A/N: So ff stopped freaking out and finally allowed me to add another chapter. Thank god. It's almost over...and thank you so much to everyone who has followed, favorited, and especially reviewed this story. I'm terrible at replying to comments, but I go back and read them all like 10 or 20 times and they make me ridiculously happy.
Chapter title from 'My Love' by Sia (which you should really listen to while reading because it's perfect and amazing.)
On Monday, Cassandra isn't in school.
Jake tries not to freak out about it. Or about the fact that even though he's stopped by her house, and even called a few times, she hasn't answered. Maybe she's just catching up on lost sleep. Maybe she caught the flu bug that's been going around. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
He tries to turn his mind over to his classes, but it only half works. So after school when Zeke tells him the gang's going down to the city for a movie night, he agrees. If he stays home he'll just be waiting for a call from Cassandra, anyway.
The movie is some dumb action movie that he usually pretends to love, but tonight he just can't summon up the energy for it, so he goes outside to get some air.
The wind is cool against his bare arms, and when he looks up at the night sky he's disappointed to only be able to make out a few dim stars. He remembers how he'd pointed out the constellations to Cassandra the other night, and suddenly there's a tightness in his chest and he realizes where this restlessness is coming from.
He misses her.
When Cassandra slips into her house in the early hours of the morning, she closes the door quietly behind her. With all of her nervousness, she hadn't even hoped that the date would have gone so well. She's on cloud nine - cloud nine - cumulonimbus - level nine - 40,000 feet - 40,000 goes into 200 200 times - 200 A.D. was a leap year - frogs - frogs hopping catching catching falling -
She doesn't even realize what's happening until a searing pain shoots through her skull and she feels the jarring crack of the floor ramming up against her body.
She screams - she screamed, didn't she? No one else would have - but no one comes. Not for an age, a decade - an eternity. No, eternity is illogical - irrational - pi is irrational is 3.1415926535897932 - 32 is the sum of the totient number for the first 10 integers - integers - her dad teaching her about rational integers at the kitchen table eating breakfast - breakfast tastes like breakfast but oranges smell like stale parchment -
"Cassandra! What the hell -"
- is bees buzzing bees stinging stinging hurts -
"Get her in the car, we're taking her to the hospital."
- is 14 squared 14 is the third discrete semiprime - discreet like when she didn't tell anyone about the time she burnt herself on purpose - burning burning hot burning hurts -
She knows how long it goes on for. 7098 seconds until the flashes until the burning fades away and she loses consciousness. 7098 seconds until eternity ends.
When she comes to, she's in a hospital bed surrounded by glaring white surfaces. A pang of the bitter taste of weak coffee explodes on her tongue - another sensation to add to the growing list.
Her dad is sitting beside the bed - her mom nowhere in sight. Cassandra pushes herself into a sitting position, wincing at the pain that shoots through her skull. "Dad?" She whispers, and his eyes flick up from his book.
"Hey, sweetie. How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine." Cassandra says shortly. "What happened?"
"We don't know yet." Her dad admits. "You had some sort of siezure. The doctors want to run some more tests before they tell us anything."
"Oh." Cassandra swallows. "I - okay."
Just then, a nurse opens the door. "Oh, good." She says brightly. "You're awake. Is there anything I can get for you?"
"No, thank you." Cassandra focuses on her hands, folded on her lap, and not the hospital walls and the ever-strong taste of bitter coffee.
"Alright - I'll just go grab Dr. Carter then." The nurse smiles as she slips out the door. Cassandra breathes in. Breathes out. Concentrates on the folds of her skin and the coolness of the hospital sheets. Breathes in.
The rest of the day goes by in a whirlwind of one test after another. She has a physical, then an MRI, then an MRA. She doesn't know a lot about them, but she can see on Dr. Carter's face that whatever it the result is, it isn't good. Her suspicions are confirmed when the doctor turns to Cassandra's mom (her dad slipped out while her mom took over), and says, "Could I speak with you outside?"
"No." Cassandra blurts out. Both the doctor and her mom look over at her with a cautious expression. "I just," she continues, "I want to know. I need to know. And there's never going to be a good time to tell me so just - just rip the bandaid off, okay?"
"Alright." Dr. Carter says in a resigned voice, then settles down into the chair beside the bed. She has a look of reserved pity on her face that scares Cassandra more than anything. She takes a deep breath. "Cassandra, you have a tumor."
Cassandra laughs.
She laughs because this is hilarious, this practical joke they're all playing on her. Because she can't have a tumor - tumors happen on bad reality shows and in news articles, tumors don't happen to 17-year-old girls who live in Oklahoma and have never been more sick than having the flu.
She laughs until she runs out of breath, and then her lungs suck in more air to fuel the sobs the laughter somehow turned into.
She doesn't really hear the rest of the conversation. Surgery, chemo, radiation therapy, survival rate, biopsy. She knows that last one involves a needle going into her brain, and she should be scared, she should be terrified, but instead she's just - numb. Empty.
And even though there are so many more things she should be thinking about, she misses Jake.
"They moved."
The words come like a shock to his brain. "What?"
"Yeah. Apparently there was some sort of family emergency, so they moved back to Manhattan over the weekend. Crazy, right?"
Jake can't even begin to process the words that Zeke is spitting out with a tone of distanced boredom. They couldn't have left. Cassandra wouldn't. Not without saying goodbye.
Would she?
"This is where we can get the best treatment for you, honey." The words coming out of her mother's mouth are barely registering as Cassandra takes in the tiny apartment, strange in its familiarity. The apartment is new, but the city she's settled into like a second skin. She can feel herself slipping back into the person she used to be, before Oklahoma. Before Jake.
I'll call him. She tells herself, as she sets about to unpacking her things.
She never does.