The Truth About Hollywood

I felt completely numb as I followed Dad back out to the car. It was as if my body had gone on auto-pilot so my brain could check out for a while.

We were completely silent on the way to the hospital. Just when things were staring to clear up, when things were starting to get alright again...Mom had to get worse. Why was cancer such a bitch? It didn't make any sense... Why did my mom have to get cancer? She wasn't a bad person. Just because we always used to have disagreements, that didn't mean that she was a bad person. The thought had gone through my mind a thousand times before, but I knew that it was going to go through my brain a thousand times after that. I couldn't reach an answer.

"What happened?" I finally whispered as we got ever-closer to the hospital. It was an answer that I was kind of nervous to get, but I felt that I had to.

Dad's face got really stony before he finally answered, "She just... when she got up, she stumbled a little bit and grabbed onto the chair. She laughed it off and said that she was fine, she just had a bit of a head rush. So I smiled at her for a second and looked away. The second..." He stopped and gulped, as if he was holding back tears. I could tell he was reliving the memory as he told me. "The second my eyes turned away from her, she collapsed. I drove her right to the emergency room and told them the situation, and they took her in right away."

"How's she doing?" My eyes were starting to fill with tears, but I struggled to keep them back. I didn't want to start bursting into tears now. Dad clearly needed me to be strong.

"They did some tests...they're not really sure yet. It takes a few hours."

I nodded and wiped my hand across my eyes quickly. A couple of tears had escaped, but I refused to let myself lose control. If there was ever a time in my life where I needed to be strong and could not break down, no matter what, that was it.

When we entered the hospital, Dad broke into nearly a run, and I hurried behind him. When he stopped short in front of a certain hospital room that I assumed was Mom's, and I nearly crashed into him.

Mom was lying on the bed, her eyes closed and her chest moving steadily up and down. Her face was as white as the pillowcase behind her.

My first instinct was that she was dead, totally ignoring the fact that her chest was clearly moving up and down. Upon closer inspection, I realized that I could hear her labored breathing too.

Dad immediately pulled up a chair next to Mom's bed, but I stayed back, near the door. I felt like if I stepped any closer, I would mess something up. Something would malfunction...Mom would die.

"Honey," Dad said softly. It was almost as if he was afraid that if he spoke in a normal volume, he'd wake up Mom. She looked like she was pretty out to me though. "You can come over here if you want."

"I'm alright," I replied, crossing my arms in front of my chest. It was painful, seeing all those machines hooked up to my mom, the woman that I thought was unbreakable, was now close to death. Well, maybe she wasn't, but that was how it looked to me.

No one ever thinks anything bad can happened to their parents until it does. And by then, it's too late.

"I'm gonna step out for a second," I mumbled, turning around to face the door.

"Oh, hold on." Dad stood up and dug into his pocket to pull out his wallet. He handed me ten bucks and told me, "Get a couple of coffees, okay? The cafeteria is just down the hall."

I nodded obediently and stepped out into the hallway, whipping out my cell phone. I quickly scrolled down to Danny's name on my contact list and put the phone up to my ear.

"Claire?" he answered, sounding distracted. "This kind of isn't the best time to talk."

"Sorry," I muttered. Something in his voice made me start tearing up again, finally releasing of the little emotion I refused to convey in front of Dad. "I guess I'll just talk to you later."

"Wait," he stopped me. "What's wrong?"

"No, it's alright. Just...call me back when you're done doing what you're doing."

"But-" he started, but I snapped my phone shut before going over to the coffee machine to grab a couple of cups for Dad and me.

I paid for the cups quickly, and was a little less than halfway down the hallway when my phone started to scream my ringtone, "Missing You" by John Waite. Biting my lip, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to grab my phone, since my hands were kind of full.

As I was walking by a set of seats, there was a man sitting there, just staring off into space. "Hey!" I shouted to him. "Can you hold this for a sec?"

He was extremely confused, but I just shoved the cup in his hand and grabbed my phone. I perched the phone between my ear and shoulder, mouthing a thank you to the guy sitting in the chair as I took my cup back.

"Hello?" I questioned, already knowing that it was gonna be Danny.

"Alright, now will you tell me what's wrong? I just basically shoved Stephanie out the door. You kind of got me in the middle of our argument..."

"Oh, um...sorry." I stood outside my mother's room and paused for a second before continuing to walk. Something told me that I was going to get emotional during this phone call, and I didn't want Dad to see me cry.

"It's alright. It was waning anyway. She's on her way back to New York."

I stopped in my tracks. "You can't let her go back to New York angry at you. What if something bad happens to her? You're going to hate yourself. Do you really want your ending note to be a big blowout fight?"

Danny paused before saying, "I guess not... But anyway, what did you want to tell me."

Oh, perfect... Just like clockwork, I started to tear up. "Mom...um..." I stopped and sniffled before wiping my eye. "Mom's way worse. She collapsed."

"What?! Are you at the hospital? Is she going to be okay?" Danny seemed just as frantic as I was.

"Yeah..." I let out a tiny sob before struggling to compose myself. "Anyway, I'm just going to...I, uh, gotta get back. So I guess I'll just talk to you later. Try to fix things with Stephanie, okay?"

"Are you kidding? I'll be there in a few minutes." The line went dead, and I gave a confused look at my phone.

A couple of days ago, Danny wouldn't even admit that he had feelings for me. Now he was dropping everything, including something that shouldn't be left unattended, just to meet me at the hospital?

God, boys were so complicated.