This chapter was written after the fic's completion. It gives some insight into Faye's life as a teenager.
Sweet MiseryBy: Rynn Abhorsen
**San Francisco Hospital**
The fluorescent lights glared through the girls closed eyelids; she crinkled them up, but only succeeded in making her dizzy. The table was cool, smooth metal, making her skin beneath the thin hospital gown pull up into goosebumps. She shuddered as they made her turn over on her belly, for another CAT scan. Letting her breath out in a quiet whoosh, to avoid their notice, but it was in vain. The doctors began to clamor again, speaking in hushed insincere voices. Her mother held her hand, stroking each finger softly, trying to avert the girl's attention to anything but the pain thrumming throughout her young body. Whispering in a voice thinly concealing panic she said (ooo look phobia, said) "Don't worry Faye. We'll have a big party for your fourteenth birthday; you'll be well by then. Everything will be alright."
Faye turned over again at the doctor's command, wrenching herself free of her mothers grip. Lying on her back, the pain rose up, settling in her head. She wanted so bad to rub her temples but she couldn't, that would pull out the intravenous tubes that had been administered under anesthesia. Her eyes shot open as the doctor murmured demurely; "good job so far Faye, now we'll need a blood sample."
The teenager began to shriek, in pure animalistic fear, crying in a hawks scream. Her body was racked with sobs, her mother still trying to calm her down as several doctors flung themselves on top of her, compressing her lungs. A nurse pushed through the pile, stabbing a needle, once twice into the Faye's arm, injecting a strong sedative to calm her down. Faye kept screaming, even as the voices became blurred, and her eyes became heavy. Slipping off into sleep, she felt the tube being inserted, she screamed, screaming until her voice was hoarse, but no one heard her.
**Two weeks later**
Faye sighed as she shuffled into the hallway, pulling along the stand, which held the chemical drips. Her bare feet slid smoothly over the wooden floor of her home, as her mother followed in silence. It annoyed her to no end, more than the pain, but how people acted as if she was either going to die, or nothing was wrong. Closing her eyes she stopped, whispering weakly to her mother, "Mom, it's ok, I can get the mail by myself. And I need to be the first one to see the results."
Her mother protested, but only for a moment, before going into the kitchen and began furiously stirring the batter for a pie. Faye smiled inwardly, her mother made pies whenever she was upset, but this was the most, sixteen. Their house smelled like a bakery, which was infuriating to Faye, who wasn't hungry at all.
A soft noise alerted her to the fact that the mail was here, lying calmly on the welcome mat. Faye willed herself to move, ignoring the burning, searing bile rising in her throat. Bending slowly down, inspecting it for anything worth reading. Bills, the divorce proceedings, junk, and a large manila envelope. Faye picked it up, running her pale fingers over the rough surface. Everything, the tests, the whispers, the pain, it all came down to this envelope, which held her life between it's paper arms. She wondered if the person who mailed the results stopped to read it, if they cared about the thirteen year-old who this was for, if the news would make them jump for joy or cry.
Her mother dropping a spoon in the kitchen, and a choice word brought her back to reality, back to the paper beneath the envelope. Her hand rose of it's own accord to the rim of the envelope, but wavered as it began to rip the seal off. Faye took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and ripped it off in one sweep. A simple white paper fluttered to the floor, the hospital's emblem just visible over the seam. Faye realized she was still kneeling down, reaching for the paper. She picked it up, ignoring the doctor's text and began to read:
Patient's Name: Davidson, Faye A.
Age: 13
Test Results: Leukemia, terminal.
The room began to reel as Faye let the paper drift slowly to the floor. That one word, terminal was waiting to end her life, lurking beneath the edges of a disease. As Faye began to breath again she whispered, "Now every breath, every heartbeat matters."
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A/N: short I know, but this was written after the fact. Next chapter gets back to the present storyline. The phobia of needles and the mom baking was taken from personal experience. Please review.
Namarie, Rynn