chapter ten: sunny with a chance

☾ ☼ Sunny Wright

Tuesday, September 29th, 2017

I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH FINGERS OR TOES TO COUNT HOW MANY TIMES MY MOTHER AND I HAVE BEEN MISTAKEN FOR SISTERS.

Even to this day, as we both sit in the waiting room, nurses say how alike we look, and how young my mother looks for her age.

What they don't mention is how rough both of us look, between the two of us, we've had roughly about four hours of sleep, and it showed.

My hair was thrown up into a very messy ponytail, and I hadn't even bothered to get dressed. I wore Mickey Mouse pajamas, a hoodie and slippers, this was a cancer perk, no one judged you for wearing pajamas all day, everyday. My mother's condition was no better, her hair was in a tight bun, she wore her work clothes, but there was something off about her appearance, maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the overwhelming stress.

I crossed my arms and sunk down in my chair, examining the room, it was the absolute saddest place you could've ever seen. The red wing is what they called it, the wing where they kept us all, the cancer patients. There was a girl, about ten with a pink hat covering her bald head, she had an oxygen tank and smiled brighter than anyone I'd ever seen. I wasn't sure what stage of cancer she had or if she was in recovery or any of the logistics, I just hoped to god that she made it.

I felt an overwhelming sense of melancholy, the girl had all the odds stacked against her, yet she stilled smiled and laughed, filling up the somber room, like sunshine peeking through curtains on a Sunday morning.

I made a promise to myself that I would stop feeling sorry for myself, that I would make the best of every moment, to the very end. Whenever that came about.

I prop my head on my moms shoulders, too tired to keep it up any longer, I breathe in her familiar scent of lemongrass, laundry detergent and coffee. My mother was enough to calm my nerves.

Doctor's appointments were scary enough, doctor's appointments when you're terminally ill, horrific.

On top of all that, I hated hospitals. The eerie white ceilings, white walls and floors, how cold they always were, the smell, the beeping of machinery, the idea that someone could die at any minute around you.

"You think if I threw myself on the floor and began spasming, they'd call me in sooner?" I ask my mom, as my head still lay on her shoulder, I felt her head turn to look up from her magazine.

"You can certainly try," she says laughing, I look up to see her smiling, her smiles were getting rarer and rarer, I had to take them in when I could.

Just as I was about to open my mouth to say more, a nurse with burgundy scrubs on came out and said, "Sunny Wright?"

Mom and I both stood, and I noticed that my legs felt trembly and weak, and that I was shaking all over. I hid it well, but I was nervous. The doctor could tell me anything, that I was getting better, getting worse, that I would die within the next week. Anything.

When we walk in, the doctor is smiling at us, she sits me down and takes blood from me. She says a lot of terms that I don't understand. She says a lot, but I'm too nervous to listen, everything goes by in a blur. She asks me how I've been feeling, how's my appetite, if I have any bruising, or headaches, or nose bleeds, and a series of other questions.

She leaves me and my mom in the room for an upwards of twenty minutes to check my blood or something like that, then returns.

She comes back with a folder of papers and her face is unreadable. All doctors faces were unreadable, it made me wonder if all doctors had to learn the look in med school, or was it something developed overtime.

"Well...some good news," she begins and my heart stops for a moment, I swear it did. "It seems you're slowly, but surely getting better, very, very, very, slowly."

"So....she—she has a chance?" My mother says, bursting into tears without warning.

"That's to be determined," she says with her unreadable, pursed lips. "That being said, I think Sunny is ready to began chemotherapy treatment."

I don't know why I do it, but I laugh. Perhaps it was  the thought of having a bald head, or the fact that I was 'very, very, very slowly getting better."

After, the doctor talks and talks some more, to my mom, who is practically beaming, she gives my mom the folder, and prescribes me more medication, shortly after, we leave.

When we go back out to the waiting room, the girl with the pink hat is gone, but I had no doubt that wherever she was, she was smiling. I wondered if my smile was as big as hers, my mother's certainly was.

~

When mom pulls into the driveway, I notice a familiar brown haired boy, sitting at my front steps. He plays with the wheels of his skateboard, staring off into space, as if lost in thought.

I quickly get out of the car and race to him, he stands to his tall legs, looking down at me with his familiar grin, that makes his face look all squishy and cute.

"How did everything go?" He asked, instead of answering, I gave him a big hug, he paused before wrapping his arms around me.

The hug was like a cup of hot coco, after playing in the snow all day. It felt right, it felt needed.

"Is this a, oh my god i'm gonna die tomorrow hug or an oh my god i've been cured hug?" Owen asks, his arm still wrapped around me, like a cozy sweater. He was a good hugger, he didn't pull away, he just kept on holding on, like her knew that I still needed it.

"Sunny has a chance!" My mom says, getting out of the car, I finally pull away from Owen, but we still stand very close, so close our hands graze.

He grins down at me. "You have a chance?" He grabs both of my shoulders, shaking me.

"I have a chance!" I say, tearing up. "I have a chance."

Owen pulls me in for another hug, my mom laughs, scooting passed us to get into the house. "I'm gonna be bald," I muttered into his chest, he smelled like weed and cologne, it calmed me.

He steps back looking at me, he then twists a piece of my hair. "If there's anyone that can pull off a bald head, it's you," he says, smiling again.

"You're so cheesy, it physically hurts me."

"Whatever, when you're bald, can we go wig shopping, though?"

I roll my eyes, shoving his shoulder playfully. "I'll let you have a hunk of my hair, and you can make a wig out of that."

"Fine, okay, let's go get food," he says, grabbing my hand. He didn't notice, because he didn't see me in that way, but we were holding hands, not that I noticed or anything.

"I'm not hungry," I say pulling back, but I didn't let go.

"Okay, then watch me eat," he says, pulling me towards his car.

"You're so demanding," I say laughing, but I eventually follow him into his car.

He starts his car, turning the radio on, rolling down the windows, the early autumn breeze ruffling my hair.

I couldn't help, but smile as I watched Owen tap his thumbs on the steering wheel humming to the music.

"You're staring," he says, not taking his eyes off the road. I shrug looking out the window at the reddish orange trees, it looked like a scene from a movie, everything felt like a movie today. I had a chance.

I felt like taking on the world, I felt like sticking my head out the window and screaming, so I did. Owen laughed at me, and I laughed too, the wind blew my hair around whipping at my face, it tickled and I laughed some more.

When I pull my head back into the car, we pull into the diner parking lot, Owen just stares at me with an unreadable look.

"You're....so weird," he says in a low breath, but he's smiling and for some reason I felt like those three words meant so much more than what he actually wanted to say.

"There's this party this Friday, you should come, we can cross something off your bucket list."

"Hmm, I don't know," I squirm in my seat as he studies me deeply, he was always looking and thinking, it made me nervous.

"Sunny?" He begins. "I thought you wanted to complete your bucket list, I thought you wanted to get outside of your comfort zone," he argued.

"I do, I just....that seems like a big step," I wasn't one for parties, the last party I went to was Erica Dooley's 13th birthday party. I felt like I was personally too socially awkward to go to a party anyways. What was I supposed to talk about? What was I supposed to do with my hands? Should I dance? High School parties were a mystery to me, one I wasn't too keen on solving.

"You can stay for like 15 minutes and then leave, at least go," he pouts. "Are you really going to leave me alone?"

"I'll think about it," I say rolling my eyes playfully as he pouts at me like a baby.

"Ok good, now let's eat, I'm starving," and with that he was out of the car, I followed after his long strides.

"You know I'm really getting tired of you stringing me along all the time, telling me what to do," I say walking beside him, he slows his pace so that I can keep up.

"What...are you not submissive to me?" He says looking down at me with a smirk, my cheeks heat, but I ignore it.

"I'm more dominate," I say, not sure what else to say. Owen pulls the door open for me and gasps, the smile still all over his face.

"Guess I'll believe it when I see it."

I didn't know what Owen was doing, but it sounded and felt a lot like flirting. Like maybe he was just flirting because that's what he did, maybe he was just naturally a flirty person. Or maybe, just maybe he liked me. I didn't know if I liked him, it was too soon to tell, but I did like spending time with him and I think that was enough for right now.

🔆🔆🔆

A/N
this is not edited bc im lazy but at least i posted right 🥺 also ill edit tmr (m a y b e 😌)