If Today Was Your Last Day

We entered the parking lot of the clinic and I was shaking like crazy. I was nervous and I wasn’t sure of what to do. I was thinking about hailing a cab home right when I got out of the car but if I did that, John would probably ignore me for the rest of my life and eventually forget about me and I didn’t want that.

“Look, the clinic is not such a scary place,” he told me as he placed a hand on top of mine.

I looked at him from the passenger seat as he killed the engine. I bit my lip as I followed him out of the car. He grabbed my hand and dragged me behind him, knowing that I wouldn’t walk myself into the clinic. The feeling of his hand in mine made me feel safer but I still didn’t have the courage to face doctors or nurses.

Once we got into the building, we made our way to the receptionist. It was funny how there weren’t a lot of people in the clinic today. I thought people came here all the time. But then again, they could all be scared like me.

“Let me guess, she’s pregnant, huh?” the receptionist said.

John looked at me and laughed awkwardly as he watched me blush really hard. I cleared my throat as I looked down embarrassed.

“Um, we’re actually here to check on her lungs,” John told the rude receptionist whose name was Betty.

“Oh, my bad,” Betty mentioned. “Just fill in these forms.” She handed us a clipboard with a paper attached to it. John handed me the pen that was on the side and I started signing.

I couldn’t help but laugh as I watched John and Betty flirt by starting each other down. It was awkward and downright funny. The uneasiness suddenly started fluttering away. I was starting to feel better already but that was no reason to back out and tell John that maybe I didn’t need this anymore.

I handed Betty the form as soon as I signed everything that I needed to answer and she asked me to wait a while. We sat in the ward they had set up right in front of the desk and I wondered how long it would take for them to prepare the examination I needed.

“She seems to like you,” I mentioned to John who was rather silent as he sat in his seat.

“You mean the receptionist? Please, I have better taste.”

“Right,” I said, rolling my eyes at him.

“Aubrey Laurent?” a guy dressed in scrubs called out.

I stood up slowly and looked back at John before gaining the courage to go in alone. The examination room they put me in was small. There were charts all around and there was this weird machine on the side. The guy – who I guess was a trained specialist – asked me to sit down on the table for a while.

“So, have you experienced any difficulty in breathing?” he asked switching on a few things.

“Yeah, I’ve experienced a lot of that for a while now.”

“And you never bothered to get checked?” he asked. I just shook my head. He wrote some things on a clipboard which I guess was the one I wrote on and continued with the questioning. “How about coughing?”

“Lately, I’ve been coughing a lot and whenever I swallow, my throat hurts.”

“It says here that you coughed up blood today. Is this the first time?”

“Uh, yeah, it is.”

“Well, let’s get your chest examined then. Please step into the dressing room and change into the robe you see hanging on the hook.”

I did as he instructed and came out after a few seconds. He made me press against this machine he called a chest radiograph and told me to breathe in heavily. A heavy, yellow light switched on and then off again in a matter of seconds. Once that was done, the doctor told me to change back into my clothes.

I didn’t really understand what was going on but I guess I shouldn’t be complaining. I mean the examination didn’t hurt and there were no needles involved. After changing, I went out of the room and saw John talking to someone on the phone by the door. I didn’t bother to check on him. I just went straight to the receptionist.

“How soon ‘til we get the results?” I asked Betty who was filing her nails.

“About an hour or so,” she informed me and I nodded my thanks.

I walked over to John as soon as he put down his phone. He gave me a big hug before asking me how it went.

“I don’t really understand what happened,” I told him as we walked out of the clinic together.

“What did the doctor say about your condition?” he asked inquisitively.

“Nothing yet,” I told him. “The results don’t come out until twelve – which is an hour from now.”

“So where do you wanna go?” he asked as we got into his car.

The day was hot but I wasn’t that hungry yet. So I told him I wanted to just walk around in the strip mall we passed by earlier. He said nothing more after that. He just drove and listened to the radio blasting some mainstream pop song.

“Why are you being so silent?” I asked him as we got out of the car.

“I am? Well, I guess I didn’t notice,” he said as we walked by some shops.

“Whatever,” I said. “I wanna go to the arcade and play all day.”

He looked at me like I was out of my mind but decided to tag along since there was nothing better to do. He didn’t like shopping with me and I didn’t want to make him suffer.

John and I revisited the place where we used to spend most of our childhood days in. There was this arcade known for having really old, washed-up games that nobody ever played anymore. I remember beating him at everything and he told me that today, he’d get back at me since all he did was let me win before.

“Oh please, you just can’t accept the fact that you got beat up by a girl in each and every game you played here,” I taunted as we played a game of foosball.

“You know what you would’ve done if I didn’t make you win?” he asked as I struck the ball and placed it in his goal earning a point.

“What could I possibly have done, Mr. O’Callaghan?” I asked as he placed the ball back in the field.

“You would’ve cried all the way home!” he said placing the ball in the goal of my side earning a point for himself.

“You’re getting good at this. Have you been practicing?” I asked and he rolled his eyes.

The rest of the hour went by somewhat like that. We had so much fun just taking a trip down memory lane. We played more games where I made him accept the fact that I was indeed better than him. He would eventually take it back in the end but it never really went on long since I had a winning streak and he had nothing.

An hour passed and we ran out of tokens. We got out of the arcade all tired and sweaty but I came out victorious so I still managed to keep a fine amount of energy.

“Where do you wanna eat?” he asked, catching me off guard. I totally forgot how it was about time for lunch but I wasn’t hungry at all.

“Um, anywhere’s fine with me. You pick,” I told him and he smiled.

He brought me to Taco Bell and ordered a whole lot of food. I thought that he was already ordering for both of us but it turns out he was actually just getting the food for himself.

“What are you getting?” he asked, turning to me.

“I’ll get a Fresco Chicken Soft Taco and a Strawberry Frutista Freeze,” I told the cashier.

“Is that all ma’am?” he asked politely as I nodded.

I looked around avoiding John’s gaze as he paid for our order. I told him I’d pay for my share but he told me that I didn’t need to. He always made me pay for my share. I wondered what was up with him and why he was being so different but I didn’t want to sound rude so I didn’t ask him up front.

We grabbed a table by the window and laid our trays right in front of us. John started stuffing food into his mouth. He was either hungry or avoiding conversation.

I waited for him to drink from his cup before starting a conversation. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” he countered.

“What I mean is that you’re acting differently today. Why is that?” I watched as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Well, I guess I’m just really scared you know.”

“You don’t have to be. I’m perfectly fine,” I told him with a smile but he hardly returned it.

John kept the silence untouched between us. After we finished eating, we left and drove back to the clinic to get my results. For some reason, I wasn’t that scared anymore. It felt like a lifetime ago where I refused to go to clinics or hospitals due to the trauma that came over me after my dad passed away. I was glad I wasn’t scared anymore. At least I could say that I was one percent braver than I used to be.

We walked back in the clinic and noticed that Betty’s smile fell when she saw us come in. I wondered why that was but it wasn’t long before the same guy who examined me about an hour ago saw me and called me into the examination room. John was allowed to come in so he came along.

“I have some really bad news for you, Ms, Laurent. Your X-ray results show that there’s a tumor growing at the side of your right lung. The cancer cells in your body are spreading fast and we have diagnosed you with stage IV lung cancer. You should’ve reported your illness right away. It could’ve been controlled treated.”

I literally stopped breathing for a while as I took in everything that he just said. I stared at the picture of my lungs in the room as I tried to understand exactly what was happening. I can’t have cancer. I can’t go through more examinations on a regular basis. I wished hard that he was joking and that he was just scaring me. But I knew that he wasn’t. My right lung looked ugly compared to my left and knowing that that was actually in me made me feel nauseous.

John’s eyes filled with tears when he saw this but he didn’t speak. He didn’t want to show his weakness. He wanted to show me that he was strong like he always was but I knew he was breaking at the seams.

I mouthed an ‘it’s gonna be fine’ to him but he just shook his head at me and looked at the floor.

“Now, here’s your prescription for the painkillers you’ll need to ease the pain. You can claim these at the small pharmacy we have right beside the booth where you find the receptionist. Also, I have assigned you to an oncologist. Please see him as soon as you get the drugs,” the doctor told me with a hopeful smile but I was far from feeling any hope.

I nodded slowly at the doctor and went out of the room after retrieving the prescription. Tears flowed out of my eyes as I approached the pharmacist. I guess news here spreads like wildfire because everyone was giving me sympathetic looks.

John kept talking to the doctor for some reason but I could interrupt because Betty led me to the oncologist’s office to discuss my options.

Dr. Guillard, the oncologist, lectured me about radiation therapy and chemotherapy but I’ve watched too many movies to know that those things were complete bullshit so instead of making her waste more time by talking about other treatments, I asked her how long before my lungs would give in.

“Well, you have at least 3 weeks,” she told me with the straightest face I think anyone has ever made. It scared me how blank her face was. It was as if she had no feelings at all. But at least she still treated me like a normal person.

“Thanks, doc,” I said feeling like Bugs Bunny but even I didn’t seem to amuse myself anymore.

I was going to die in three weeks. What was I supposed to do now?