I was sicker than a dog run over twice by a sixteen-wheeler.
It was late January and the latest round of chemotherapy was kicking my ass worse than it ever had before. Logically, I knew it was because they were targeting the cancer more aggressively than they had before, that this was a new technique that had proven very successful with women my age in my condition.
I was young and fit, it had seemed like a good idea to my parents and my doctors at the time to knock me around for three rounds of chemo in the depths of dreary winter to see if they couldn’t beat the cancer out of me. My mother was the only one who kept in touch with the doctors now and made sure the insurance papers were signed, but I hadn’t seen her or my dad since the incident at the dinner party before Christmas.
I sure as hell felt beaten but I didn’t feel cured. Not even close.
The only things I was grateful for in all of it was that I didn’t have to go to school sick as I was, and Zeus was gone on a run with The Fallen, so he didn’t have to see me like this.
He hadn’t wanted to go but things were going badly for the club. The second round of fires had revealed that there was definitely another snitch in their ranks, and Z didn’t feel comfortable leaving the San Diego run to anyone else, not even his most trusted brothers. After all, back in the day, Zeus had earned his presidency by backstabbing his President and he didn’t want history repeating itself.
When he’d left, I hadn’t been that bad but the past two weeks had been rough. I’d barely left the house and I hated getting out of bed because my entire body ached like a livid bruise. Zeus called every day to check in and I was never without at least two brothers in the house, lounging around shooting the shit with me as if they actually wanted to hang out with an invalid, and watch marathon sessions of Game of Thrones. I knew they reported back to him that I was getting worse, so I wasn’t surprised when Z called to tell me he was coming home early and leaving Bat in charge on the run to California. I’d tried to downplay things because I didn’t want to cause an issue for club business, but I was thrilled my guardian monster was coming home.
Without him, Mute, Harleigh Rose, and Bea were my angels.
H.R. and Bea helped me in the shower, which was embarrassing but necessary and they brushed and braided my hair away from my face. H.R. helped me get dressed in new pajamas each day so that the old ones didn’t smell like sick sweat and puke, and she made me countless pots of tea that I could barely bring myself to drink. Bea visited nearly every day and she always brought teen magazines, outside world gossip and endless optimism. Apparently, Mum knew she visited but Dad didn’t. I didn’t know what to think about it until Phillipa gave Bea my old Hephaestus Auto toque one day and told her to give it to me. It was a nice gesture, nowhere near enough, but nice.
Mute didn’t do much and yet he did everything. He was there when I woke up in the morning and he was there when I went to bed at night. Most of the time, I think he slept in the old tree house in the backyard for a few hours before coming back to hang out with me. We watched cult classics because we both loved them; The Godfather trilogy, Star Wars, Quentin Tarantino and Alfred Hitchcock collections. We played board games and card games but spoke as little as we could because Mute, obviously, preferred it and I found it tiring.
My entire body ached, but it was my feet and lungs that faired the worst. By week three, I needed a respirator because my oxygen levels were so low. The bottoms of my feet were deeply bruised and even though I was used to a lifetime of pain in them from ballet and pointe shoes, this was worse. I whimpered at any contact against them so poor Mute had to piggyback me around the house if Bea demanded I get out of bed more often.
I was too sick to see Sammy at the Autism Centre so Mute or Margie brought him to me at home. He was curious about my illness and wanted to know how to fix me. But I didn’t have the answers to give him and he’d twice had a tantrum because of it and the fact that when he’d last visited, I’d been too weak and pained to cuddle him as he liked.