Page 95 of Things I Wish I Said
“And what are we looking at without treatment?”
The doctor hesitates. Mom whimpers beside me, shaking her head. She swipes at her tearstained cheeks, barely keeping it together.
“Tell me,” I say, sensing her hesitation.
“If treatment doesn’t shrink the cancer, and we’re strictly working on prolonging life, you have a thirty-five to fifty percent chance of surviving five years. Without anything? You have less than a year.”
Less than a year.
Whatever happens after that, I don’t remember.
Mom breaks down entirely. In a desperate attempt to console her, I vaguely recall the doctor mentioning something about trials or alternative treatments.
I don’t really know.
I stopped listening because I heard all I needed to hear.
Chapter twenty-one
RYLEIGH
I jolt awake, heartpounding through my chest.
Shadows dance over my bedroom wall as my lungs tighten. A cough rips through my chest, lungs rattling as my entire body jerks upright and I fight for breath. A guttural rasp claws at the back of my throat like an animal seeking to be let out. Each spasm leaves me breathless, echoing in the stillness of the room while I clutch at the shirt I’m wearing as if I can somehow choke back the gnawing ache flaring to life behind my ribs.
My eyes water as a thin sheen of sweat collects on my brow, and I briefly wonder if this is how I’ll die. Right here, in my bed. Alone. Scared. Fighting for breath.
A few more excruciating seconds pass before the hacking begins to subside. I pull oxygen into my lungs, and all at once, the vise on my chest releases its death grip.
“Fuck,” I moan.
A glance at my alarm clock reveals it’s just after one o’clock in the morning. I listen intently to the sound of a settling house and the crickets outside my window before my dry throat beckons me to get up.
I begrudgingly push myself out of bed, my throat raw and chest aching from the coughing marathon I just performed, but somehow, my stiffness eases with each step down the hallway.
I’m halfway there when I pause at the sound of my mother’s voice, thick and raspy in the dark.
She’s been crying.
I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s barely stopped since we left Dr. Hammond’s this afternoon.
Closing the distance, I bypass the bathroom and pause at the end of the hallway, risking a peek around the corner into the living room where I see her on the couch, tucked into John’s side.
I wonder how long they’ve been up, then decide it doesn’t matter. If I can’t sleep, Mom probably can’t either.
I swallow and close my eyes for a brief moment and debate what I should do. Stay and listen, or go?
I allow my head to fall back against the wall with a gentle thud before I slide against it to the floor. Stay.
My arms wrap around my legs, and I press my cheek against my knees and listen. I know I shouldn’t. I should go back to bed and give them their private moment—this time together—but I so rarely get to hear my mother’s unchecked thoughts. I never know what she’s really thinking. Whenever I’m around, sherefers to my cancer with manufactured optimism, platitudes and positivity. For once, I’d like to know what she’s truly thinking. I want to know if she thinks I’m as fucked as I do.
“Seven months to a year, John. That’s how long we have if we don’t do something,” she says, her voice trembling.
“Is that what the doctor said?”
A sniffle, followed by silence. I can only assume she’s confirmed his question with a nod.
“And this trial you told me about, how promising is it?”
