A/N: this one's a shortie. Switches between APOV and EPOV, but a new post will come later on today if anyone is reading this at all :) SMeyer owns.
Alice POV
I wasn't sure what time of day it was. I was too tired to roll over and look at the clock, but I couldn't shut my eyes and turn my mind off for long enough to drift into a sleep. My phone was in my palm, my fingers wrapped around it's face, still dead and uncharged since the power shut off. I was staring at the outlet across the room that had my charger plugged in, but couldn't motivate myself to move. I knew this was immature, that life happens and you're supposed to just take it as it comes. But I hadn't cried in a few hours and I was considering my minor victory as enough progress for the day. I wasn't going to try and push it with physical activity.
I opened my eyes when I felt a weight shift at the foot of my bed. Esme sat there, a sad smile on her lips and her caramel-colored hair swept messily off her face in a barrette. A tray of food perched precariously on her lap.
"Hey, sweetheart," she crooned. "Are you hungry?" Her eyes were swollen, and I could tell she had been crying. Luckily Carlisle was still at work rather than having to see us like this.
"Kind of." My voice scared me. It was raspy and hollow, almost dead-sounding. My throat was raw like I'd been screaming, despite the fact that I hadn't spoken in two days. Esme had made me some soup and cut up an apple for me. It made me want to cry all over again at her consideration. I sipped the soup from a silver spoon carefully as Esme stared at my face.
"You need to pull yourself together, honey," she whispered, brushing my cheek with her cold fingertips. "The boys are getting suspicious."
"How bad was it?" I asked hoarsely. I didn't need to explain what I meant.
"With your father? He was upset, needless to say," She looked down to her lap. "He wanted to be the one to tell you. I was going to take you to Port Angeles tomorrow so he could tell your brothers first." The soup burned my raw throat.
"Why did he choose for them to know first? Doesn't he think I'm strong enough?" My voice was pitiful.
"Your reaction is confirming his worst fears and suspicions, Al," she whispered, obviously trying not to hurt my feelings.
"I know," I relented. "I guess this moping isn't really helping." My eyes welled up with tears and I swatted them away angrily. Esme grabbed my hand.
"Pull it together. You need to hold it together, just for a little while. Tomorrow, Edward and Emmett will know, and it's going to get harder. But you need to hold it together for your dad."
"What is it, exactly? Is he scared to talk to me about it?"
"No, that's not it. He is just sort of uncomfortable about it. But, um, he has lymphatic cancer. You know what that is, right?" He voice thickened, her face tightening in a sort of grimace.
"Not particularly. What are his chances?" I figured it was best to get it over with. I hated stuff like this. It was stuffy and emotional and…so not me. I wanted to rewind a week and be in Rose's living room painting my fingernails and catching glimpses of Jasper on his way in and out of the kitchen.
"Well he's got something called Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which is common I guess. So maybe that's a good thing. But he was really frustrated that he never really noticed anything that wasn't normal. He'd been tired, but he figured that he was just working too many hours. And for about a month he had really bad night sweats but I convinced him it was the air conditioner. All the weight loss stuff sort of just added up, too. It was only five pounds, but you know how he's a health nut, so it wasn't too suspicious." She composed herself, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and meeting my gaze.
"So what, was he getting just a normal check-up?"
"Yeah, pretty much. The doctor--it was Dr. Snow, actually—basically had to tell him the news. He says that your dad's just got the rough end of the stick. He's ridiculously optimistic." She must have read my mind, because she snatched my phone from my hand and crossed the room to plug it into the wall. "So unlike you," she laughed with dry humor, "to ever have your phone off." I shrugged with a half-smile.
"How long does he have, Esme?"
"Depends. They caught it pretty early on. Carlisle wasn't even complaining about swollen lymph nodes or anything. They're going to start him on chemo, I think."
"He's going to lose all his hair," I choked, imagining my dad's usually golden head bare.
"Yeah," Esme sighed. "Yeah, he is." Her façade broke then, and she allowed a few tears to slip from her eyes. Emotions weren't really attached to these tears; her face remained composed and her lips were unmoving and relaxed. I clutched her shoulders, leaning into my mother and crying tears of my own. It was so sappy and utterly sentimental, but for the first time in a long time, I really loved my mother.
EDWARD POV
Tuesday rolled by seamlessly. I mostly fooled around in my room all day, messing around with my laptop and even stooping as low as having short and mediocre phone sex with Jessica Stanley. Jasper had hooked up with her when he was a sophomore and she was in my freshman class, and I kind of took her in when he discarded her. Jasper was like that. He didn't date often, he just 'saw' girls, whatever that meant, and dumped them if they didn't put out or just didn't put out well enough. Hopefully he wouldn't try anything on my sister. But I wouldn't get my hopes up.
Emmett beat me several times at some stupid game he'd suckered Carlisle into buying for the X-box, and Esme made us sandwiches. I wondered why she wasn't at work, where she usually was on weekdays, but decided not to ask due to her recently constant crabbiness. She eventually drifted off into her bedroom, shutting the door. I wondered about her when I heard the soft click of the lock, but my attention wasn't held for long as our giant plasma roared to life for another X-box round.
The only thing that happened on Tuesday to even remotely catch my interest was the appearance of Alice at the top of the stairs. It was like the Second Coming. I heard my car crash in the video game as I gaped up at her, my mouth hanging over like a fucking idiot. It was just my sister, after all, coming forth from some weirdo PMS-y temper tantrum. But it was amazing all the same.
"Alice! Resurrected!" Emmett roared stupidly from the black leather couch. He slapped his fist to the cushion beside him, inviting her to sit. Her face was bleached pale, make-up free and frail looking. Her lips weren't covered in their usually shiny peach stuff, and her hair was kind of dull and looked a little dirty. She looked like a train wreck.
"What the hell happened to you?" I asked as she sat, curling her legs underneath her. She stuck her tongue out at me and flipped me the bird. Well, nothing's changed there.
"Nothing, Edward. How kind of you to ask." Her snide remark wasn't lacking in effort and enthusiasm, and I almost smiled at how normal she was being.
"What was up with you going all AWOL since Sunday?" Emmett asked, starting a new game. "Oh and Edward, I totally beasted your ass, by the way."
"You crashed too, dumb ass," I spat, my eyes dragging from Alice's face back to the television screen.
"I got sick, like Esme said," she insisted.
"That's her story and she's sticking to it, Em," I said with a chuckle. "I've been trying to figure it out for days and I haven't gotten anywhere."
The three of us sat there in near-silence, sans the occasional expletive from Emmett and scoff from Alice.
