"April I don't know what to do with him." Missy said over the phone "I think maybe you should come over here and see him."
"How bad is he?" Asked April, starting to get concerned
"Bad. He won't get out of bed for anything. April, he's seriously depressed. I've never seen him like this so I don't know how to handle it."
April sighed "How long has he been this way?"
"Since… since we came home from vacation. At first I just thought ok well the vacation took more out of him than we thought it would."
"But there was more to it that that."
"Exactly." She sighed
"I'll be over as soon as I can. I don't know what I'm going to do but I'll be there."
"Thanks April."

They hung up and Missy sighed. All she had to do now was wait for April's arrival and hope that she would be able to reach out to Bam and maybe at least get him out of bed. Right upstairs Bam lay in bed with a permanent frown on his face. He refused to eat and the only time he moved was to change his position. Most of the time when he wasn't sleeping he just lay there silently staring off into space. He often had tears in his eyes and usually there were streaks left on his face from tears that actually managed to fall. He hardly talked, even to Missy. Whenever one of his friends came by to try to coax him out of bed to go out and have some fun, he quickly denied them and shooed them away, saying things like there was no point in him even getting out of bed.

April quietly entered the room and stood by the closed door. She looked over at the bed and instantly her heart sank once she saw Bam. The sight of Bam laying there all depressed surly was a difficult sight for her to take. She approached the bed and then lightly placed a hand on his side. He looked up at her with almost coldness in his sorrowful eyes.

"What are you doing here?"
"Missy called me about you."
Bam looked away and rolled his eyes "Great. That's just what I need. My mother to come here and check up on me." He sighed with a little frustration "I don't need people coming here telling me how much they're worried about me. I don't need anyone coming in here and trying to get me out of bed or to come in here thinking they're going to cheer me up. You know why? Because it's completely pointless."

She sat down beside him and just sat there quietly studying her son. Reaching over with one hand, she brushed Bam's hair back. As she brushed his hair with her hand, Bam looked up at her, feeling tears forming in his eyes. He realized then that his mom was both the last person that he wanted to see right then and the person that he needed to see the most right then.

"Bam," She said, a little softly, as she wiped a stray tear off of Bam's cheek "Why do you have to feel so sorry for yourself? That's not you."

Bam turned his head to look away from her, trying to blink away some tears. He laid quietly breathing and trying to avoid April's eyes. As he lay there he tried to think of a way he could answer her. Part of him wanted to kick her out of the room and part of him wanted to talk to her and tell her everything that was on his mind.

"Mom…" He closed his eyes for a second; feeling more tears "I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm just realizing the truth about things."
"Ok, well, what have you realized?"

Bam sighed and looked at her. He paused to try to straighten out what exactly he wanted to say to her.

"I…" he took a breath "I might as well just give up right now, and I already have."
"Give up? How could you just give up?"
"Why not? The cancer's already beaten me. There's no point in me even trying to fight it. All I really can do is to wait to die."
April shook her head "Bam… who or what put that nonsense in your head?"
"It's not nonsense. It's the truth. Why am I the only one who can see that?"
"I can't believe what I'm hearing, Bam. What happened to my real son? The real Bam is very stubborn and a fighter. The real Bam wouldn't let anything or anyone stand in his way."
He glanced at her "Well I guess that Bam is gone. Maybe I'm just finally thinking logically for once. Did you ever stop to think about that? I thought that you would have practically thrown a party once you realized that I started thinking logically instead of with my balls."
"How can I be happy about my son just giving up? Bam you were doing great with fighting the cancer. So you've had a little set back. Well you know what? That's going to happen with cancer. You're going to go through all kinds of things with this. You could easily beast this, in fact you were well on your way to beating it. And now you're just going to give up?"
He stared at her for a moment "Yes. I'm giving up. I already told you that fighting this is completely pointless. I knew from the very beginning that I as going to die from this, but up until now I've been in denial. I gave up. And I wish everyone else would give up too."
"Well I told you the real Bam was stubborn. I just with you'd be stubborn about the right thing."
He sighed "Mom… please I'd rather that I was left alone right now. Thanks for the talk that went absolutely nowhere." He turned away from her and buried his face into his pillow

April nodded her head and stood up. She walked over to the door and placed a hand on it before looking back at Bam.

"I guess keep right on feeling this way, Bam. We'll all be here when you decide to come back."

She opened the door and headed out of the room, going back downstairs to see Missy.
Over the next few days Bam remained in bed that way that April had left him. His condition worsened drastically as he lay there not doing anything. From his depression, not eating or even drinking water, and not having any kind of cancer treatment, his cancer had taken a turn for the worse. Missy had begged and pleaded with him to get out of bed and to go to the doctor to receive chemotherapy. But each time she would ask him he refused. Everything to him was "completely pointless". He absolutely refused to budge off of his idea that there was no reason for him to do anything except lay there and wait to die.

One morning Missy had gone into the room to check up on Bam. When she entered the room she heard soft whimpering coming from beneath the covers on the bed. She went over to the bed and gently sat down near Bam, placing a hand on his side.

"Bam?"

Bam sniffed and whimpered as he pulled the blanket off of his head. He lay there shaking and curled up in a ball. Tears streamed down his pale face and he looked as though he could barely hold his eyes open.

"I-I can't take this." He said quietly "I've never felt this sick before in my life."

Missy stood up and grabbed a tissue from a nearby box. She sat back down on the bed and then used the tissue to wipe away Bam's tears and a little bit of snot from the end of his nose. After throwing the tissues away she looked at Bam and ran her fingers through his short hair. His continued to cry as she sat there trying to provide him comfort. He also shivered a little, causing his lip to shake. Missy placed a hand on his forehead and frowned.

"Bam you're real warm."
"But I'm fucking freezing!" He said through his tears
"I'm calling the doctor."

It didn't take very long before Bam was at the hospital. Even thought after being in his hospital room for a while he was starting to feel physically better, Bam still lay there in the bed quietly crying and feeling emotionally drained. He was conflicted on how he felt because on one hand he still felt like just allowing death to come but on the other hand he hated himself for treating himself so badly. He hated that he had convinced himself to no longer fight the cancer. He wished that he didn't wind up putting himself in the hospital partly because he had hoped on dieing peacefully in his own bed at home. His friends and family came in to visit him but all he could do was look down and cry the whole time they were there. The thing that he thought about the most as he lay there in sorrow was he wanted more than ever to go home.