Magan Vernon - The Only One

Dr. Monroe? The one that did my exam? Why the hell would she be calling me after hours on a Wednesday?

“It’s all right. Um, did I forget something?”

“No.” Her voice held a tinge of sadness. “This isn’t a call I usually make, but we received your test results and there was some moderate dysplasia that I think we need to look further into.”

“Dysplasia?” I raised my eyebrows, staring down at John’s striped comforter.

“Yes. The lab found some cancerous cells on your cervix. HPV happens to a lot of women your age, and it’s usually mild, but we still think that you should get it checked out with a doctor here in Central. I’m going to send a recommendation to Dr. Rodriguez and you should be able to get an appointment with her this week.”

Cancer? Doctors? My throat seized and my mouth felt like it had completely dried up. “I-I-I Cancer?” I felt tears pricking my eyes, but they wouldn’t come. I wouldn’t let them. John’s hand was on mine as soon as the words escaped my mouth. His other arm was around me, rubbing his fingertips up and down my arm.

“It may just be pre-cancerous, which means it would just be a simple procedure, but I still think you should see Dr. Rodriguez. She has a practice off of East Street. I’ll email all of her information to your student account.”

“Oh-o-okay.” My voice failed me. Everything came out as shaky as my body. I felt like I was going to crumble. The only thing keeping me up was John’s arms.

“Everything is going to be fine, Melanie. Dr. Rodriguez sees these types of things every day and she’ll take good care of you.”

“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. My heart was pounding so loud that I swore it beat out of my chest. People my age just didn’t get cancer. They didn’t get late night phone calls from too friendly doctors that said the news like they were reading their grocery lists. This couldn’t be real.

“Are you going to be all right?” Her voice sounded too cheery. Too nice for the words she was saying.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then. I’ll get this emailed out to you right away and make sure to call Dr. Rodriguez in the morning.”

“Okay.”

“Goodbye, Melanie.” Her voice stayed even. Like she didn’t just deliver a death sentence to a nineteen year old girl.

“Bye.”

The phone slipped from my fingertips and on to a pile of John’s clothes. Slowly I turned toward him and saw his blue eyes brimming with concern. “Are you okay?”

“I-I.I...” I felt a single tear fall down my cheek and then another. “I have cancer.”

The tears flowed freely as John let out a deep breath, pulling me to his chest and wrapping his arms tight around me. My tears soaked through his t-shirt and I couldn’t stop them. All my energy poured out of me and my breathing came out in short gasps. “Student health called and,” I hiccupped my words. “They want me to go to a specialist, but I don’t have a car to get there and I don’t know who this lady is.” I hiccupped. “And I don’t know what dysplasia is or how the hell I got it. I don’t know what to do.” I cried. I cried until it felt like I didn’t have any breath left in me. I wanted to cry the cancer out of my failing body.

John rubbed my back, kissing the top of my head. “I’m not going to lie to you and say that it’s going to be okay because that’s not what you want to hear.”

I sniffled into his chest.

“But I will say that I’m here for you and I’ll do whatever you need. Do you want me to call Monica to come get you?”

I shook my head, letting out another cry. “No! That’s the last thing I want. I don’t want anybody to know about this.” Including him. Including the guy I just wanted to screw and instead I was slobbering all over him.

“Okay.” He nodded into my hair. “Then I’ll be here for you. I have a car and I can take you to your appointment.”

I shook my head, pulling back to look at him. My running makeup was stinging my eyes and I could barely make out his face. “You don’t have to do that. I’m not a charity case. I’ll take the bus or something.”

John put his hand to my face, wiping away a few tears with his thumb. “I don’t think of you as a charity case. I want to do it. I’m here for you, Melanie.”

I let out a deep breath. “Okay. Just this one time. Then I’ll find my own way there.”

“Okay.” He nodded. His face stayed still as a statue, but his eyes looked like they were on the verge of tears themselves. John pulled me against his chest and hugged me, running his fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes, listening to the beat of his heart against my cheek. His beating, healthy heart.

I didn’t know what my next step was. I knew I would need to call my mom and sister and make the appointment. But in that moment I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think about anything, so I just fell asleep in John’s arms because that seemed to be the only thing left to do.

I woke up in a fog. My mind was a jumbled mess from talking to the doctor and when I opened my eyes, there was a cloud of steam right in my face. That steam came in from an open door where John stood in nothing but a towel.

“Hey, you’re up. How are you feeling?” He took a few steps across the room until he was at the bed and sat down next to me. I tried to focus on his concerned face, but couldn’t help but notice that every time he walked, his towel peeked open, revealing the tiniest hint of his manscaping. I should have been turned on, especially when he smelled so good sitting next to me, but sex was the last thing on my mind. I was damaged goods and he knew it. Who would want a girl that had cancer? I was surprised he didn’t kick me out of his bed right then and there with some lame excuse.

I tried to fluff out my hair and wipe the probably caked on mascara under my eyes as I sat up. It was no use, though. I was a hot mess and knew it without even looking in the mirror. “I’m okay. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to fall asleep or take over your bed in a blubbery mess.”

He put his hand on mine, his fingers warm as he ran them over my knuckles. But it didn’t send any sort of romantic chill over me like it did the night before and I didn’t think he meant it to. “Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. I think you actually handled it better than I would have.”

I let out a short laugh, even though it wasn’t funny. “Yeah, I’m sure you would have turned into a blubbering mess and fell asleep on someone you barely know.”

He stopped moving his fingers on my knuckles and instead traced the line of my jaw, forcing my eyes to connect with his. They were so blue that I could have gotten lost in them. And I would have loved to get lost anywhere at that moment. “I’d like to get to know you better. We may have just started to hang out, but that doesn’t mean I want it to end. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

I let out a shaky sigh. His voice seemed genuine, but I still couldn’t help thinking he was just doing it because he felt sorry for me. The girl with cancer. Not the girl he wanted to hook up with. “Yeah. Right.”

His fingers continued running along my jaw. “I’m serious. Last night I saw a side of you that was completely different from the girl I’d been seeing in class for a week. The girl that always has her head buried in her notes and never misses a day of work even if she was up late the night before. It broke my heart to see you crumble. All I wanted to do was take the pain away. I wished I could have. I might not be able to, but I’ll do the best I can.”

“Why are you doing this, John? You don’t have to pretend like you care and take care of me. I’m a big girl and can handle myself.”

He leaned in, raising his eyebrows. “Okay. Then you need to call that doctor today so I can bring you over there before classes. I skipped the gym for you this morning, but I can’t do it every day.”

I widened my eyes. I didn’t think he was serious about taking me. I thought it was just a nice gesture. “Um. That’s fine. You don’t have to do that. My mom is only like an hour away and I can just wait until a day she can go with me.”

“Are you sure?”

I wasn’t. Ever since my parents divorced she was always working overtime and there was no way she would ever be able to take me to an appointment. I hadn’t even called her to let her know what was going on. Part of me was afraid to even mention it and the other part wasn’t sure if I would even be able to get in touch with her.

I looked down; the tears pricking my eyes again. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. My life had been turned upside down in less than 24 hours.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” I whispered.

John moved over, sliding his arm around my shoulders and pulling me against his bare chest. I took a big sniff, inhaling the smell of soap and men’s body wash. I wasn’t going to cry and cover him with any more running makeup. “How about this. I’ll take you home and you work out what you need to and I’ll text you a little later?”

I nodded against him. “Sounds good.”

* * *

I excused myself to the bathroom while he got dressed. I wasn’t sure if he would drop trou in front of me, but I just needed a little room to breathe. And to see how horrible I looked in the mirror.

All of my makeup had gathered under my eyes, my hair was matted on one side, and I was as pale as a Chicago kid in the winter. Just like I suspected: a hot mess.

When I got back to the room he was dressed in a green hoodie with the letters ‘AM’ stitched on the front and a pair of gym shorts. He looked just as good dressed as he did standing in the towel. “You ready?” He twirled his keys around his finger.

“Yeah. I think so.” I’d managed to scrub the makeup off my face and now just looked like I was sick. Which I guess I was. Cancer. I was a cancer patient. I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. The doctor acted like it was nothing. But this wasn’t nothing. People died from the big ‘C’ word. How was I supposed to keep up with school work if I had to worry about things like life and death?

I followed John down the stairs. A few guys camped out in the common room, their heads down, hair disheveled and faces buried in bowls of cereal. A few nodded in my direction, but most didn’t regard me. They probably thought I was another one of John’s conquests. I wished that’s what I was instead of the broken girl he had to take home after she collapsed on his bed.

Once we got to the parking lot, behind the house, John pressed his keys and a newer, silver Jeep beeped in front of us.

“I can walk home. It’s really no problem. I’m not that far.”

John grabbed my hand and pulled me to the passenger side of the car. “You can, but I can also drive you.” He opened the passenger side door, extended his arm out and ushered me inside.

I didn’t protest and closed my door as he ran around to the other side and hopped in the driver’s seat. Luckily the ride wasn’t too long and I didn’t have to make small talk. That is, until he got to my apartment building. He pulled to a stop at the front, put the car in park, and then looked over at me. “I want you to promise that you’ll call me after you get your appointment.”

“Yeah. I told you that I would.”

He put his fingers to my chin, lifting it up so I was forced to see the seriousness in his bright blue eyes. “I mean it. I want to know that you’re okay and take you to the appointment. If your mom isn’t going and you don’t want me to tell anyone then you have to keep me in the loop on this.”

“Why? John? Why do you care so much? I’m giving you your out. You don’t have to take me anywhere. You can just drop me off and we can pretend this flirtationship never happened.”

He let out a silent breath through his nose. “This may have started out as just flirting, but it got real the minute you cared more about the meaning behind my tattoos than just the body they were inked on.”

I shook my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Melanie, I’ll admit, I wanted nothing more than to fuck you. I just wanted to take the put-together girl and give her a wild time in my bedroom. I wanted to watch you come undone and hopefully underneath me.”

“Real romantic.”

He put his hand on my leg, his expression growing serious. “Then I started to get to know you. It honestly scared me when we were at your apartment and you acted like you wanted more than to just have your way with me. That’s why I left.”

“So you did just want me for sex?” I raised my eyebrows.

“Yes and no. I thought maybe there could be something more, but I couldn’t deny that I still wanted you in the dirtiest ways.” He ran his thumb along the seam of my jeans. “Then I watched you crumble. I never expected you to get that call from the doctor and watching you break made me see a whole other side of you. I want to be your knight in shining armor. To take away the pain. I’ve never felt like this before and whatever we have, I don’t want to lose it. I don’t care if it’s just starting and may be the most fucked up thing. I just want to give it a try. So please call me?”