Page 60 of Missed Notes (Rixon High 5)

“Thanks, Dad.”

I tried to swallow down the thorny ball of emotion lodged in my throat. Every inch of me vibrated; it hadn’t stopped all morning. A quivering sensation that came from deep inside me.

I was so focused on the tumultuous storm raging in my stomach that I didn’t hear the ping of my cell phone until Mom said, “Are you going to get that?”

“Oh, yeah.” I unlocked the screen and inhaled a sharp breath.

Cole: I know you want space and I get it, but I couldn’t not text to wish you luck. I’m not even sure that’s the right thing to say but… yeah. Okay, I’m going now. I won’t text again. Unless you need to talk, then I’m here. Fuck, I’m not good at this…

That mademy lips twitch in a faint smile. Obviously, my spectacular speech yesterday had done nothing to deter him.

Do you really want him to stop caring?

I didn’t.

But I also didn’t want him to end up resenting me for ruining his senior year.

So I texted back but stuck to something simple. Something he couldn’t read too much into.

Me: Thanks.

He didn’t reply.But what did I expect? It was the most dismissive, disingenuous reply ever.

“Who was it?” Mom asked.

“No one.”

“I find that hard to believe.” She smiled at me in the rearview mirror.

“Mom,” I murmured, glancing out of the window, watching the scenery roll by.

But the further we traveled and the closer we got to the hospital, the more my heart rate spiked. Until I had to press my forehead to the cool glass to try and calm myself.

Eyes closed, I tried to transport myself to another place…

One where I wasn’t on the way to the hospital to find out my fate.

* * *

“Sofia,Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, it’s good to see you again. Please take a seat.”

Dr. Peters’ office seemed smaller today. It wasn’t, of course. But the walls seemed to close in around me as I took the seat in the middle.

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay, I guess.”

Mom took one of my hands and Dad took the other. Everyone talked about those life-defining moments that shaped your life.

I never anticipated mine would happen in a doctor’s office in Allentown.

“We got the results back from your bone marrow biopsy and aspiration. So I’m going to talk through those and then I’ll explain the course of action, okay?”

I nodded, unable to find my voice.

“As I explained last time we met, we take a bone marrow sample to look at abnormalities. We can also use those cells to look for the presence of certain chromosomal changes and abnormalities.

“Typically, with young patients like you, Sofia, we expect to see results aligning with what we call the chronic phase. This means that a patient has less than ten percent of blasts in their blood. Blasts are abnormal immature white blood cells. In Sofia’s case we found nine percent, confirming she’s in the chronic phase.”

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