Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87152 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87152 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“Maybe you should log in from home today.” She takes a seat across from me at the small, square table positioned in front of a sunny window. The kitchen is cheerful, if cluttered. Then again, it would be pretty much impossible not to clutter a kitchen this small. Somehow, Grandma made it work—pots and pans hang from hooks embedded in the wall, and the shelves Grandpa made before I was born hold small appliances that don’t fit on the small counters. Grandma insisted we bring the shelves with us when we moved.
The room is drenched in love. Right now? I would rather be anywhere else in the house, since the aroma of Grandma’s scrambled eggs has me fighting off nausea.
Maybe she is right, and I should log in and review my coursework from home today. Usually, it’s the day after treatment that knocks me on my ass the hardest, but today I feel even worse. Yesterday I was able to power through, but perhaps I overdid it.
“You can’t push yourself too hard, sweetheart. You know that.” Her face wrinkles deeper than ever as she picks up her cup of tea and takes a sip after blowing across the surface of the steaming liquid.
“I promise. I know my limits.”
She is not convinced. “The thing about limits is, sometimes, we don’t know we’ve hit them until it’s too late. Like taking a long walk and figuring out you’re worn down, but then having to turn around and walk home. You have to stop before you’re too tired to get back.”
She means well. I know she does. She has a point, too. I guess being alive all these years means she’s learned a thing or two.
But there are things I know. Things I might have told her about, but let’s face it, she doesn’t know how it feels because she didn’t go through it. Feeling like an animal in a zoo, being watched and pitied everywhere I went. All it took was one person overhearing a conversation I had with a school counselor for the news to spread like wildfire. Emma has leukemia. That day, I might as well have gotten a brand burned into my ass. Victim. Poor thing. So brave.
Yes, even being thought of as brave came off as an insult after a little while. I mean, brave? As opposed to what? Digging my own grave and hopping in? I stopped being a person. Even my friends didn’t know how to act around me anymore.
Only someone who’s been through it would really understand.
At times like this, the best I can do is offer a compromise. “How about I go to my first class, and if I’m tired afterward, I’ll come home? I have to at least try.”
The clinking of the spoon against the mug as she stirs her tea tells me how she feels about that idea. With a sour twist of her mouth, she gives in. “I want you to call and check in with me after class.”
“What, you think you need to check up on me?” It takes more energy than I should probably spend to put on a happy face, to reassure her. I only have so much energy every day. Some days are better than others—this is not a great one.
And maybe I am being too stubborn by insisting on going in today. There’s a reason they made a special exception for me, with permission to access my classes online as much as I need to. I should probably try to take advantage of that arrangement, right? But no, instead, I have this constant need to prove myself. To whom? Considering nobody beyond the administration knows I’m sick, it doesn’t really make much sense.
Maybe I just need to prove it to myself. That has to be enough.
Once I’ve swallowed everything I can manage to get past my lips, I clean up after myself before Grandma can give me grief over how little I ate. The fluttering of wings on the other side of the window over the sink draws my attention—the bird feeder hanging on the other side of the glass attracts more and more of them all the time. We might be living in a new town in a different state, but some things never change. Like Grandma’s love of animals.
The surroundings have definitely changed, though, and not for the better. Not that my grandparents ever had a ton of money—they lived pretty frugally when Grandpa was alive. But their neighborhood was cheerful, a place where everybody knew everybody else and looked out for each other. It’s going to take time to build that sense of community here, where all I’ve seen so far from the people living on either side of us is wariness or suspicion. Maybe a mix of both. Wondering what brings us here. Wondering if we’re going to upset the balance.