Terminal

Terminal. Eight letters, three syllables, one word. One word that, to most people means nothing. Nothing more than the place they go to to catch their plane, or bus, or whatever. But to me, it was the difference between life and death. Literally. Though, the thing about that word, terminal, I mean, is that no matter how much you cry or hope, it will invariably lead to the latter. Death.

My ears were still ringing from the doctor's news. Only I couldn't hear anything. Not the sound of my mother's desperate cries saying, "It was just a headache," over and over again. Nor the sound of my father's gentle pleas for my mother to calm down. And definitely not the doctor's soothing words that, if anything, made things even worse. He didn't care. It was just his job. He probably got more money for cases like these. Cases like mine...

As I sunk deeply into my inward tunnel of despair, my father tried to take control of the situation. I zoned in long enough to hear only part of his question. But that part was all I needed.

"...how long..." my dad had asked.

It seemed like such a logical question. How long. But at the same time, those two words were stifling. They cut off my air supply, made my head swim, and pressed into my chest as if they were two ton rocks instead of seven letters and a space. How long.

The doctor gave a curt nod to my father, as if he'd been expecting this question, and proceeded to look at the-- my, chart. "Well, it's hard to say exactly," Dr. Calhoun started."But with treatment you could have a year, a year and a half. At best."

At best? At best?! At best, I would have more than a year. At best, my life wouldn't be changing for the worse. At best, I wouldn't be dying at all...

My mother was gone. Well, physically, she was still here. But judging by the heavy sobs racking her chest, I could tell she wished she wasn't. My father was trying to comfort her to no avail. Surprisingly, I felt a twinge of selfishness. I was the one dying. I was the one who was going to be rotting underneath the earth after my brain gave up the fight. I should be the one my dad was trying to soothe. Like I said, selfish.

But it's not like I was always like that. Quite the contrary actually. I was known for being the sweet, quiet, good girl. The girl who would settle an argument by...well, not getting into an argument in the first place. The girl whose never even thought about disappointing her parents by getting a bad grade, or drinking, or smoking. Smoking, which was the leading cause of cancer. So, technically speaking, I never meant to disappoint my parents by getting cancer. Brain cancer to be exact.

The nuero-oncologist looked around awkwardly as if he didn't see crying families, well, mothers, every day. Dr. Calhoun, excused himself with an excuse about confirming test results. Liar. I knew he was really just going to run a bill or something. Stupid, money-hungry doctors...

My mother's wails were adding on to the headache that I already had (and would probably have for the next year-and-a half), so as soon as the door closed behind the doctor, I had an excuse to go after him. Only, when I raised myself out of the chair, my legs would not cooperate and I stumbled and fell. My dad immediately rose to help me, but I just waved him off, and tried to get up. Only... it took me about ten seconds. Normally ten seconds didn't seem like a lot, but as I sat there, waiting for the mysteriously numbing sensation in my legs to go away, those ten seconds were torture.

Maybe I should've told my father about how I'd just lost the feeling in my legs, or even the doctor, but since it'd been happening more and more lately, what was the point? All the doctor would be able to do is run more test to tell me what I already knew.

After my legs were fully functioning again, I opened the room door and hurried out before my parents could ask any questions. Down the hallway, I could see the retreating back of my nuero-oncologist.

"Dr. Calhoun!" I yelled, quietly enough so that only people in the hallway would hear me, but loudly enough so that the doctor himself could hear me.

The man stopped and turned to me, his blue eyes sparkling with pity and surprise. "Yes, Ms. Donnelly?" his voice rang out as I approached him shakily.

"Uhm, well, about my treatment..." I hesitantly started.

"Not a problem Ms. Donnelly. You and your family will be informed on treatment plans and procedures very soon."

He'd given me what he thought was a reassuring smile, but instead it just repulsed me. I'd never liked doctors. I wasn't just shooting the messenger, trust me. To me, doctors had no positive emotions. They were all analytical and scientific, but they never cared about what their patients were going through. So needless to say, any small gesture that showed he might care, I dubbed as disgusting and fake.

"How much," I demanded, no pleasantry in my voice.

"Excuse me?" he asked, his voice wary, though I don't know why. I was about as scary as a chihuahua. A chihuahua with cancer...

"How much for the medicine and treatment?" I elaborated.

The doctor looked uncomfortable. As if he didn't talk about these kinds of things with his patients. But, of course he did, because, well, he was a doctor. Well, I guess he didn't talk about these things with his teenage patients, because he just shook his head and told me that he'd talk about it with my parents.

Ugh. That just made me mad. "It's my body that's going to suffer from this! My brain that's going to be eaten away by this goddamn disease! Tell me how much it's going to cost for you to keep me alive for 'a year and a half at best?'"

Wow. I didn't know I had it in me. I couldn't help but look at the irony in this. I waited until I had a year to live to finally grow a backbone. Procrastination much?

The people milling around looked away as I yelled, as if they were just going about their business and not furtively listening in on our conversation. Dr. Calhoun hesitated for only a moment before answering my earlier question. "Well, costs do vary quite substantially. Herceptin, Avastin, and Zometa collectively could cost as little as 20 thousand dollars. For one dose of each. That's not counting the entire chemotherapy cost, and if you so choose, gene therapy, and also, Cytoxen. And did I mention that you need these drugs every three weeks?"

Wow. Uuh...Yea, Cyto-what? Okay, so I knew basically nothing about cancer and it's treatments besides the fact that I had it. But still, if this stupid, cancer diagnosis giving, man of a doctor thought he could scare me away from asking more questions by using doctor lingo, well he had another thing coming! "Every three weeks? Even for the medicine alone that would be almost 300 thousand dollars for one year!"

"Yes, Ms. Donnelly. That's correct. Though altogether, it might come out to be about 350 thousand."

"For a treatment that's not even going to save my life?! What's the point?" I wailed.

Now the doctor had this look on his face as if he was going to school me or something. I didn't want to hear the idiotic dribble that was sure to come out of his mouth, so I just cut him off before he even got the first word out, and said, "No."

"No?" He inquired, genuinely confused. "What do you mean?"

Ha! Now who had the 'I'm about to school you' look? Me, that's who! "I mean," I said slowly, "That I don't want your twenty thousand bucks a pop medicine. I don't want your chemo and your gene therapy. And I definitely don't want your year and a half."

Dr. Calhoun and I were basically the only ones left in this hallway. All the people who'd heard the beginning of our conversation were now long gone and now there were a couple of new people tuning into this real-life soap opera.

The doctor adjusted his lappel as if it were crooked and by correcting it, he could somehow get his doctorial dignity back. As if.

"Look Ms. Donn--"

"Candice," I corrected harshly. "My name, is Candice."

"Candice. Look, you have a series of malignant tumors in your brain. One grew into two, and two into four. You now have five. They're tiny, but lethal. Fatal. They will kill you. Slowly, but painfully. With the treatment, the pain will subside tremendously, and everything will be much easier to bear. Without it..." He broke off.

Despite myself, I hung onto every syllable of the nuero-oncologist's lulling words. When he broke off, I was slightly startled because I had been finding out everything I wanted to know. "Without it, what?" I pushed.

"Without it, you'll have two months, barely. You'll lose the use of your legs and arms as the tumors attack your brain. The pain will be so excrutiating, you'll wish you were dead already. Trust me, you'll want the treatment," he finished.

I stared into his blue eyes. That did sound horrible. But still, the thought of spending 300 thousand dollars on a treatment that wouldn't result in me becoming healthy repulsed me. I wasn't rich. My family was barely upper-middle class. We made enough money to get by and rarely splurged on frugalities. That's what this seemed like to me. A frugalilty. Something that, okay, may help me, but I didn't really need. Like a purse. A 300 thousand dollar purse. No thank you.

I shook my naturally straight black head of hair at the man. "No. Regardless of the pain, the fact remains the same. I'm going to die. Whether it's two months from now or a year from now, those tumors will overtake me. So...keep your medicine. I don't want it," I declared bravely, though all I wanted to do was escape back into that tunnel of despair where handsome idiotic doctors didn't exist unless they were on General Hospital.

~~~

My parents were not happy about my decision. In fact, it nearly killed them. Every day, I could hear my mother crying from her bedroom. When my father thought I wasn't around, I could hear him shed a few himself. Even though they weren't my real parents, they cared for me (and vice-versa) as if they were. They adopted me from Korea when I was two. My mother had a problem with her ovaries and couldn't have children, so my parents decided to adopt. They would constantly tell me that I was the best thing that happened to them. If the cancer didn't kill me first, the overwhelming guilt I felt would.

It's not like I was trying to hurt them. Just the opposite, actually. I loved them too much to let them go into bankruptcy trying to futilely give me longer to live. It was pointless, right? And they walk around like it's their fault that I wouldn't let them pay for treatment. Like they somehow failed as parents because their dying daughter was trying to be responsible. I couldn't stand to hear my mother cry anymore. It's been almost a month, my first month almost down, and my mom still hasn't stopped crying. Screw cancer; a mother's tears hurt way worse.

But besides the parent aspect, my life has been going on pretty much the same. I was tired much more often, and my legs gave out a lot more now, but besides that no more symptoms had presented themselves. I was still going to school, still seeing my friends and my boyfriend. My boyfriend...

Chris Ventura. The love of my life. He was so beyond perfect. He was originally from Venezuela, but moved to the U.S when he was seven. His English is perfect, and he still has that hot Venezuelan accent. Chris is pretty much the exact opposite of me. We actually only share a few things in common. Like, one, we were both born somewhere else besides America. Two, accents, baby. Three, both of our names started with a C. And, okay, so maybe I'm streching things a little, but that's only because I didn't name the most important thing we had in common. Our mutual love for each other. I know; aww!

I've never kept a secret from Chris. He knew everything about me, my past, my dreams, whatever. He knew it all. So on top of the grief I felt about my 'rents, the horrible gut-twisting pain I felt about keeping the biggest secret of my life (or death depending on how you want to look at it) from my boyfriend, was practically eating me alive.

No one besides my parents and the hospital knew about my tumors. I guess, some twisted part of me wanted everyone to just love me and be happy with me before D-day. I didn't want to disrupt anyone with my problems. They didn't deserve that.

But it was getting harder to keep the secret. I've missed school for seven straight days when the headaches and tired-ness wouldn't relent. I hadn't seen Chris or my friends for a week, and needless to say, I was tired of just rotting away in this house. If there was anyone I wanted to see before I went, it was Chris. Definitely.

~~~

I was now two weeks into my second month, and for the first time I admitted the doctor was right. The pain was pretty unbearable. I hadn't been to school in three weeks, and I've pretty much dropped out. Oh well. There's always the next life.

My parents didn't cry as much now. I think they'd seen how much they'd been upsetting me, and now I only heard them cry when the shower was running in their bathroom, which was about ten times a day.

My father was hiding his grief much more easily. When he was still trying to sell me on the idea of chemotherapy, he bought me a wig as a joke. It wasn't particularly funny, but I laughed anyways and threw it over the arm of our couch. I don't know why, it just seemed like the right thing to do. No one's touched it since.

Also, I'd taken to playing this reincarnation game with my father. We could just sit there for hours and think up animals that we would like to come back as if we died. Once, I told him that I'd like to come back as a horse so I can just run around free. After we were done, the shower ran in his bathroom for twenty minutes. Why did I always end up hurting the people I loved?

My baby, soul mate, love of my life, hadn't been to my house in a while. I told him I had a fever and I'd call him when I felt better, but there didn't seem to be a better in my future. Only a worse, then a nothing. I was determined to see my baby, soul mate, love of my life before I was nothing. So today, I called him. When he picked up, the relief in his voice was evident. "Hey, babe. Feeling better?"

"Not really, but I want to see you before...well, can you come over?" I asked. I was going to tell him. I had to. I knew he'd cry and hold me tight and wish he could take this disease from my body. He'd understand and tell me he'd love me forever. That's just how Chris was. He'd kick cancer's ass if he could. For me he would.

"Sure. See you in twenty. Love you, Candy," he admitted and hung up. Chris was the only one who I allowed to call me Candy. He'd never called me Candice before, preferring my sickeningly sweet nickname. He could call me whatever he wanted if it meant he'd love me forever.

Before Chris came over I, slowly and painfully, cleaned up. I made my bed and cleaned up the bowls of soup (soup totally doesn't help against cancer) and oranges (ditto for Vitamin C) that my mom insisted I eat. Taking a trip to the bright side, I was guaranteed not to get a cold or scurvy.

Twenty-five minutes later, my doorbell rang, and I double-checked to make sure my headache medicine (ten bucks, over-the-counter) was stashed and the house didn't have that dying-sick-person smell. Luckily my legs didn't give out as I hustled over to the front door and threw it open to reveal a very handsome Chris Ventura. His dark face and even darker eyes glowed with anticipation when he saw me. I'd barely opened the door when he threw himself around me. Oh, the pain! I was so sore, and even his light hugs were crushing me. I must've been very tense, because Chris let me go and asked what was wrong.

When he let me go, I fell to the floor, unwillingly. Damn those legs. My eyesight was taken over by fuzzy black dots for a couple seconds and my head swam groggily. When the sensations passed, Chris was hovering over me and concern was written plainly on his face. "I'm fine. Just tired after my fever," I lied. This 'fever' lie was the first and only lie I'd told Chris.

Chris helped me up, and we slowly walked over to my living room, where we both sat on the oversized couch. It was time. Now or, literally, never. "Chris, I have something important to tell you. About me."

His face was all concern again and I grabbed his hand to reassure him, though there was nothing to reassure. "What's wrong, Candy?" he asked hesitantly.

"I...I have cancer," I blurted out quickly. I'd come to terms with this awful disease, but I didn't know how Chris would.

Chris reacted by dropping my hand like it was Pandora's box and he was not falling for it's enticing tricks. He sort of smiled and cocked his head. "What?" he inquired in that magical accent that I loved.

"I have cancer. Brain cancer, actually. I'm...dying," I clarified through my raspy voice.

The strange half-smile did not disappear from Chris' face. Uuuhm. I wasn't sure if this was a good reaction or a bad one. "Chris, baby, I'm sorry that I didn't tell you. I was scared that...that you wouldn't love me anymore," I admitted when he didn't say anything. And, okay, I wasn't entirely scared that he wouldn't love me anymore. Because really, we both knew we were soul mates. He was Romeo and I was Juliet. Except he didn't kill my cousin, and I was totally dying, like, for real.

Chris stood up slowly and faced me. There was regret in his gorgeous dark brown eyes. And something else. Something I could only identify as...fear? Strange...

I rose carefully, making sure my legs would support me, and reached out to him. Only, Chris moved over so I couldn't touch him. He turned away from me, and I could not see his glorious face. "What...What's wrong?" I asked hesitantly, afraid that I already knew the answer.

Chris spoke, still not turning to look me in the eyes. "Candice, you're dying. How...you...I just didn't expect that. It's hard for me to deal with."

What was he talking about? This is so far off from my whole fantasy of loving embraces and sweet but false promises that everything would be all right. I felt a stab in my heart, that could have been from the cancer, but was more likely from the utterance of my true name Candice leaving Chris' lips. Like I said, he never called me Candice.

"Hard for you to deal with? I'm the one whose in so much pain that I can barely think let alone keep standing here! I'm the one whose dying in two weeks!" I shouted. The past two months I realized that cancer gave me a temper.

Now Chris spun around and his eyes bore into mine. "Two weeks! You have two weeks left to live?! How could you not tell me?!"

"Because of this! I was afraid you would react like this. And that you wouldn't love me anymore!" I confessed, on the verge of tears.

I waited for Chris to say something. Anything. Okay, well actually something along the lines of, Of course I love you, and I'm just so upset that my Juliet is going to kick it in two weeks. Te amo mucho.

But no. That never came. Instead, Chris took a deep breath and said, "Look, Candice, I'm sorry, but...this is too hard. I can't deal with this, this...sickness. I'm sorry but maybe we shouldn't see each other anymore," he apologized.

But I didn't want his apologies. I wanted his love. Chris' love was the only thing keeping me sane these days. And without it...

"Go to hell, Chris! How could you break up with your girlfriend fourteen days before she dies?! And because she's sick?! I'm the same person I've always been! Just weaker and with brain tumors! Why? Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't love me, Chris," I demanded.

He looked me in the eyes and then looked away and slightly shook his head. That said more than words could ever say. "Get out of my house," I muttered.

Chris turned and walked away sullenly. Right before he left the room though, I tore that Lucy Liu-type wig from the couch and called his name.

He stopped and slowly turned back around. With all the strength I could muster, I threw the wig in the direction of him. "Here. Think of it as a going-away gift," I snapped, though inside my heart was breaking.

He looked down at it, then kept walking until I heard a quiet creak and the whoosh of the closing door. As soon as that door closed, my legs gave out. This one seemed worse than the others. The black haze of dots seemed even hazier, and instead of my head swimming, it felt as if it split in half. My lungs were desperately trying to pull in oxygen. I screamed in pain and all too soon, I could barely breathe enough to grunt in pain.

I heard the sound of my parents near me, but I couldn't see them. I wished they weren't here. I knew it was time. Two weeks too early, but it was still time. My heartbeat beat double-time, and now I couldn't even hear my parents anymore. My legs were useless, so now just my upper-body was convulsing. My heartrate was now tripling, and I knew I couldn't tell my parents anything even if I wanted to.

Luckily, I'd left a note earlier that morning. It was sort of like a last will and testament, only without the will. I told my mom that if I had to live my life over and over, that I'd choose her to be my mommy every single time. I told her not to worry and that everything happens for a reason. I told her I loved her.

I told my dad, even though he was super over-protective, that even though he couldn't protect me from this disease, I wouldn't trade all those others times of protection. I told him to look after Mom for me and make sure she's always okay. I told him that I was serious about my reincarnation dream, and to look out for that White Palamino named Candice. I told him I loved him.

So, now is the time for me to be all sage and yoda-like. But really, I can't. All I can really say, is that cancer sucks and bad things happen. Sometimes they can happen to totally non-deserving people like my mother and father whose only mission in life was to protect me from crap like this. I swear when I took my last breath, I heard a horse whinny, and I knew I could keep my promise to my daddy. He'd like that, even though horses are totally not native to the area. Oh well, I'd find a way.

They say that right before you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. I'd always been skeptical, but I definitely wasn't anymore. I could recall everything in perfect clarity, the images finally stopping at a picture from two months ago. At the beginning of the end...

Terminal. Eight letters, three syllables, one word. One word that, to most people means nothing. Nothing more than the place they go to to catch their plane, or bus, or whatever. But to me, it was the difference between life and death. Literally. Though, the thing about that word, terminal, I mean, is that no matter how much you cry or hope, it will invariably lead to the latter. Death.