Moving In With R5
~Chapter Fifteen~
When you're five years old, there's alot of things you're left in the dark about.
One thing is that the world secretly sucks. Like, big time. No one tells you how bad it is until you're old enough to be thrust out into the world, totally unsuspecting and then you have to deal with all on your own, only you don't know how because no one ever prepared you for it.
But sometimes you don't have to be very old for life to throw something your way that you weren't expecting. That you weren't ready for.
Sometimes you only have to be five years old.
Five years old, sitting in the waiting room chair after you've had bloodwork done, swinging your legs back and forth and sucking on a red lollipop even though you told the nurse you like yellow better (who the heck likes red lollipops anyways?) and all you wanna do is go home so you and daddy can put togther the model airplane you've been itching to get your hands on since you unwrapped it on Christmas morning.
But Ross isn't a stupid kid. Actually, he's very perceptive. So when he sees his mom walk out of the doctor's office with tears streaming down her face, he figures that maybe that model airplane will have to wait a little longer.
He discards the red lollipop, but the taste still resinates on his tongue. It tastes like cough syrup and that reminds him of being sick.
A different kind of sick.
A much, much different kind of sick.
The car ride home is quiet. Ross keeps glancing up at the radio dial. Whenever he and his mother were in the car together, they would turn on the radio and Ross would sing (even if he didn't know the words, he'd improvise and mumble words that sounded like they could be the right ones) and his mom would always smile at him fondly and tell him how silly he was.
Ross liked those car rides with his mom, but he guesses this isn't one of those car rides.
He wants to ask what the doctor said/did to put his mom -a woman usually so bright and cheerful- in such a sour mood.
But Ross stays quiet and continues to flit his attention from the dial to his mom, hoping maybe she'll get his mental message and turn on the radio.
She never does though.
When they get home he notices how worried his dad looks. Had his dad looked that way before they'd gone to the hospital? He doesn't think so. This morning everything had been normal. Mom and Dad had made breakfast. Ross had asked about the model plane. Rocky had teased Ross about being such a nerd over his dumb plane. Mom had chided Rocky. They'd all eaten breakfast. Then mom said Ross and her needed to go to the hsopital. On the drive there she had turned on the radio.
Everything was perfectly normal.
But nothing felt normal anymore.
"Ross, honey," his mom bends down to eye-level with her son, "why don't you go play outside with your siblings?" Ross nods briskly and his mom nervously glances over her shoulder at her husband. "Your dad and I need to talk, and.. and then I want the three of us to... have a tlk togther."
"Okay." The word comes out in such a small voice that he's not sure he even said it, just thought it. But nevertheless, he goes outside and plays with his siblings.
Riker and Rocky are playing football and Rydel is on the sidelines cheering, holding her toddler brother in her arms.
"Rydel, can I cheer with you?" Ross asks timidly. He pretends that his mind doesn't keep wandering back to the house, and what his parents are talking about, and why they are acting so strange. At least his siblings are acting normal.
"Sure, Ross. You can cheer with me." She smiles brightly at him.
"Ross, you're such a girl!" Rocky yells, snottily.
"Rocky, be nice!" Rydel yells back.
But Ross doesn't mind the teasing. That was normal. And right now, he'd take all the normal he could get.
When his parents usher him back inside, he's scared. Because he literally has no idea what this is about, but he thinks he might be getting answers to his previous questions. Only he's not really sure he wants to know these answers.
They sit him down, and for a while neither his mom or his dad say anything. They keep looking at Ross and then at each other. Ross, and then each other. They don't know how to start the conversation, so Ross decides to take inititive, because the silence is worse than anything else.
"Is this about why mommy was crying at the hospital earlier?"
And just that question makes Stormie look like she's gonna start crying again. She covers her mouth with her hand, letting out a whimper of pain from somehwere deep within her heart. How do you tell a child they have a terminal illness? How do you try to explain something so horrible to someone who won't fully comprehend it? How do you force a child to grow up because their life is suddenly in danger?
Mark, seeing that his wife is struggling to produce any noise that actually resemble words, answers his son. "Yes, it is."
"And is this why you guys are suddenly acting so weird?" He fires another question at them immediately.
More hesitantly this time. "Yes, it is."
"Is this about the nurse lady who stuck me with a needle this morning, and the gross red lollipop?" He crinkles his nose in disgust at just the thought of it. Man, that lollipop was really gross.
"Ross you have leukemia," his mom finally speaks, letting words spill out of her mouth and putting an end to her son's game of twenty questions.
"Oh." His mouth forms the word, and stays like that. He brain works hard to figure out what that is. He doesn't know what it is, but from the way his parents broke the news to him, he doesn't think it's a very good thing.
"Do you know what that is?" His dad asks, eyebrows knitted togther.
Ross shakes his head. "No, is it bad?"
"Ross, do you... do you know what cancer is?" And she can't help it, but she just fucking looses it right then and there. Her eyes flood with tears and she's just sitting there trying to explain all this to him, but it's breaking her heart.
His face sets into a look of deep concentration. Did he know what that word meant? He'd heard it used before. He was pretty sure he had at least. Maybe the doctor had used that term? Yes, he was pretty sure it had something to do with doctors and hospitals.
"Leukemia is a type of cancer, a blood cancer," his mom informs him through sobs and hiccups.
"And cancer is an illness. An illness that makes people really, really sick. It's not good," his dad contibutes.
"And I have it?" he points a finger back toward himself, just in case there was any confusion.
His mother shuts her eyes, doesn't say anything, and nods.
He doesn't say anything either, as silent sobs rack his mother's body. He was the cause of her unhappiness, he didn't like that.
...
When he's six years old he starts kindergarten. He hates it because he's older than everyone else in his class -having been born in December- and it's just another thing that makes him different than the other kids. The normal ones.
Life goes on though. He's gone through a biopsy and treatments and lots of doctor's visits. The past year is nothing but a blur for Ross as it all went by so quickly. Yet while it was happening it felt like it would never be over. Finally, there's a hault in his life. No treatments for awhile. They say he's doing good, but he still has cancer so he's not good just good enough that they don't have to be concerned about it so intensely.
School starts off fine. He doesn't exactly get along with the other kids, and his teacher notices this. She tells Stormie and Mark that Ross is the only kid who doesn't socialize at recess.
They listen intently, but insist that it's not a big deal. Ross was shy and quiet by nature, he'd make friends eventually.
And he does. He starts to hang out with a few boys in his class. His parents are satisfied. His teacher stops harassing them about it.
Then the bruising starts.
"Ross, whats on your arm?" one of his boy classmates inquires, pointing his index finger at the blond boy in question. This grabs the attention of everyone else as well.
Ross looks, noticing the giant purple bruise on his arm. He sees all the people staring back at him -the overwhelming amount of people looking at him, waiting for his response. He tugs his sleeve down, self-conciously.
"It's just a bruise...," he quietly answers, nonchalantly.
"Why do you have a bruise?" The kid laughs, but Ross finds nothing funny.
"No reason," Ross responds mechanically as he focuses on the toys in his hands, instead of the kids who are teasing him.
But the kid won't let it go. He laughs. "You have a bruise and you don't even know how you got it?" His tone is harsh, his lips are curled into a cruel half-smile. "What, are you stupid?"
A few of the other kids start to snicker. Ross doesn't look up at any of them though, he just ignores it. His eyes harden, tears prick the hazel orbs, but he refuses to cry. He won't cry. He hasn't cried about his cancer yet, and he will not finally succumb to it now in front of all these kids.
He turns the building block around in his small fingers, examining the toy carefully. He didn't really care about the block, but focusing on something else made it easier for him not to think about the cancer and calm down. That's what he always did when he thought he was about to cry.
"Eric," the teacher pipes up from her seat at the desk. She flashes him a stern look. "That's not a nice word. We don't say that word in this classroom."
"Sorry, Ross," Eric says, but he doesn't sound the slightest bit repentent.
"It's okay." He doesn't look up, He doesn't have to to know that the kids are all still staring at him.
Finally, after a few minutes of silence, Eric and the other kids move to a different table. Ross is left by himself. He doesn't care much though. He thinks that this how it will always be from now on. He will feel alone. Isolated from other people.
He labels the two tables: 'Where I sit' and 'Where the healthy kids sit'.
He puts the blocks away, destroying the tower he had created. Ross grabs his jacket off the back of his chair and shrugs it on. It covers his bruises.
Out of site, out of mind.
But not out of his system.
...
He's approaching seven, and things are only getting worse.
The bruising is getting worse (and now he's getting bruises in places that can't be covered by clothing).
The teasing is getting worse.
His teacher begins to contact his parents again.
"What are we gonna do, Mark?" Stormie asks, clearly distressed, one night after dinner when it's just the two of them. Her husband just shrugs.
"We could always take him out of school. He could be homeschooled or something." Mark puts down the paper to give his wife full attention.
"I think it's more than that," she sighs and sits in the chair across from Mark. "I think he needs a change of scenery."
Mark raises an eyebrow, skeptically. "You mean, like, move?"
"Maybe." Stormie bites her lip.
Mark seems to share her hesitance. "I dont know about that, sweetie. Uprooting the family, just because Ross hates school. I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"It's not that he hates school, Mark! He's being singled out and bullied because he has cancer!" She yells, feeling upset and stressed out and tired all at once. Her irritated tone of voice surprises Mark. He knows she's been stressing out over Ross's situation, and he feels bad too. He doesn't like the fact that his son is being picked on, and especially the reason they're picking on him for. In fact, it takes all his willpower not to go down their and straighten those kids out himself, but he knows he can't do that. He can't threaten kids to leave his son alone.
But he also knows that Ross isn't their only child and they can't just make an impromptu decision like moving.
"Honey," he says quietly to his sobbing wife. She wipes away her tears. Mark opens his arms for her and she immediately falls into his embrace. He smooths down her hair. "It's gonna be okay. We will get through this. We always do."
She continues to cry. "Why the hell did it have to be my son?! My baby!? Why?!"
"We'll get through this," he whispers again. "We always do."
Only they've never had to go through something quite like this before.
They didn't anticipate that their son would go to the doctors for a check-up, and they would find something wrong with the blood test. They didn't anticipate that it would turn out to be cancer.
They didn't anticipate that they would be cancer parents, but they were.
...
Ross goes to school with that familiar pink hoodie draped around his shoulders. The boys make fun of him for wearing a hot pink hoodie to school everyday, but he doesn't care. His teacher tries to get him to take it off everyday. "Ross, aren't you hot in that sweatshirt?" she'll say, but Ross always shakes his head. The teacher knows why he keeps it on, so she doesn't press the issue too much, but she can't help but suggest the idea of ridding himself of the jacket everytime she sees him wipe his forehead.
It starts off as a normal school day. They make fun of him for his pink jacket and his bruises by calling him a girl or a wimp or some not-quite-as-nice words.
But then things get worse.
Much, much worse.
The teacher tells them all to go to bathroom and wash up before lunch. Ross respectively washes his hands and he goes for a paper towel when someone grabs his hand and yanks him back.
Ross comes into contact with the ground, a solid thud resonates through the bathroom as he does.
Eric and two other boys smirk down at him, and he doesn't like the look they're giving him.
It's then that he realizes that it's just the three of them in the bathroom.
Ross quickly gets back to his feet, but the three boys push him down again.
"Where do you think you're going?" Eric snarls.
Ross doesn't say anything, he just tries to get up again.
"Grab his jacket!" Eric demands, and before he can react the other two boys jump on him and rip the jacket off of his body.
"Give me my jacket!" Ross screams at them, his hands clenched into fist as he's now seething with pent-up agression.
"You want your girlie jacket back, Ross?" Eric taunts in a snotty tone. He's smirking menacingly at Ross. "Then take it from me."
Hesitantly, Ross reaches for the jacket, but he's too slow. Eric pulls it back and punches Ross in the stomach. That knocks the wind out of him. He looses balance and stumbles into the stall behind him.
And then all three of them are punching and kicking the shit out of Ross, and he can't get up or fight back or do anything. He's loosing conciousness. His body aches with exhaustion because he's currently getting his ass kicked, and he hasn't eaten all day, and his blood is thin enough already from him being anemic. His head hurts. His chest aches. The world is becoming less like a world and more like a blurry mess of colors and shapes. They're still pounding on him, and it hurts -it hurts like hell, beleive him- but the pain is bearable. Because he's been through worse. He's been through so much more pain than this, and he actually genuinely laughs because they think they're hurting him, but really this is nothing compared to other things he's been through.
That is until Eric reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pocket knife.
"Woah, where'd you get that?" One of Eric's cronies asks, his tone dripping with fear and his eyes bugging out of his head.
"My dad gave it to me," Eric answers proudly, his lips still curved into that sinister smirk. The blade glints in the sunlight streaming in through the tiny bathroom window.
Ross gulps loudly -audibly. He thinks that they're gonna start tearing through his flesh, but fortunately they don't.
No, their targer is his jacket instead. They grab the jacket and Eric begins cutting through the hot pink material. Ross isn't being held down anymore, but he can't get up. The pain is too strong. He's gasping, panting for air because he barely has any left and his lungs are burning from the lack of oxygen.
When he's finally done, he throws all the remaining shreds that use to be a jacket, ontop of Ross. He laughs, and then exits the bathroom, taking his friends with him.
And Ross cries.
He cries on the cold cement floor of the bathroom, a pile of his destroyed sweatshirt setting on his stomach.
He cries when his teacher rushes into the bathroom and finds him laying there.
He cries when she calls the ambulance.
He cries when the ambulance people carry him out of school.
He cries when his mom sees him, completely beaten and tattered and begins to cry herself.
He cries when they get him into the hospital room.
For the first time in over a year of having cancer, he cries.
...
After he gets out of the hospital his parents tell him he's gonna be homeschooled. He takes the news rather indifferently. His parents try to get him to talk about what happened that day, but he never opens up beyond "they beat me up". Mark doesn't push it, and his wife agrees not to push it either.
She spends every day with Ross, being his teacher and all. And it kills her to see him so upset everyday. Finally, she can't take it anymore.
"We're moving," she states abruptly.
These words catch her husband off guard. "What?" He puts the TV on mute and shifts in his seat on the couch to look at his wife, disbelief written all over his face.
"We have to move, Mark. We're moving."
"Honey, please, think about this rationally." He gently grabs her hand and holds it in his own, but she slips out of his grip. She won't have any of it. Mark sighs, trying to be understanding toward her feelings, but he's getting more and more aggravated. "We can't do that, Stormie. Alright? We can't. Our other children -do you remember them? Riker, Rocky, Rydel, and Ryland?- love it here and we can't just rip our kids away from their lives here for Ross's sake."
"They almost killed my son, Mark." Her voice is stone cold. "Do you understand that? This is way beyond bullying. They could have killed him. He could have died." She blinks back tears. "I will not keep my son here," she says, grounding out each word individually to emphasize her point. "I will not make him stay here where he is not happy."
Mark opens his mouth to retort, but Stormie doesn't let him.
"No! You will not tell me that I can't move. I am moving. Ross is moving. And if you're not okay with that then I will take Ross and move without you!"
"Stormie," his eyes soften and his tone does too. He steps forward, placing a tentitive hand to his wife's cheek. It feels cold and wet from the tears.
Stormie is stoic however.
Mark sighs, defeated. "Okay," he breathes out softly, "we'll move."
A single tears slides down her cheek. "Thank you."
He nods, and pulls her into a hug.
He never anticipated being a cancer patient, but he was starting to realize just now what it meant to be one.
...
California is nice.
That's what Ross says everytime someone asks him what he thinks of it.
And he's pretty much being asked that same question over and over again, all the time. Everyone is acting weird again, like they did when he first found out about his cancer.
It's been two weeks in California and they're pretty much completely moved in. His mom comes upstairs to find Ross playing with his model airplane. He moves it across the floor half-heartedly. He loved that airplane. The moment he opened up the package on Christmas morning, his eyes lit up much like the Christmas tree he'd found the present underneath, but that was a different time. A time before cancer and bullies.
"Hey, baby," Stormie coos sweetly to her son.
She sits down on his bed, smiling at him as he gets up off the floor and sits down next to her. "Hi mom."
"How you liking the new house?"
There she went with the questions again.
"It's nice, mom. Really nice," he answers tiredly.
"That's good."
"Yeah..."
Ross looks up at his mom, but his mind wanders elsewhere. He wasn't dumb. He knew this move was because of him. And not just because Rocky had punched his shoulder and said "way to go Ross" when they'd found out they were moving. He knew before he'd even heard news of the move that it was fault. His family was constantly having to do things specially for him. A seven-year-old really shouldn't have to hold as much guilt as Ross did.
"Listen, sweetie," his mom's voice brings him out of his thoughts, "one of my old friends, Ellen, who lives in the neighborhood invited us to her house. Sort of like a 'welcome to the neighborhood' thing. We're gonna leave in about an hour so I need you to get dressed and ready, okay?"
Ross frowns. "Do I have to go?"
"Yes, honey, you do." She ruffles his hair. "Why? Don't you want to?"
Looking at his mom, his stomach churns with guilt. He shakes his head. "No, it's fine. I want to go."
That was a lie, but seeing the smile on his mom's face made it okay.
"That's great!" She gets up off the bed and heads for the door. She turns around when something pops into her head. "Ellen has two daughters; Vanessa and Laura. Laura's your age."
Ross doesn't know why his mom thought that was important information to inform him of, nor does he understand the big, goofy grin on her face as she tells him this, but he nods anyways.
When they finally get to the Marano house, Ross meets Ellen and her husband Damiano, who are both nice enough, but as soon as Ellen sees him she hugs him and coos at how the last time she saw him he was just a baby and he's gotten so big since then. Ross is alittle overwhelmed by the hug, and he feels a little awkward and decides against telling the woman that he's never seen her before in his life.
He meets Vanessa too. Who is much less overwhelming than her parents. She says hi to Ross and then goes back inside the house. And honestly, that's just fine with Ross.
Ross can't help but tease when he notices his older brother staring at Vanessa's retreating figure. "Close your mouth Riker. You're gonna catch flies."
"What?" Riker asks, embarrassed and caught off guard. His face heats up and he grumbles a queit 'shut up' before stalking off to a different part of the yard.
Ross just stands there confused for a second. Because he was pretty sure his mom said the Marano's had two daughters. So if that was Vanessa, then where was Laura?
He searches the backyard for someone he hasn't seen yet, and that's when he notices the little brunette girl holding onto her mother for dear life. She looks absolutely petrified, and he can't really blame her. If his backyard was full of strangers he'd be a little uncomfortable with the situation too.
He sees the girl timidly pull on the end of her mom's dress. Ellen looks a bit annoyed, but she bends down to Laura's level anyway, inquiring what the girl wanted.
Laura, too shy to voice her request in front of all these other people, leans closer to her mom and whispers something in her ear. Ellen seems to know what her daughter is asking for, because she nods and fishes for something in her pocket.
And that's when Ross sees it. Ellen pulls a red lollipop out of her pocket and hands it to her daughter. Laura's face breaks out into a smile. She looks so happy at the sight of the red treat, as if it were something just absolutely fantastic (like a yellow lollipop). She pops the disgusting thing into her mouth and then skips away, back into her house.
Ross suddenly decides that he doesn't like Laura.
He decides there is a distinct difference between him and her.
He likes yellow lollipops and she likes red ones. And how on earth is he suppose to be friends with some who likes red lollipop? Red, stain-your-mouth, taste-like-medicine, lollipops. There was no way.
Yes, when you're seven years old there's a lot your left in the dark about.
One thing is that people will treat you differently (badly) for a variety of reasons. Everyone is put into these little boxes, these catergories that people seem to think actually mean something for whatever reason.
There were millions of different catergories that he would one day learn about, but for now he only knew of the two.
Those who like red lollipops, and those who like yellow ones.
Those who are healthy, and those who are sick.
No, wait..wait. That wasn't right. Ross backtracked. He didn't hate Laura because she was healthy. He hated her because she liked red lollipops.
And he'd dealt with enough people who... liked red lollipops.
He didn't know if all healthy people were the same, but he sure as hell wasn't gonna find out.
If he had to distance himself from healthy people to keep himself from getting hurt, he was pretty sure he could manage that.
A/N
Just a filler chapter sorry. It's not my favorite tbh. There were some parts I think could have been written better but I wanted to get this update out because I don't know when the next one will be. And I'm not gonna lie, it'll probably be awhile before I update again. So, I'm sorry for that. I'm going through a lot of personal shit right now and everythings just kind of a mess.
I wanna thank you guys SOOOOO FUCKING MUCH. You guys are absolutely amazing and seeing all your reviews and support make me feel so much better. From the bottom of my heart, thanks so much you guys!
Kthanxbai!
Morgan :)