A/N: Hey guys, this is just me reminding you guys for the reviews and suggestions for any improvements I could make to keep coming and to read all the chapters leading up to this one and the other books. Please also keep in mind that strong themes of bereavement and mental health issues will feature from now on for quite a while across all three books, and so if you are sensitive towards that topic, I ask you to keep that in mind before continuing to read on with the trilogy. Thank you so much for your continued support, and I hope you have a good day whenever and wherever you're reading this!
Chapter 32 – Rachel
"Thank you," I said to the nurse who was helping me sit more comfortably in my bed as the most recent bouts of chemo had left me pretty damn weak. On a positive note, I was overjoyed to see Mike, who'd decided to give me a surprise visit.
"That looks far less comfortable than you make it seem," Mike commented, brows furrowed as he clearly tried to think about how that would actually work.
"Honestly I think that it's more that I'm just so used to it by now that it doesn't really bother me any more," I said, attempting to shrug it off with a laugh. "Anyway how are the kids and Phoebe these days?" I asked, trying to divert the conversation away from my ill health, as it was hardly a good conversation starter.
"They're pretty good," Mike said, sounding genuinely happy as he spoke, but from the twitch of the corner of his lip when he finished talking, I wondered if there was something more that he'd wanted to say but suddenly had thought it was better to not mention.
"That's good to hear," I said, trying to keep the fact that he might be hiding something from me had made me feel a little on edge out of my tone or body language.
We exchanged smiles, apparently not quite sure what to say to each other. I opened my mouth a few times to comment, but thought better of it every time. In the end, the silence that had hung between us felt far too tense for me to bear, and so I decided that I just had to go ahead and say at least something.
"How's Ross and the girls and Ben?" I asked, immediately regretting that I ever said it from Mike's ever-so-slight flinch when I'd spoken.
Just as it seemed that Mike had been able to formulate some kind of response to my question, the door to my hospital room opened and I saw my oncologist holding that clipboard that I knew held my charts.
"Dr Evans," I said as she looked up at me as she came to take up a seat on one of the empty seats beside my bed. "My visitor today is a dear friend of mine and the husband of one of my other dear friends Phoebe, Mike."
"Nice to meet you, Mike," Dr Evans smiled, turning to face Mike on the other side of the hospital bed so that they could shake hands.
Once both of them felt like they had sufficiently introduced themselves, Dr Evans turned back to me. I took a deep breath in, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. "Would you like to hear the good or the bad news first?" she said, both eyebrows furrowed as it was clearly a question she didn't want to have to ask.
"Bad," I half-whispered, something hard suddenly pressing against my airways as I spoke. I fought the urge to look at Mike to see if he was taking this as badly as I was.
Dr Evans was silent for a couple of minutes, supposedly agonising over the best way to tell me this inevitably bad news. It looked as if she was really having to try quite hard from the deep frown of her eyebrows and although she was trying to hide it, generally pained expression.
"Your cancerous cells have started to spread, although it's too early to determine exactly how far they will spread or the overall severity, and until we have a better idea of that, we cannot start any kind of treatment for them," Dr Evans said, her tone suddenly rather too loud for me to bear, even though I knew that it couldn't be as loud as I was envisioning it to be.
Feeling suddenly cold all over, I turned to Mike to see if his reaction would ground me in any way, but I saw that he looked white as a sheet and felt no better, albeit worse than I'd been feeling before.
"The good news is that it means that whilst we figure out what the best next step for your treatment, we'll be able to send you home for a couple of weeks," Dr Evans said, breaking the silence between us clearly trying desperately to offer us even the smallest bit of happiness.
"That's good to hear," I said to Dr Evans, trying my absolute hardest to pull off a smile because I really did appreciate her efforts to try and improve the situation for us.
"Yeah," Dr Evans agreed. "Having kids myself, I know that it can feel like the worst to have to be away from them, especially for how long you and some of my other patients have to," she added, with a sympathetic smile.
I nodded. "I'm sure they'll all appreciate me being around more even for a little while, especially with winter break coming up," I said, trying to look and sound as joyful as I could.
"If neither of you have any questions you'd like me to answer, I'll leave the two of you to digest the news," Dr Evans said, as I shot her a grateful glance.
Shutting the door of the hospital behind her, Dr Evans left. Immediately, I turned to Mike and said, "Are you okay?" even though I knew that his answer was likely to be no, I just needed a conversation starter to avoid the awkwardness that would settle between us otherwise.
"I guess, but that doesn't seem like a question you should be asking me, it should be me asking you that," Mike replied back to me.
"Fair enough," I chuckled. "I think we both know the kind of answer I'd give right now."
Mike chuckled along with me, mostly out of politeness towards my attempt to add to the conversation with some humour.
"When you're telling the others about my health, could you leave people like Monica to find out from me telling her and not through someone else?" I asked Mike, trying to make sure that he understood of how desperate I was to lessen the blow of the fact that there was ultimately a very high chance that I'm close to losing the battle altogether with cancer.
"Of course," Mike said. "It should be you to break the news, and I don't think any of our friends would want to take that away from you."
"I know," I nodded at Mike. "All of you guys are literally the best people ever."
Mike just grinned at me and honestly, I couldn't help myself but grin back just because I felt so happy and supported.
A/N: Hey guys, this is just me reminding you guys for the reviews and suggestions for any improvements I could make to keep coming and to read all the chapters leading up to this one and the other books. Please also keep in mind that strong themes of bereavement and mental health issues will feature from now on for quite a while across all three books, and so if you are sensitive towards that topic, I ask you to keep that in mind before continuing to read on with the trilogy. Thank you so much for your continued support, and I hope you have a good day whenever and wherever you're reading this!