17. GOODBYE

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IT WASN'T SO BAD when we had started eating, everyone was talking about their situations at certain things especially at home and it was fun to just listen to them and even see them laugh about the memories they keep bringing up about how they all met.

          Every single one at school new the story and, of course, I did too but it was different when it came straight from them. Robbie and Riley were the first ones to walk to Travis, having known that he hates company, and then, Lucas, Tyler, and lastly, my brother.

          Lucas soon turned to me with his brows furrowed, "You know, what's crazy?" I shrugged as my answer. "Sean does talk about you but has never once introduced you to us ever since we became his friends. Why is that?"

          The easy answer was that I never liked crowds. The hard answer was that after everything went down with losing the only friend I had and having to struggle at home, I didn't want anyone to think that they could come over to our house unannounced and start to have suspicions about what happens behind closed doors.

          For a while, when Sean would be asked if they could come over, the only reason would always that I didn't want anyone at the house and when Alex's friends would ask to come to my house when we were still together, the reason was the same only it's Sean's problem and not mine.

          Now, I haven't thought about them thinking about the house, about my mom.

          So, I shrugged and said, "I don't do huge numbers of people."

          The topic finally reversed back to them.

          I had found out that Robbie and Riley's parents were like Travis's—only, they come home every weekend to still keep up with their son's lives and they even call or FaceTime them to spend some time.

          Lucas, on the other hand, was working under his father when he didn't want to. He was just doing it because he knows that if he doesn't, he'll be a disappointment to the family and they're already counting on him.

          Then, there's Tyler. He didn't talk about much as usual but he mentioned about his father working harder than the last weeks because of their company going through a tough time. He never mentions his mother and I wanted to ask why but then I remember that his mother died when he was just fourteen. It was from a car accident—a drunk driver drove straight when the stoplight was red.

          It was all over the news. He didn't talk to anyone for weeks and started skipping classes for a month.

          "You know, if Bailey wasn't all that cray-cray with being popular," Robbie says, shaking his head. "I would have dated that chick."

          Zoning out from their conversation, I just stared at them bicker about it and eventually got to stare at Travis, who was just sitting beside me, holding my hand under the table.

          He was chuckling. I could see his Adam's apple bob, his white teeth fully bright, and just those gray orbs glinting while he just continued to laugh off his friends. Damn, this guy could just get me all hot and bothered by just sitting beside me and laughing.

          Am I actually that whipped?

          Then those eyes switched to my own, gazing at me with a sense of warmth around him. "You okay?" He squeezed my hand once as he grinned at me.

          Nodding, I squeezed back. "Yeah, I'm okay. More than okay."

          For the first time of my life, it felt like when I ad said that, it was really true.


After it was finished, we went home separately, my brother deciding to ride with Travis and I since Tyler needed to go back to his house immediately. I guess rom all the arguments and talking that Sean did, he fell asleep at the back almost instantly.

          As Travis placed some classic The Beatles song on, and sang with it, my phone suddenly rings—the blinking Caller ID that said "Brian."

          Rolling my eyes, my finger slid across the screen, answering it.

          "What do you—"

          "Saint Jude's Hospital," he said, rushed and loudly. I could feel myself freezing at the words he said next, "Your mother is here."

          Turning to Travis, who stopped the music and turned to me with concern in his eyes, I shook my head. "Turn around. Saint Jude's, please, Travis. Hurry." Then, snapped my head to my brother and reached out to his leg to shake him awake. "Sean, wake up. It's mom."

          His eyes opened fast, sitting up straight from his slumped state a while ago. "What? What's wrong?"

          "She's in the hospital."

* * * *

I'VE ALWAYS HATED HOSPITALS. It isn't that it's got germs or that there's a lot of people infected with some kind of illness—it was just because I've come here frequently with my mother to notice the crying members of the family for the death of their father, mother, children, or aunt, etcetera. I promised myself that I would make sure that my mother would outlive me so that I didn't have to witness her death.

          But, here am I, running through the hospital halls with a dress that we both picked out, barefoot with hells thrown on the sidewalk with my brother and boyfriend following behind me, trying to keep up with me.

          Then, I saw my father standing with the blonde secretary around him as they faced a woman who I assume was the doctor by the blue clothes she was wearing and stethoscope around her neck.

          "Where's my mom?" I yelled out as I stopped in front of them, ignoring my father and his secretary. "Everything's okay, right?"

          "You're the daughter?" I nodded as she pointed as Sean beside me. "You're the son, I presume?"

          Sean nodded too in reply. "Can we see her? She's okay, right?"

          The doctor staring at us with pity in her small, rounded eyes, shook her head. "The tumor was growing uncontrollably no matter how many medicines she was prescribed with, causing a hemorrhage in the lungs, and her body was too weak for it. She suffered a pulmonary embolism. I'm sorry but she's gone."

          Brain decided to walk towards his son, turning him around, and wrapping his arms around him, letting Sean cry onto his chest as he clung onto him.

          I stood there. Frozen. Unable to move. Just hearing my brother's silent cries and just watching Travis walk up to me and have me engulfed in his arms, listening to his heart beat faster than mine.

          I told her. I told her that she's going to outlive all of us. I made sure every single day she takes her meds. I made sure to keep her happy as much as I could no matter what is happening in my life. She was the only person who got me—who knew how to handle me when I'm a mood, who would always cry seeing me with bruises or wounds on my face, and who would just hold me when I needed it the most.

          "Mommy's sick, sweetie," she whispered, kneeling down in front of me. "Now, remember, when someday, when mommy's gone, you have to take care of everything just like what you always do with Sean, do you understand?"

           I was just eight then.

          Sorry mom, I can't do this for you. Not this one.

          Pulling away from Travis with my eyes downcast, I started heading towards the exit, my feet moving before my mind could comprehend what I was doing.

          But before I could go any further, my wrist is held back, I'm faced with my father in front of me, his eyes sad and worried for some reason. But all I could think about was how he didn't pay for mom's medicines, and doctor's appointments—how he basically let mom slowly die.

          I did what I could do. I punched him.

          He fell down to the floor, holding his nose as his secretary ran to him, and yelled his name.

          There was this always fantasy of mine wherein when I get to punch him, it would make me feel good but it didn't. Instead, it made it worse. All I wanted to was to go punch him again, and again, until he passes out on the floor and eventually be the one dying, not mom who deserved so much more.

          And we both knew it.

          Once my eyes met my brother's and my boyfriend's, I could feel myself breaking down slowly into pieces like a China-made vase that had just fallen down on the floor.

          "No one follows me," I muttered, turning around and walking to the exit.

          Walking seemed like a lie. I ran to the exit.

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