myself for even having enough strength inside of me to do that much, as I listened to Dr. Miller address Brooke and I without so much as a glimmer of that serious tone in her voice that had so terrified us yesterday.
She'd come at the ass crack of dawn. The only reason I was actually awake was because a 3 a.m. coughing fit managed to simultaneously pull me out of my drug-induced sleep and ensure that I wasn't going to be doing any sleeping in today at the same time…
I spent four hours watching infomercials on mute while Brooke slept crumpled like a pretzel out on her cot, the ridiculous suit she was wearing in an effort to protect me from germs crinkling with every move she made; and just when my eyes were about to positively shrivel up and fall out from all of the glaring images of slap-chops, and sham-wows, and worthless little keychain flashlights, Dr. Miller paid us a visit.
And the news was good.
From what I understood of everything, which, granted, was very little, the original infection that had ravaged through my body yesterday had wound up being much less severe than everybody had previously anticipated, and thanks to the extra antibiotics they'd been pumping vigorously into my system for the past couple of hours now, combined with the strict precautions that prevented me from exposing myself to any of the harms of the outside world, it had ended up clearing itself at a rate that sufficiently satisfied both myself and my doctors too.
"Her fever dropped significantly during the night; in fact, it's almost back down to normal which is all we could have asked to accomplish at this point and beyond."
She smiled at me with assurance written across her face as I slipped into a state of mere semi-attentiveness, suddenly much less keen towards paying complete attention to her now that I knew that I everything was back to being okay… Of course Brooke meanwhile, retained her expression of intense acknowledgment towards each and every one of my doctor's words, bobbing her head up and down mechanically as she spoke, processing the information firmly in the back of her mind…
"And her blood counts? How do those look?" I think that it's pretty safe to say that Brooke was much more hesitant to accept the mere explanation that I'd simply made a sudden, miraculous recovery than I was… I mean, I guess in retrospect that made sense; I mean, I don't really remember how bad yesterday had actually gotten for me considering I was incoherent the majority of the time, but from everything that I'd heard, it had been pretty bad for a while there, and unlike me, poor Brooke didn't have the fever or the drugs to block out large portions of that experience. Yes, unfortunately for Brooke, she was stuck with the memories of yesterday permanently embedded in the back of her mind probably for the rest of eternity, and for that, I must say, I pitied her.
"Well, her leukocyte counts are still pretty elevated which means that her body is still actively working on clearing the infection from her system. So that cough of yours Sam, it's probably gonna be there for a couple more days, but it will clear on its own, and with the help of the cough suppressants and antibiotics we gave you within a couple of days or so."
I looked up at the sound of my name, but to be completely honest, I had completely missed the first half of that sentence so that I had no idea where she was going with this. I chose to simply nod my head and comply agree with my doctor, a tactic that I always used when I had absolutely no idea what was going on, a tactic that appeared to work, because every time I used it, Dr. Miller just kept on nodding and carrying on her merry way as if nothing had gone wrong; and let me tell you, today was absolutely no different.
"So yes, her counts are looking a lot better than they were before, but at the same time, they're still not perfect, so what we're gonna do is we're going to start weaning you slowly off of all of these isolation precautions, get you back into a normal rotation, and then, we'll start you on a course of oral antibiotics to ensure the infection doesn't return, and hopefully, after a couple of weeks, the infection will be completely cleared from your system."
"So when can I get out of this room?" It seemed like a logical question to me; ever since this whole thing started, I'd lost a lot of freedoms in my life, but being in here, well it made me lose everything, and I didn't particularly like this feeling.
I watched as the doctor turned to me with sympathetic eyes; listened as Brooke gave the slightest sigh, both of them indicating to me with their most minute of gestures that if it was up to the two of them, I'd be staying in this room for the rest of my life if it meant me getting better.
"Well, we don't like keeping people up in these rooms for too long. I know how rough it can be being stuck in isolation… Let me tell you this much; I'll give you a ball-park figure, I might be able to get you out of here by tomorrow, maybe the next day, but listen, remember, that's just an estimate, I don't want you getting your hopes up too high."
I nodded my head eagerly but to be completely honest with you, the only way you'd be able to prevent my hopes from getting too high would be to physically beat me into submission with a blunt object, because my expectation hadn't been high; I'd anticipated being stuck in this room for as long as a week… maybe even two, but to here that it was a possibility that I'd get out within the day, well now I was positively ecstatic.
A knock on the window caused all three of our heads to snap upwards and towards the window facing the hall, my eyes, along with the eyes of Brooke and Dr. Miller focusing on the image of Jack knocking awkwardly against the glass, waving like a goon into the room with a small smirk on his face that told me he had absolutely no idea what the hell he was doing.
I gave him a smirk and a tiny wave back as Dr. Miller turned back towards me with a bemused grin on her face.
"Who's your friend, Sam? You know, I noticed he was here yesterday too… new boyfriend?" I rolled my eyes in a humorous fashion as my doctor interrogated me as if she were my mother… I mean, Brooke was bad enough; I didn't need two of them hanging around…
"Nah…" I responded, my mind scrambling to come up with an appropriate adjective to describe what exactly it was that Jack was to me… "He's just… he's just a friend; a really old friend." I settled with the simplest of descriptions, but my body still shuddered with the acknowledgment of Jack being identified as my potential boyfriend.
"Okay… well just so you know; that old friend of yours has been waiting outside since 6:30 this morning for visiting hours to start, so you just take that into consideration when he comes in here to see you."
I smiled despite myself, catching my bodily reactions as my cheeks flushed red and my eyes practically forced themselves to look downwards and away from my doctor before she had the opportunity to catch just how embarrassedly flushed her statement had made me…
"Anyway, I'll be back up here to check on you in a couple of hours." She changed the subject generously for my own well being and I followed her with my eyes as her back turned to face me and she sauntered out of the bedroom until she'd disappeared completely behind the thick wooden door.
She left us alone; just me, and Brooke, submitted to the isolation of this stupid room I was stuck in for at least another 24 hours… I had a sudden desire to be all alone, a sudden desire for Brooke to leave me in here with Jack… We do after all; have a lot to catch up on.
I pleaded with her silently using my eyes and nothing more, trying to put my best 'please leave me alone to hang out with Jack' expression on my face, hoping strongly that she would recognize it.
"You want to be alone here with Jack, don't you?" Brooke smirked at me slyly to I suddenly felt as if I was talking to my big sister rather than my mother… It was kind of awkward, honestly.
I gave Brooke the smallest of nods; I wasn't exactly sure how to respond to that question.
"We, uh… We kind of have a lot of crap to catch up on." I shrugged, hoping that would be a good enough explanation for her.
"He took good care of you yesterday, you know." A doozy grin spread across Brooke's face as she reminisced over the memory of somebody other than her caring for me in my weakest of states… I couldn't tell if she was happy about it or jealous.
"I don't really remember much of yesterday…" I figured that was a safe enough response; play the in-the-dark card.
"You know Sam; I don't trust a lot of people other than me to take care of you… But Jack… there's something about him; something about him that I will trust when it comes to you."
I tilted my head upwards cautiously, looking deeply into Brooke's eyes with a slight expression of shocked denial written across my face at what Brooke had actually just said… It was after all, difficult to believe.
"So you're sure that you'll be okay here all by yourself?" Brooke followed up after I never said anything in response to her previous comment.
I leaned backwards, making myself comfortably against the mattress as I placed a small smirk on my face and gave Brooke a slight nod of my head. I felt kind of bad; I knew that Brooke's winter line, delayed from its release that was supposed to be in the middle of November, was being presented to the public's disposal today… I knew that she was up way over her head in work that she should have been doing all week long… I also knew that she hadn't done so much as thought about Clothes Over Bro's all day yesterday, putting her way behind in her work schedule, a schedule that she would have to spend a lot of time catching up on today… My bad, I guess.
"I'll be fine, Brooke." I gave her a second, more confident nod of assurance. "Besides, I won't be by myself… I'll have Jack."
It appeared to be a very prominent selling point in convincing Brooke her departure wouldn't leave me with any lasting damage… Imagine that; never in my wildest dreams would I have envisioned Brooke willingly leaving my side; especially at a moment like this one.
"Will you call me if you start feeling really sick again?" She asked, looking deep into my eyes just to make sure that there was no room for me to lie to her.
"I will,"
"And if Dr. Miller comes back to see you, and she has any new information?"
"I'll call you, Brooke," I nodded; at this point, I was more concerned about simply humoring Brooke with my submission to her demands than anything… The fact of the matter was, I was pretty sure that Brooke wouldn't be getting a phone call unless I was flat-out dying… She deserved a day away from all of this stress, even if that did mean establishing a brand new line across the entire country of her personally-designed clothing items… But compared to this, well that wasn't stress; that was pure cake.
"Okay…" She finally nodded, pushing herself up out of her chair and into a standing position. "I shouldn't be gone for more than an hour or two." She rested a gentle hand on my shoulder, afraid to move the physical contact anywhere beyond that for fear of violating my strict isolation restrictions. "If you need anything, you can call my cell phone, and if I don't answer, you can always call the store, or Millicent, I'm sure you'll be able to reach me there. But if you can't, call Peyton or Haley and they'll be here right away to check up on you, okay?"
"Okay, I will," I nodded to her one more time.
"I'll see you soon," She whispered to me, leaning forward to wrap me in a strong hug. I followed her movements; leaning my body inward to meet her in the middle as the tiniest of laughs towards her concern emitted from the very base of my throat… But I regretted those motions almost instantly… I wasn't ready for that much movement, that much excitement yet, and before I knew it, that familiar scratchy constriction overpowered my windpipe, begging me for a release that I refused it until Brooke was safe out of sight… I didn't want to concern her; I didn't want to keep her from doing her job on my account, especially when it was probably over nothing… I mean, I was getting better, the doctor said so… right?
I sealed my lips tightly, holding my breath in a determined fashion in an effort to plug my cough at mid-point in order to prevent Brooke from feeling any more hesitant towards leaving my side… After all, I knew that any physical acknowledgment of me being much lower than my acceptable threshold of health towards Brooke would mean that she would stubbornly sit at my side and worry herself to death all day long… And I couldn't be responsible for doing something like that.
Brooke turned her back away from me and out towards the door just as I began to feel my face redden with heat. The plug of mucous currently blocking my air passages was contracting involuntarily up my trachea, begging for the release that I wouldn't give it; I couldn't have been more grateful that Brooke's back was currently turned away from me.
My eyes watered, my lips began to turn blue; Brooke appeared to be moving at half-pace out the door, unknowing how much harm she was actually doing in her hesitancy to leave…
To breathe or not to breathe; that was the question now, I guess.
With ears intensely poised, I listened as the door slowly swung shut, concentrating as the savoring hymn of the doorknob clicking back safely into its lock filled my ears; the alarm that told me I was in the clear, the confirmation that it was finally safe to let loose.
I chocked and spluttered; the dramatic build-up of my upheaval much more pronounced due to the fact that I had been waiting for so long to accomplish it. For a solid five minute time period I gasped for air like a fish out of water in an effort to breathe, but slowly… very slowly, the blockage in my throat eased upward, and eventually, my air passages were cleared, and I could finally breathe again…
It felt like heaven… Well, I mean, everything I'd imagined heaven to feel like anyway…
It was only after I took a couple steady, deep breaths; only after my lungs relaxed and thanked me for the oxygen they so desperately craved that I finally allowed myself to lean backwards, eyes closed, concentrating solely on regulating my breathing patterns; in and out, in and out; deep, controlled breathing, just what I needed…
Ultimately, it was another person's voice that physically pulled me back into a state of conscious thought.
"I thought you were supposed to be getting better." I didn't even have to open my eyes to see who it was; my heart released a glow throughout my body, prominent through the smile on my face as my body physically warmed and my muscles felt at ease; just like what always happens whenever Jack walks into the same room I'm in.
I eased my eyes open carefully as he took a couple of small, hesitant steps forward, stopping only when he felt like he was at a safe distance from me… I guess yesterday had left him traumatized or something… But I couldn't blame him too much, if I'd seen me in the state that I'd been in yesterday, I'd probably be traumatized too. In fact, I was surprised that he'd even come back at all after everything I'd put him through in the past few days.
"I am," I responded to his question with an assuring tone, but the laugh I'd formed in an effort to properly convince him got lost behind a cough, which probably just made things worse than they already are. "There's no miracle cure, Jack, things like this take a while." I figured I'd be honest with him… I needed to regain his trust, and there was no way in hell I was gonna do that by lying and pretending that I was miraculously better.
"Oh…" His voice faded out and eventually dissipated, leaving me to believe that he did in fact believe that when my doctor told him I was better today, by better she'd meant infection free, cancer free, and all-in-all back to the normal Sam he'd known before he'd left for Charlotte… If only, right?
"It's fine, Jack; I don't want you worrying about me too much; I'm gonna be fine." I promised him, consciously shifting over in my bed in a silent indication that it was safe for him to move closer.
He picked up on my attempts almost instantly, and without another word, he shuffled his feet awkwardly closer towards my bed, his feet dragging with every step, his face showing prominent hesitation towards whether or not he was doing the right thing; but no matter how unsure he was, the only thing that truly mattered was that after a while, he finally ended up directly at my side, which is honestly where I really wanted him to be to begin with.
"I bought you a present." He recognized the swift dead end our previous conversation had fallen into and re-routed the subject almost instantly, speaking with a distinct pride behind his voice towards his accomplishment of gift-giving as he began to dig through his jeans pocket for said present.
"They had to like… disinfect it and crap before I bought it in here, but it probably needed to be disinfected anyway, so…" I watched as his hand submerged from the depths of his pants, dragging a shiny black iPod out along with it… "The nurses said that it would be fine for me to bring it."
My face instantly glowed with the revelation; the prospect of my favorite past-time of sitting in my bed criticizing music with Jack prominent in my mind, the pure nostalgia of it all making me feel instantly better on the spot.
"I put this weird band on here the other day, it's kind of like a combination of Insane Clown Posse and Kid Rock… It sucks pretty bad, should be pretty fun to listen to and make fun of." He nodded alongside his explanation, and I matched his expression, ready to take Jack and fall back into the habits of the simpler times in my life…
"Well then let's make our ears bleed…" I patted the open space on my mattress next to me, silently beckoning Jack to join me, watching as he jumped into action instantly, seemingly just as ready as I was to get this rolling… And then, just as suddenly, he paused; his legs half way over the protective bedrails before he stopped moving.
"Am I like… allowed to be next to you?" The fact that he even had to ask me that question made me roll my eyes with the ridiculousness of it all, the pure unfairness… But amidst all of these stupid rules and crazy isolation procedures, there was one thing that I'd become desperate for, and that was pure, unadulterated human contact; human contact that I've been deprived of for the past day or so… I practically pulled Jack forwards onto the bed next to me.
"Of course you are." I told him, watching as he got settled into the mattress, simultaneously inching my body closer to him until finally, we were laying shoulder-to-shoulder, squeezed onto the uncomfortably small bed like sardines; but alas, sardines that didn't exactly mind being so close to each other.
He looked at me hesitantly, but I ignored it, instead choosing to grab the small ear bud from besides my hip, plugging it into my ear in an effort to change the subject away from how I was feeling and instate that sense of normalcy into my life that I so desired.
In an instant, the sound of heavy drumming and distorted guitar solos filled my ears to a point of intense discomfort. Despite the fact that before all of this, Jack and I had developed a routine of listening to our music so loudly that our ears rang inside of our heads and our hearing suffered for a solid twenty-four hours, this wasn't before… this was… this was after. Today, the music didn't make me feel better; in fact, it simply made me feel if possible, even worse, as the noise went straight to my head, trapping itself between the bones of my skull in such a way that made my head spin to a point that I got physically dizzy. My eyes began to water instantly as my chest heaved uncomfortably and my stomach performed impressive flip-flops that made me feel like I was getting sea-sick or something… I guess that up until now, I'd positively forgotten just how sick I really was, everything had been going so well… Up until now, that is.
I closed my eyes and attempted to concentrate on absolutely anything other than this noise currently conducting itself like an orchestra of nails on a chalkboard across my head. I tried to go to my happy place, tried to physically meditate the pain straight out of my body, but nothing worked.
"Hey, are you okay?" Even after Jack shut the power of the iPod off, the pounding pain continued to overtake my entire body until it was impossible for me to even so much as see straight.
"Yeah," I slowly massaged my temples as I began a miniscule grin that actually came out as more of a grimace as I nodded my head using the most limited amount of movement that my body could physically tolerate as was possible.
"You just got really pale, that's all…" Concern laced across his face as he began to channel Brooke in his relentless interrogation of my health…
"I've just got a little bit of a headache, that's all." Jack shifted uncomfortably the instant I'd made this revelation. He sat up swiftly and suddenly, positioning his body so that he could fully look over me as if he was making a physical effort to literally pinpoint the exact microbes that were currently floating around inside of my bloodstream making me as sick as I was.
"Is this normal?" He asked my uncertainly, and I suddenly noticed that he had become very fidgety underneath all of the pressure of the possibilities of me getting sick again. "or is this… you know, from all of that stuff that happened yesterday?"
I grinned in an attempt to offer Jack the slightest bit of comfort in an otherwise very uncomfortable situation. The truth was, I wasn't exactly sure whether or not this was normal or if this was indeed part of that so-called 'stuff that happened yesterday', but even if I didn't actually know, that didn't mean I couldn't lie about it…
"It happens sometimes… The chemo, you know?" I shrugged my shoulders, watching as Jack lay back down flat on his back next to me, flexing his arm so that the back of his head was resting against his outstretched palms, staring up intently at the ceiling, becoming suddenly and silently very focused, very transfixed on the various bags of medications dangling on the pole over my head so that they strongly resembled some kind of fucked up little mobile like the ones you hung over baby's cribs when they slept…
He stared determinedly up at the ceiling while meanwhile, I stared determinedly over at him, watching as his face contorted into a look of confusion as he attempted to make sense out of the names and the colors and the necessity of all of the fluids currently being pumped into my veins.
There was a couple moments of silence in which the entire time, I just watched Jack's head as it twisted and turned in an effort to get a better look at everything as his eyes squinted and his neck subconsciously tilted upward in an attempt to read the fine print labeled across the small plastic bags… It served as a stark and sudden reminder; a reminder about how new Jack was to all of this, a reminder about how intimidating it all must have been to him, to come into the middle of this mess completely uninformed, unaware, and unexposed to the situation around him…
Jack had told me once before that he was sick of always being the kid left in the dark… that was about the same time that I told him that I was gonna make sure that he never had to be the kid left in the dark ever again. And I wasn't about to chose this moment to go back on my word… Not now, not ever.
"The whitish one is called Ceftazidimide." I spoke the only words that I could really think of saying right now, the only words that I really thought would simultaneously act to comfort both myself and Jack… There was a safety in knowledge, I knew that, and I was about to take advantage of it. "It's an antibiotic, they're using it just to make sure that I don't develop pneumonia from this infection I have… And that clear one over there, that's called Cipro… it's another antibiotic, I think it's just to treat whatever it is I actually have…"
"That's the stuff that's making you better?" He listened carefully, asking his questions as their moment came, and even though I didn't truly know the answer to that question, I answered it positively anyway.
"That's the stuff that's making me better."
"And what's that stuff over there… the one in the black bag?"
"Chemo," I replied to him with a small sigh and a simple explanation, but my single word was so powerful that he barely needed anything much beyond that, "They've gotta put it in that bag… Something about protecting it from UV rays or something like that… I don't' really know, I never really understood all that crap."
"Can you feel it at all?"
I turned my full attention over to him and shrugged my shoulders a little bit; I never really thought about that before. I guess now that I was actually concentrating on it, I guess that swooping feeling of a steady stream of cold overtaking my veins was prominent in my body… Or maybe in my heightened sensory state, I'd just imagined it; but whatever it was, it felt kind of weird.
"I guess… just it coming in a little bit." My eyes travelled downward unconsciously until they landed on the port catheter in my chest that was currently acting as the reservoir for all of the medication I'd just described. I found myself becoming slightly subconscious when I noticed Jack's eyes following my own, meeting mine at the same place in the center of my bony chest.
"Does it feel weird?"
"At first it did, I guess… I don't know, I don't even really notice it anymore. It's kind of become… a part of me, as weird as that might sound." I felt as my hand suddenly bent upward on its own accord, the muscles moving despite themselves, inching the appendage forwards slightly until my fingertips grazed gently across the circular lump precariously positioned underneath the skin of my chest.
My vision had become so tunnel-visioned and focused on the task in front of me, that I literally jumped a little bit the second I felt Jack's smooth hand brush across the back of my own. His palm brushed smoothly across the sensitive skin on the back of my hand; before I knew it, my hairs were standing on end as goose bumps began formulating in the pattern of a steady grin along the length of my body.
"Will it ever come out?"
"Yeah," I laughed confidently, "As soon as I get better." I nodded my head firmly along with my sentence, providing a sense of finality to my response, leaving Jack with a sense of definiteness towards the fact that I was indeed going to get better at all.
"When's that?"
I turned my head purposefully to look into his eyes; the expression I saw told me that he knew the answer to that, that he knew I had absolutely no idea when that would be, but if it was up to me, or if it was up to him, I would have been better before I was even sick…
"Soon,"
Our eyes met in such a fashion that directly linked our pupils, seemingly physically locking them into each other, forced to watch as our expressions fell into looks of faltering belief, that single notion, those unwavering what-if's powering through the both of our heads, despite my best assurances….
I was suddenly very, very appreciative towards the fact that I wasn't here alone. My heart was fluttering; I felt like a little ten year old girl on the elementary school playground, talking to her friends about her first crush again… Everything that I loved about Jack just seemed to overpower my brain with a sudden swoop that would have knocked me on my ass had I actually been standing… I'd never felt this way before, but I must say; I liked it.
I didn't even notice my body unconsciously leaning in closer and closer towards him until our lips were practically touching. But finally, with a mere millimeter of space left between us, I snapped back into reality; my brain focused, and my muscles regained their voluntary function, pulling me backwards and into focus before I could get myself into more trouble than I could ever possibly get in with Brooke being left in charge of it all.
I hadn't even noticed that I was unconsciously leaning in closer and closer towards Jack until our lips were practically touching; and with a millimeter left between us, I snapped back to focus and pulled back at the last second.
"What's wrong?" Jack asked as concern filled his eyes and he instantly became fearful that he'd done something wrong.
I shook my head gently in embarrassment and leaned back against the pillows. Despite the fact that I had previously found myself unable to tear my eyes away from Jack's, I was suddenly very determined to look anywhere but directly at him.
"I don't think that I'm allowed to kiss you." I mumbled under my breath so that the words were barely audible as my cheeks flushed dark red with their treacherous inability to hide just how embarrassed I actually was.
"Well… am I allowed to kiss you?" He asked, flashing me his typical lop-sided grin; the one that tugged painfully at my heartstrings every time, making it that much more difficult for me to flash him a sad smile as I shook my head slowly.
"I don't think so." I said, finally turning my face back up towards his. "It's part of my precautions… Besides, I've got the chemo in me."
The sly expression that had been previously stark across his features vanished instantly at the realization that all of this was beyond his typical playful teasing… He let out a brief sigh and for a hot second, I was afraid that he was going to positively declare his insistence that this was all just too much for him; that he couldn't deal with having a girlfriend, or even just a friend who was as sick as I was… It was all just too much; too much pressure, too much responsibility, and you know what, I understood that, really, I did… Or at least, I tried to convince myself that I did anyway.
That's probably why I was so shocked when instead of pushing me away; he actually pulled me in even closer, tilting my head towards him until his lips came in contact with my temple, lingering there for a moment until he shifted his shoulder and pulled my head into the crook of his neck where it fit with perfect contortion.
"We'll figure this out, Sam." He whispered into my ear, his voice so quiet that I'd almost missed it.
I made myself remarkably comfortable against Jack's bony shoulder, relaxing my body into his own as his hand made steady up and down motions along the length of my thin upper arm.
We fell into silence comfortably, leaving the air full with an unspoken bond lingering between us, so strong that we didn't even need any words to fill it in.
We found ourselves lost in such perfection that I should have known it was destined to get ruined eventually. A word to the wise; nothing as good as this is will ever last forever, no matter how much you want it to.
My phone rang shrilly, the extended pang of my text message ring tone cutting through our silence like a knife to the heart. I groaned with an exaggerated sigh, automatically shifting my body away from Jack so that I found myself shivering involuntarily at the sudden loss of body contact.
"Ignore it," Jack begged me, and I laughed at him, rolling my eyes as I reached towards the bedside table where I knew my phone to be somewhere within the depths of Brooke's bag.
"I can't," I explained to him, "It's probably Brooke, it I don't answer it she'll think I'm dead or something; and then she'll rush back here all hot and bothered and then you'll have to leave because Brooke is here and I'm only allowed one visitor at a time in this stupid room, and then the whole day will just be ruined anyway."
I pivoted my body uncomfortably, thrusting my hand into the bag so that the sudden movement rattled my chest painfully so that a harsh cough escaped from my throat before I even saw it coming, sending my entire body into fitful spasms that shuddered all the way up my arm so that the bag I was holding over.
I watched in slow motion as it toppled sideways, obviously landing in the most inconvenient position possible, face down on the tile, so that all of its contents scattered in every which direction, littering the floor with various knick-knacks, a few papers, and obviously, my cell phone, which slid across the floor, coming to rest just out of reach underneath my bed.
"I've got it." Jack spoke up so quickly that I'd barely had time to comprehend how much of a mess I'd just made before he pulled himself off of the bed and fell down to the floor on his hands and knees in an effort to collect the various accessories that Brooke had been storing in her over-sized purse.
He plucked things off of the floor effortlessly, tossing them half-hazard onto the bed just to have somewhere to collect them before he lunched underneath it in an attempt to reach the cell phone that still stored Brooke's unanswered text message somewhere inside of it.
My eyes drifted away from Jack just as he extended his arm as far as his muscles would possibly allow him, trailing over the scattered mess across my bed top in a vaguely interested attempt to identify just what it was until finally, I scanned across a specific piece of paper, doubled back, and focused and what I'd accurately believed was my own name staring back at me.
"I can't reach it," I barely heard Jack announce as I focused on the paper in front of me, picking it up in between my hands, glancing over the official-looking print in an attempt to identify just what it was.
The familiar logo of Tree Hill Memorial Hospital blazoned boldly back at me from the upper left corner of the page, below of which held a full-bodied, professionally constructed letter that I dove into with careful interest.
Dear Ms. Davis,
The THMH Department of Financial Services has found that you currently have an outstanding bill related to the treatment of Samantha Davis that occurred between December 15th and December 19th, 2011 for $15,274.
My eyes widened at the impossibly large sum of money staring back at me, bolded and underlined to ensure that I hadn't in fact read it wrong…
But fifteen grand? No way, this couldn't be right; there was absolutely no way in hell.
I scanned across the provided list of charges; all of the treatments and medication I had received between the short time frame of last Thursday and today, each equipped with their own impossibly large price tag stamped conveniently right next to it, followed by a second paragraph right below it.
I read onward, feeling my eyes bug out further and further with every line that I read.
'Further, our records have shown that your daughter Samantha Davis is currently not covered under any health insurance plan. Please note that should you require any financial assistance in regards to your medical bills, you may be qualified to apply for government aid. If you have any further questions, please contact our billing department at (710)-384-9803.
"What's that?"
I'd been so wrapped up reading this ridiculous letter that when Jack popped back up next to me, extending my newly fetched cell phone in his hand, I jumped a little bit from the shock of his sudden presence.
"I'm not sure." I sighed, finally forcing my eyes away from the note so that I could grab the phone, finally flipping it open to reveal that I had been accurate in my prediction of an awaiting text message from Brooke.
I stared down at her name staring back at me through the florescent glow of the screen and my mind began to race… Yup, I definitely wasn't sure what the hell was going on here, I wasn't sure at all, but apparently, there was somebody who did…
It looks like I might have a bone or two to pick with a certain Brooke Davis before this day was up.
BROOKE
Some days I honestly just wish that while I'm driving, somebody will just pull me over, take away my license, and lock me up for the rest of my life…
Why do you ask? Well I'll tell you exactly why…
I'd made the decision to head over to Clothes over Bro's early this morning with the God's honest intention of only staying there for an hour, maybe two, simply out of the kindness of my heart in an effort to help Millicent as she performed the tedious task of making sure that today's scheduled delivery of new clothing to stores all across the country had not only made it on time, but had also made it to the right place.
I'd arrived at the store around nine after a quick pit-stop for breakfast and coffee with Peyton with a firm plan in mind. My initial intentions were plain and simply; I would go to the store, do my thing, and then, if all went well, I'd be out the door just as quickly as I'd come in… After that, I would run home, grab some stuff for Sam and I, and then, finally, I'd grab some lunch at the drive thru of McDonalds or something, drive back to the hospital, and there you had it; a full day's worth of accomplishments completed by noon… 1:00 at the latest and that would be that…
I shouldn't have to tell you that things didn't actually work out that way… I should have known they wouldn't, my life never works out the way that should… You would think that I'd have learned my lesson by now…
I guess not.
The most important thing that you needed to know was this; despite my original intentions of being out of Clothes over Bro's by ten or eleven, by the time I actually did fix the mess that was delayed clothing shipments and a shit-ton of misplaced orders, and by the time everything finally had settled down long enough for me to actually feel comfortable with my ability to leave the store, it was already dark outside.
So I skipped my other plans; the trip home, well that wasn't gonna happen, meaning that I was gonna be stuck in the same clothes I'd been wearing since Saturday for at least one extra day, and lunch… well, considering it wasn't even lunch time anymore, I wouldn't be going to a McDonald's drive thru any time soon… Instead, the plan had shifted to me racing my ass back to the hospital thirty miles per hour over the actual speed limit which my friends, is why I needed somebody to pull my ass over, take away my license, and, subsequently, lock me up for the rest of my life.
Despite previous prediction of Sam cold and lonely, weeping for her displeasure towards my extended absence, when I returned, it turned out that she looked no worse for the wear… At least, she was no worse than how I'd left her, which was all I could really hope for, I guess…
She was sitting up in her bed, watching the TV on mute with a blank look on her face as she performed her prescribed breathing exercises with the tiny portable volumetric exerciser they'd given her yesterday in an effort to help increase her lung capacity or something like that so that she could ease the infection out of them quicker… I don't know, I didn't really understand it myself, but the doctors here had gotten us this far, I trusted them.
I paused at the doorway, feeling myself fall into a zoned-out daze as I watched her silently until finally, she noticed that I was standing there, pausing mid-breath with her cheeks puffed around her like a chipmunk.
"Sorry I'm late." I finally spoke, stepping further into the room as Sam released the tubing from her mouth and stared up at me open-mouthed and silent as if I'd just spoken to her in Japanese or something, "I just got caught up at the store, that's all."
I dropped my bag on the floor, slinking down into a chair where I twiddled my thumbs, feeling surprisingly awkward when Sam didn't say anything, just passively continued down her merry way with whatever it was that she was doing.
Her refusal to speak to me was starting to make me very suspicious. I couldn't help but wonder if she was mad at me or something, but now I was just trying to figure out exactly what she was mad at me about…
"Where's Jack?" I made small talk, easing into confrontation slowly.
"He had to leave," Sam spoke between breaths, "Visiting hours…"
She used as few words as she could and I could have sworn that I caught the slightest tone of accusation behind her voice.
"How are you feeling?" I asked for the sole purpose of getting her to speak again, trying to pin-point whether or not I'd made all of that up or if she really was mad at me.
"Pretty much the same,"
This time there was no missing it. There was definitely something different about the tone in her voice, but I had absolutely no idea what it was all about… But I sure as hell was going to find out.
I opened my mouth with the intentions of confronting Sam, of asking her what the hell was the matter with her, but before I even had the opportunity to, Sam spoke up once again, intercepting my words before they even had the opportunity to roll off of my tongue.
"You know, it's pretty crazy that I go through all of this crap and still feel exactly the same as I did before I had to do it… I mean, sometimes I even feel worse, you know? You'd think they'd do a better job with all of this considering all of the money these hospitals make. I mean, I probably wouldn't pay for this crap, especially not if it cost me $15,000."
She put an emphasis on her final word, and for a split second, I was even more confused than I had even been before.
I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times, looking like a fish out of water as I searched for something to say in response to that… And then my eyes wandered away from Sam, drifting down to the papers sprawled out across her lap… Papers that looked awfully familiar.
Shit.
"You found the letter from the billing department." I sighed, making my words into a statement as opposed to a question.
"I found it," She nodded, "But I don't really know what it means." She lost her sense of accusation, her voice now falling into the sound of confusion. "What's going on, Brooke?"
I pulled my chair closer towards Sam, resting my elbows down on top of her bed in an effort to buy myself some more time in thinking up an excuse that could possibly make it seem like there was actually a reason for me to keep this relatively major detail away from her for so long.
"Sam, listen…" I started slowly, just to play it on the safe side. My mind scrambled and I stuttered out a couple incoherent babbles as I searched for the right words to say, but luckily, I didn't have to search for long…
"Sam?" A second voice interrupted my own; one that originated from neither mine, nor Sam's mouth but from the equally familiar mouth of Dr. Miller…
Consider me saved, I guess… for now.
"How's it going with the breathing exercises we gave you, are they working?" Sam gave me a quick look as to let me know that we weren't done talking about this yet, and I physically reeled backwards as if I had accepted my role reversal of her acting as the parent and me the child before she looked passed my shoulder to address the doctor still lingering in the doorway.
"Fine, there fine,"
"Listen, before I leave for the night, I just wanted to let you know that your blood work from this afternoon came back normal and your fever is fully broken… Make sure you get some rest tonight, we'll be able to move you out of here in the morning so you can get back to a normal room, okay?"
Sam nodded her head slowly, a small smirk emerging on the corners of her lips at the news, but I saw the hidden expression beyond the smile, the lingering sickness, the half a shade of extended paleness underneath her cheeks, the bordering threshold teetering back and forth between what was normal and what was a little bit too sickly for my liking…
I knew that Dr. Miller was in fact the doctor in this situation. I knew that she knew better than I did exactly what was going on inside of her body and exactly what her health had made her capable of, but not for nothing here, I was still her mother; I was still the one that saw beyond Sam's health, I was still the one that carried that instinct around at the base of my gut so that despite Dr. Miller standing here telling us Sam was fine, I still didn't like it… I didn't like it one bit.
"I'll see you in the morning, okay?" I gave a brief nod because that's all my brain could really force my body to do at the moment. Sam ended up being the one to actually speak up.
"Thanks," She said it was a perky confidence that I knew didn't match her current attitude; an idea that was confirmed the second the doctor doubled back out of the room, leaving Sam's body posture to waver and sink the second she disappeared.
"That's good news, huh?" I faked confidence as Sam managed to direct a smirk in my general direction.
"Hey, don't try to change the subject here," She scolded me as if I was a little kid who just got caught with their hand in a cookie jar.
"Sam, give me a minute here, okay? I'm still worried about you, you know; how about you let me know what's going on with you first?" She sighed and rolled her eyes at my over-bearing concerned mother card I was currently playing here before leaning back against her pillow.
"I feel fine, Brooke, I feel better… You heard what Dr. Miller said, I'm getting better, really." I stared deeply into her eyes for an extra couple of seconds, my eyes boring into hers in an effort to try and see what it was her brain was truly thinking…
I'm not sure why I was so determined to believe that Sam was so sick when everything around me was screaming at me that she wasn't. But the feeling wouldn't go away, that haze around my brain telling me that I knew better than Sam what was good for her or how she was truly feeling stuck around like a an annoying little sibling.
I didn't have an argument, I didn't have anything to say, anything to back my feeling because there was no physical proof around that wouldn't make me sound like a crazy, over-worried mom that nobody other than me could possibly understand… In fact, the only thing that I could do was sit back and wait for something to actually happen… And if there was one thing that I hated, it was waiting.
"Brooke, what's going on here? Please can you let me know, because there's a letter over there telling me that you owe this hospital $15,000 for my treatments because I don't have health insurance anymore… Is that true?"
She looked upset, she looked worried, and if there were two things that I definitely did not want Sam to be right now, it was upset and worried. So I attempted to give her a comforting smile, placing my hand gently down on her shoulder and taking a deep breath before deciding to tell her the truth, speaking as gently as I possibly could.
"I didn't want to tell you, Sam… I didn't want to stress you out any more than you already had to be."
"Tell me what?" The sound of confused disappointment in her voice was probably the worst part of being caught in this trap I was in.
"After I adopted you, Sam, the government sent me a letter that said that because you're not part of the state anymore, the government isn't funding your insurance plan anymore and that I would have to add you onto my own plan in order to get you insured." I explained carefully and slowly, speaking with the least descriptive words that I could manage.
"Okay… so, what… this is like… a mistake, or something? You're just waiting to get me onto your plan and then they'll take care of all of this?" The way she'd asked her question told me that she didn't believe her own words that came out of her mouth, she was just hoping that I would tell her just that.
"They told me that they won't cover you because you're already sick." I chose not to beat around the bush anymore; instead, I was very blunt with her, letting her know the situation for what it was.
"But… But how can they do that?" The pain in Sam's eyes at the injustice of it all killed me; I mean, what kind of fucked up world do we live in where not only do they give my daughter cancer, but they also take all of the treatment away from her.
"I'm trying to work it out Sam, really, but it might… It might take a little while longer than I originally thought it would."
"And until then?"
"Until then, I've got it covered and I don't want you to worry about it." The way she looked at me told me that she understood that by 'I've got it covered' I really meant that I'd be paying $15,000 every five days for God only knew how much longer out of my own pocket and I could tell that she wasn't very happy about it… she wasn't happy one bit.
"You can't do that, Brooke." She sighed, looking down at her folded legs, refusing to stare at me at all. "I can't ask you to spend that much money on me."
"You're not asking me Sam, it's not a question… It's just something that has to be done."
"But it's too much, Brooke."
"Hey, you listen to me," I stood up from my seat and lowered my body down on the end of Sam's bed, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and steering her eyes up to mine so that she knew that whatever it was I was about to say, I meant it. "I don't want you to worry about this anymore, Sam. You are my daughter now, and I will do absolutely anything that I have to in order to make sure that you get better. That is all I want you to focus on right now, okay? I just want you to concentrate on getting healthy again and you let me deal with all of those corporate bastards over there trying to get me give all of the money their wives spent on my clothes back to them."
She let out a small smile towards my comment that I matched until her miniature laugh dissipated into a harsh coughing fit that wiped the smile off instantaneously, concern etched into my expression as Sam's coughs faded away until a couple wheezing breaths and then, nothing.
"Are you okay?" I pushed myself off of the bed and hovered over Sam so that I could fully survey her body and see just what it was that was going on with her.
"Yeah, yeah… It just happens every once in a while… I am recovering from a chest infection you know, Brooke." She tried to laugh it off but that residual glimpse of pain on her face ruined it for me.
"Sam…" I started, but Sam cut me off before I could finish the sentence.
"Listen Brooke, I'm fine, I promise. You heard what Dr. Miller just said, I'm getting better, I'm feeling better, but I am still getting there…" She must have seen the ways my eyes narrowed untrustingly, or the look on my face that showed just how worried I still truly was… She knew me way to well for my own good.
"I'm just worried about you Sam…" I admitted to her, being truly honest with her for the first time all night. "After what I saw yesterday… Listen, I just never want to be that scared ever again. So if you're not feeling well, or something seems to be going wrong, you have to let me know, okay? Please Sam; I just want you to be honest with me."
"Like you were honest with me, keeping all of that stuff about the insurance from me?" She opened her defense mechanisms up instantly, trying to turn the subject away from herself and onto me as I sighed and took a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to regain my bearings.
"That's different, Sam," My voice came out about an octave lower than it normally would, but it gradually raised in volume the more I spoke, more out of worry than anything. "I did that to protect you; this isn't about a stupid bill or some ridiculous insurance policy, this is your life we are talking about here Sam, and I am not willing to gamble anything as important as that is."
We had the briefest of stare downs and I watched as Sam's eyes filled with threatening tears that never actually fell. For a second, I thought I might have gotten to her, I thought I might have made her realize just how it made me feel to see her like this… I thought that maybe, she would actually open up to me and tell me just what it was I wanted to hear, but just w hen I'd gotten really confident that she was about to do just that, she said the exact opposite instead.
"Is that it?"
"Sam…" I tried, but I didn't know what else to say, I didn't know what else I could say, what else I could do to break through that tightly sealed barricade that always prevented her from ever truly opening up to me in the way that I wished she would.
"I'm just tired Brooke, I kind of want to go to bed, okay?"
"Yeah…" I sighed, backing down because I wasn't about to deny a sick girl her right to get the sleep I knew she needed, no matter whether or not she was actually lying to me. Besides, it probably was for the best that I left this one be… for now.
"I'll feel better in the morning, don't worry yourself so much, Brooke." She told me quickly before flipping over onto her other side so that her back was facing me, falling silent instantaneously.
I lingered briefly against Sam's mattress before standing up, lifting the blankets slightly higher above her shoulders, tucking them tightly underneath her body before hovering for an extra moment or two…
"You know that's what I'm here for, Sam." I whispered in response to her comment, knowing full well that she'd heard every word I said as I took a step backwards and sunk into my awaiting chair, strategically positioned and stocked with all of the tools that I needed in order to keep my eyes on Sam throughout the entirety of the night.
With my eyes wide, I refused to stray from my post, staring unwaveringly as the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes eventually to hours… I knew that I shouldn't be thinking like this, I shouldn't be so negative, but I couldn't help it, I couldn't help the fear that flooded through my veins, the worry that made me physically shudder under the pressure about what the hell it was that we could ever possibly do to get ourselves out of this mess…
These relentless thoughts circulated through my mind, dissipated across every vein, capillary, and organ so that it filtered and flushed inside of me like a relentless dose of caffeine, ensuring that sleep wasn't going to be so much as an option tonight, ensuring that I was going to remain right here where I belonged well into day break; spending close watch at Sam's sleeping bedside for yet another restless night…
…I mean, what's one out of a million anyway, right?