Magan Vernon - The Only One

“Yes you are, Mel.” She patted my hand.

“People survive this all the time. I’m going to survive. We’re survivors. You and me.”

“I hope so, baby. I just wish I could have been here for you. Took you to your doctor’s appointments. Asked them questions. The only thing I know about any of this is what you told me and what I found online.” I could see the tears welling in her eyes, which didn’t help the ones I was trying to hold back.

“You’ve always done what’s best for me, Mom. Even when you didn’t think you did. I’m glad that I had friends to take me to those appointments and there’s nothing more you could have done.”

“But I could have been here. I could have held your hand. I could have...” her voice caught in her throat as tears streamed her cheeks.

I squeezed her hand. “You did everything just fine, Mom. I’m going to make it through this. We’re going to make it through this.”

When Dr. Rodriguez came in, dressed in blue scrubs, everyone stood up. My mom and Valerie wiped the tears from their eyes and put on a brave face, even though I knew both of them were just as scared as I was. Maybe even more.

“Good morning, Melanie,” she said in her thick accent.

“Morning,” I said, groggily. The medication was really kicking in now and I could barely form sentences.

“We’re going to get you wheeled into surgery now, so I’m just going to ask your family to head over to the waiting room.”

“Okay Dokay,” I mumbled.

“How long will it take? What should we expect next? What if this doesn’t work?” My mom fired off question after question.

Dr. Rodriguez turned toward my mom. “I assume you’re Mrs. Wilder? Yes?”

Mom nodded.

Dr. Rodriguez offered her a warm smile. “The surgery should be less than an hour, but then she’ll be in recovery for a few hours after. We’ll alert you when we have wheeled her into recovery. I’ll do a biopsy after we remove the cancerous cells and then another one in a few weeks after she’s healed. If there aren’t any more cancerous cells, nothing further needs to be done.

“And if the surgery doesn’t work? If she still has cancer?” Mom raised her eyebrow, her voice getting farther and farther away, but I fought my drifting, waiting to hear the doctor’s answer.

“Then we’ll talk about other options such as radiation and chemotherapy. But since we detected it early, I have no doubts that she should be in remission soon.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Mom and Valerie both squeezed my hand and kissed my forehead before walking out of the room, leaving me, John, and the doctor.

He walked over to the bed and leaned over, placing a light kiss on my lips before whispering, “I’ll see you when you’re out, Red.”

* * *

The thing about being put to sleep for surgery is that you lose complete track of time. I could have been out for years and not known it. I wonder if that’s what it’s like to be put in a coma. I didn’t dream. I didn’t even remember falling asleep. But when I woke up, I was in a recovery room and had no idea how I got there. And by looking at the clock, half the day had gone by, and I slept through it.

“How are you feeling, honey?” A gray haired nurse stood over me.

“Super duper.” Obviously the drugs hadn’t worn off because I couldn’t feel much and my brain was in a fog. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, but instead the lady kept asking me questions.

Luckily, my mom and sister came in and the nurse handed them papers and gave them information. They sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher and all I heard was ‘wah wah wah.’ But there was a voice that I was able to make out loud and clear. It was sexy and flowed like caramel.

“I’ll ride home with Melanie’s mom and sister and just walk back to the house. Don’t worry.”

John was still there? And he was in my room? Maybe I had imagined it.

“Okay, sweetie, we need you to get dressed and then we’ll get you discharged before a volunteer comes in to wheel you out.”

I didn’t know if the gray haired lady was talking to me or somebody else so I just stared at Mom. She nodded for me and then the nurse left the room, closing the curtain behind her.

“Do you think you can dress yourself, Mel?” Mom was right at the edge of the bed, staring at me with her brows furrowed. I blinked a few times. God was I tired. If I slept so long, why was I so tired?

“I guess this means we’re helping her,” Valerie said.

I wondered if John really was still in the room. If he was, he would get to see a whole lot more of me than he bargained for.

I barely remembered my mom helping me to get dressed or the giant ice diaper that I wore home. The only thing I remembered about leaving the hospital was being wheeled out into the cold air and then leaning on a warm body in the car. A warm, great smelling body.

“Is she awake?” A faint voice asked.

The great smelling guy gently caressed my cheek. “She seems out of it.” It was John’s voice. It really was him that stayed.

I fluttered my eyes open slightly and looked up at his gorgeous, smiling face.

“Do you think you can walk to your apartment?” he asked.

“Sleeping sounds better,” I mumbled and nuzzled against his rock hard chest.

“This is going to be fun,” Valerie said from the front seat.

“I’ve got this.” John’s smooth voice carried over me and before I knew it I was being lifted in the air. Was I dying? Was this all really just a dream sequence that was leading me to death?

I was floating. Floating and cold. Sweatpants are not meant for November weather. I shivered, but then I was pulled tighter to the warm body and I buried my head against it. It smelled so good, like fresh laundry and sandalwood.

Then as quickly as I was floating, I was brought back to earth. My back pressed against a soft surface and my warm bodied angel wasn’t against me. I moaned and turned to my side, the weight of my ice diaper shifting and causing a trickle of water to run down my leg. “Cold, freezing, cold.” I couldn’t speak in coherent sentences. My tongue was numb.

“Are you okay?” John’s warm breath was on my face. I opened my eyes, slowly. It felt like pulling them through wet cement, but the sight I saw when I opened them was worth it. He was crouched down next to me, his eyes brimming with concern.

“You’re here. You’re really here,” I whispered.

“Of course I’m here, Red.” He ran his fingers along my jawline. “Now tell me what you need.”

“Sleep. And ice on my hoo haa.” I closed my eyes and buried my face in the pillow. My pillow to be exact. I knew that because it didn’t smell sterile like the hospital pillows or like John, so it had to be mine.

His laugh tickled my cheek. “Valerie, I think you can handle the ice part.”

“Will do,” Valerie said. “Can you just help me get her up? I know it’s weird, but you can go after I get her to the bathroom and Mom can help me.”

“Are you sure? I can stay as long as you need me to.”

All I wanted to do was sleep, but I couldn’t stop listening to their conversation. My eyes wouldn’t open, but I tried to keep my ears open and fight the sleep that was overcoming me.

“No, you probably need to get home to your family.” My body was lifted off of the bed, and then I was on my feet.

“I’ll stay here as long as she needs me to.”

Valerie’s laugh tickled my hair. “For a guy that’s not her boyfriend, you’re doing a damn good job of taking care of her.”

“Sometimes you don’t need a title to show that you care about someone.”

I tried to listen, but the longer I stood the more I drifted.

“I think she fell back asleep,” Valerie’s voice traveled over me.

“I’ll put her back in bed.”

My body was lifted in the air and then back onto my bed as if the movements were effortless. I could have dreamed the whole encounter, but it was a dream that I never wanted to wake up from.

My eyes opened to darkness and the sound of my mother snoring in the living room. I moaned and tried to get up, but all I managed to do was turn to my side and then groan when a shooting pain between my legs made me see stars. I closed my eyes hard and bit down on my lip so I wouldn’t scream.

“Hey, are you okay? Do you need a pain pill?” Valerie was at my side, turning on the lamp on my nightstand, with a glass of water and a giant white pill in her hand.

I nodded and slowly, very slowly sat up. My body felt like it had been stuffed in a suitcase all day and it was hard to even stretch out. “Thanks,” I said before downing the pill and the water.

“Here, you better eat something with that. These are pretty potent pills.” Valerie handed me some graham crackers. I didn’t eaten all day and didn’t have much of an appetite so I just stared at them.

“I’m going to sit here until you eat these. So you’re either going to eat them or it’s going to be a long night,” she said, no nonsense written all over her face.

“Fine. Fine.” I rolled my eyes and took a small bite of the cracker.

“How are you feeling? You’ve been pretty out of it.”

“Like someone took a laser to my lady bits.” I said it without any humor and took another bite of graham cracker.

“Ha, well they kind of did.”

“I didn’t say anything too stupid while I was loopy, did I?”

“You did keep telling your hot, non-boyfriend that he smelled really good.”

I blinked. “So he really did stick around?”

“Uh, yeah,” Valerie spoke in a valley girl-like voice. “For not being your boyfriend, the guy seems really into you. He even carried you into your apartment and to the bathroom a few times for me to change that giant ice diaper.”

“Seriously?” I widened my eyes. I thought he’d seen me at my worst, but now the guy was carrying me around when I was out of it and had to take me to the bathroom. There was no way he was ever going to think of me as more than the broken girl.

“I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that. Even Mom was impressed with him. You should probably try to not fuck things up with this one.”

I rolled my eyes. “Val, I’m not going to fuck things up more than they already are. We aren’t together. He just feels sorry for me.”

“Will you cut that out?” Val’s words stopped me. Her normally perky voice turned sharp and got my attention. “You’re always getting down on yourself. Just because that loser, Robby, cheated on you and Dad was a jerk, doesn’t mean that every guy is going to be like them.”

I shook my head. “Valerie, you don’t understand. This guy is a walking one night stand. He’s been with a lot of girls and I even caught another girl giving him a lap dance in his room.”

“Seriously? Maybe you don’t know what you saw. Maybe the girl wanted him and he was trying to get away,” she said, half shocked and half defending.

I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t defend him. You weren’t there.”

Valerie raised her hands. “Hey, you’re the one that said you two weren’t dating. I’m just trying to get the facts straight.”

I sighed. “Val, I’m just trying to get through this cancer stuff right now. I don’t want to keep thinking about what me and John are or what we aren’t. I’ve got enough complications.”

“Okay.” Val nodded and then kissed my forehead. “I was just trying to keep your mind off of things. But I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

* * *

The rest of the week I was stuck in the same routine. I’d wake up, take a pain pill, and then go back to bed. I felt like I was in some sort of old folks’ home and had to be taken care of 24/7. John texted me quite a bit from home and Monica was sporadic with her texts, mainly because she was staying with the Chapmans for Thanksgiving and was nervous as hell around Trey’s family. She promised that she’d be back after Thanksgiving to tell me all about it.

My family was never really big on holidays. My dad was an only child whose parents spent a lot of time in Florida and my mom’s family didn’t really do much. Thus, I didn’t feel like I was missing out by not having a big Thanksgiving. It was one day that Mom didn’t actually have to work, so she came to my apartment, carrying an already prepared Thanksgiving meal from the grocery store that she set up on my coffee table.

“It’s nothing fancy, but it’s not like we’re fancy people,” Mom said, jokingly, but there was a hint of sadness to it. This wasn’t our first Thanksgiving without dad, but it still felt like there was something missing but none of us wanted to say it. I didn’t think Mom even talked to him anymore. He probably had no idea about my cancer and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell him. I didn’t know if I wanted to open that can of worms.