Spinning.

Cancer.

The word plagued all three of us as we sat with Dr. Jacobs the next morning, a new sore spot on my chest from where they had taken tissue the night before.

Chemotherapy.

Radiation.

Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Dr. Jacobs had spent ninety minutes speaking with us, talking about treatment options and what to expect. On the bright side, I was going back to California tomorrow. On the not-so-bright side, I was going straight to UCLA Medical Center to start chemotherapy. It was going to be cycles of in-patient care and then time at home, but it wasn't going to be easy.

“You scared?” John was the one to finally ask, Ava having excused herself from the room moments before. It was just the two of us, me sitting cross legged at the head of the bed while he mirrored me, sitting at the foot.

I shrugged. “It doesn't seem real. I mean, I know that I'm sick, but it seems so foreign to think that it's cancer. It just hasn't sunk in I guess.”

He reached across and grabbed my hands, making eye contact with me and giving me a smile.

“You're the bravest girl I know. I know you can beat this.” He leaned forward, gently brushing his lips against mine.

“I'd like to think that the support I've been getting helps a lot.” I softly smiled, focusing my eyes on his hands as I laced my fingers through his.

“We've always got your back.” John assured me, unlacing his fingers from mine before re-lacing them again.

“It's going to get crazy when we get home, isn't it?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“In some ways, yeah. But in some ways, it'll be quieter. You're not going to be working when you're in treatment, so you won't be running around as much. But I'm sure that life will find a way to make things crazy. It always does...”

“That's true.” I sighed. “I suppose I have to start telling people, huh?”

“Well, yeah. At least your family and friends.” John nodded. “I'll help out in any way that you want, I don't want you to be overwhelmed with anything. It's about you getting better. I don't want you to be stressed out about other people.”

“How much does everyone know?”

“Well, fans have heard rumors. Ava and I have been keeping your parents and Michael updated; they want to talk to you soon, but they know that you haven't really been feeling well. We've been keeping it all on the down low-- everyone who knows you're here hasn't said a word to anyone who doesn't know about it. We know it's not our place to discuss it with other people. So we haven't really told your friends... but they've been trying to get a hold of you.”

“Oh, shit. Where's my phone?” I panicked, realizing it had been days since I had actually checked my phone.

“I have it.” John pointed over at his bag, which was sitting in one of the chairs. “I finally turned it off after it spent twelve hours beeping constantly... have fun trying to go through those messages.”

“Thanks,” I sarcastically responded.

“Anyways, back on topic. Telling people.” John redirected the conversation, working to focus more on the logical than the emotional. “How do you want to do this?”

“I mean, people who I'm close with should hear it from me. They'll be mad if they didn't.”

“I think they'll understand if you send out a mass message. Maybe just call your family, because you should tell them by something other than message, but otherwise--"

“I'll get my parents and Michael to come out to California tomorrow and I'll tell them in person and then we'll go from there for family. I have to talk to Carolyn and Alice and the guys too, I suppose... did they go home already?” I cut him him off, beginning to worry about telling everyone. “If they did I can just tell them when I get back, but if they're still here maybe I should just get that part over with now, I mean there's the whole “I'm in a band and there are probably a million people who are chomping at the bit to find out what the fuck is going on so that'll involve Carolyn and Alice...”

“The guys are still here, as are Carolyn and Alice.” John quietly told me. “Do you want them to come visit?”

“They may as well.” I sighed. “They'll need to know sooner or later.”

“I'll give them a call in a bit, if you want... or you can call them.”

“Just call them now.” I bit my lip, my fingers nervously working to braid my hair, something that proved challenging with an IV in my hand.

“Now?” John warily looked at me, uneasy about my response.

“Now. I just want to get this over with.” I confirmed.

John left the room for a moment, returning as he slid his phone into his pocket.

“They'll be over here in like five minutes.” He told me, sitting back down on the bed and resuming his position, mirroring me.

“Great. So what's going to happen when we get back to California?”

“That's a good question, I suppose.” John shrugged. “What do you mean by it?”

“Well... are you going to go back to Arizona? Or are you going to stay in California with me? Are you still going on Warped?”

John sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “I don't know, honestly. I'd like to stay in California, which involves finding a place to stay, but I'm sure I could do that pretty easily...“

“You could just stay with me.” I suggested. “It's not like I don't have room for you.”

“That's true.” John smiled, mostly to himself. “I didn't even think of that.”

“But what about tour?”

“We haven't discussed it. I know that the guys will understand my predicament, but I don't know if we can cancel a three-month long tour, you know? If we still go on the tour, you can bet that every day off would be spent here though, even if it meant getting on a plane as soon as we were done playing and then taking a red-eye back... I'd do it. In a heartbeat. I don't want you to have to do this alone, and I know that there's no way I could live with myself if I spent my free time being anywhere other than with you...”

A silence settled over us, John moving so we could cuddle together for the short amount of time before I had to break the news to the guys, my heart quickening as the wait increased.

“Nervous?” John looked over to me, just moments before Ian would stick his head in the doorway.

“Getting there.” I swallowed anxiously, my eyes focusing on the door until a familiar face appeared in the entranceway.

“She's alive!” Ian jokingly exclaimed, leading the twins, Mason, and Dave into the room, Carolyn and Alice bringing up the rear. John moved off my bed and sat down in a chair, giving me some space so I could make my announcement.

“Yeah, I'm still here.” I forced a smile, my stomach churning at the thought of the news I had to break.

“How have you been feeling?” Dave asked, having only had sparse updates from John for the past few days.

“Well, I've felt better, but I definitely don't feel as bad as I did when we first got here.” I answered honestly. It was true-- my energy had increased a little bit, and whatever they were giving me had been helping with some of my symptoms.

“So have the doctors figured out what's going on?” Carolyn asked the question that I knew was plaguing everyone's minds, the elephant in the room that I would have rather just continued to ignore, had I had my way.

“Um... yeah.” I answered, my voice low and my eyes focused on my hands as they fidgeted in my lap. “You guys are the first people I'm telling, so please don't freak out because I haven't really gotten used to it yet and it's so weird to me and I have to tell a bunch of other people yet--” I knew I was rambling, so I cut myself off, took a deep breath, then spoke again. “I have Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. It's, umm, cancer.”

I finally tore my eyes from my hands to find seven absolutely shocked faces, mouths hanging open and eyes wide as they all stared at me, their expressions exploding with infinite and non-existent emotion simultaneously. Silence was hanging over the entire group, a dead weight pressing down on everyone as they tried to wrap their heads around the bomb I had just dropped.

“Um, uhh, please say something... Anything.” I begged, uncomfortable with the tension in the room that had come with the news.

“You-- Ber-- Ah--” Alex was trying to force anything from his lips, struggling to find words appropriate for the situation, eyes brimming with water. “Are you going to be okay?”

“There's a 96% cure rate. I, um, I have to do chemo though. The tumor's right here,” I gestured to my chest, drawing an imaginary circle where they had done the biopsy from. “But it's only in one spot, and it's a kind that responds really well to treatment, so there's that.” I nervously ran my fingers through my hair, praying that none of them would break down. “I mean, I should be back to healthy in half a year, at least that's what they think.”

It wasn't until that point that I had really become upset about the turn of events. It wasn't even so much about me being sick, but six months meant that I was going to be missing Warped Tour, and that meant that the guys weren't going to be touring either, something that broke my heart more than anything. We had all been dying to go to Warped, our own fond memories of spending days in the blistering sun at concerts coming full circle when we were going to be the ones on stage playing those concerts. It hit me as if I had run into a brick wall, my eyes watering as my voice finally began to quiver, knowing that my own tears were only seconds away.

“I'm really sorry guys, I know you were looking so forward to Warped, but there's no way I can go.” I sniffed, furiously pawing at my eyes in hopes of wiping away any tears before they fell.

Part of me felt pathetic for crying about missing a tour, but more of me felt stupid for crying about something other than the fact that I had cancer, realizing that any sane person would be crying over the dreaded “c” word.

I didn't see Ryan stand up and move over to me, since I was too busy wiping my eyes, but I felt the bed sink down as he sat next to me, his lanky arms wrapping around me and pulling me into a hug, moments later feeling the other side of the bed sink down as Alex's arms mimicked Ryan's, sliding around me from the other side.

“Beret, Warped Tour's going to be there next summer, and the summer after that, and the summer after that.” Alex gave a melancholy chuckle, trying to keep his own emotions in check. “But if you don't take care of yourself, we won't have a lead singer to go on tour with next summer, or the summer after that, or the summer after that. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we're definitely not mad about that. Life's handed you some lemons, we'd rather stick around and help you make some damn tasty lemonade out of them than worry about touring anyways.”

“Or we'd help you squirt the lemon juice in life's eyes as a hearty 'fuck you!” Ryan suggested, causing me to let out a small laugh, Ryan smiling with his success at lightening the situation. I let my eyes rise up to see John, who was struggling to stay dry eyed, sharing a sad smile as he wiped his own eyes.

“I'll take care of all the tour arrangements Beret, don't stress out about them.” Carolyn spoke up, giving me a comforting smile. “Do you have any requests on how we announce the cancellation?”

“I don't want to announce that I'm sick until I'm at home and I've had a chance to tell my family and friends-- I don't think it would be right for them to hear from gossip sites, you know? Just hold onto the tour cancellation for now, I'll come up with something to say once I get everyone else up to speed.”I answered, the logistics of my unexpected reality coming into focus, allowing me to push my emotions to the side and focus on the matters at hand.

“How long do you think it'll be before you announce it?” Alice asked, trying to figure out a timeline in her head.

“A couple days at most. We're going back to California tomorrow, I'm going straight into the hospital there and starting treatment the next day, but I'm hoping to see my family and tell them tomorrow, then my friends who don't already know in those next two days.”

“Glad to hear they're letting you kind of go home at least.” Mason commented, “Do you know when you'll actually get to go home home? Like, sleep in your own bed home?”

“I”m supposed to do like four or five days of in-patient chemo, then I get like two and a half weeks of recovery time, then I go back in for another cycle. So it shouldn't be too horribly long, barring complications... maybe a week? They have a couple things they have to do before they can start treatment, like I need my central line put in, and I have a couple other pre-treatment procedures to do.” I rattled off, the logistics eerily engraved into my memory.

“Well, at least there's an end in sight.” Mason smiled, trying to be encouraging.

A knock on the door brought all of our eyes to the entryway, where Ava was standing, an unreadable look on her face.

“Hey guys...” She trailed off, her face trying to make sense of what was going on.

“Hey Ava,” I smiled, “What's up?”

“I, uhh, not much... how are you guys?”

“We're alright” Ian shrugged, “We just popped by for a visit. You know, can't go too long without being apart, we have separation anxiety.” He joked, showing off a cheshire grin.

“For some reason, that doesn't surprise me.” She lightly joked, redirecting her attention at me as she took the only empty chair in the room. “Can I have a minute with Beret, guys?”

Everyone nodded, standing up and bidding me a temporary goodbye as they made their way out.

“So I have some news...”

“What kind of news?” I asked, curious as to where she was going with this. From her face it could go either way, but I was hoping it was good.

“So I auditioned a little while back for a part in a new TV series that is supposed to start filming next week... and I just got a call back from the director.”

“And?”

“I have a week to move to Los Angeles.” She cracked a smile, her lips curving up as she looked at me. The thing was, though, that I could tell from Ava's face that she wasn't as excited about it as she normally would be. The usual sparks I would have found in her eyes weren't there, and she seemed almost nervous about telling me.

“You don't seem as excited about this as you should be... is there some weird catch with this job?” I asked her, not bothering to beat around the bush about my concern.

“No! I mean, it's a really cool concept for a show and I'm really excited about that... I just... I'm going to miss your first treatments. I feel like a horrible best friend, Beret.” She confessed, “I should be there to supply you with entertainment and sneak in good food when the days get boring and the nights get long and I won't be there to do that, instead I'll be packing up all of my shit and driving across the country while hoping that I can find a place to live when I finally get there. I feel like I'm letting you down.”

“You could just live with me, at least to start.” I suggested. “I can turn the studio into your room. It technically is a second bedroom anyways. And why would you be letting me down? I hardly think that I'm actually going to be left alone for the next few months at least. I mean, John's also here, my parents will be going to California tomorrow, I'm sure they'll stay a while-- I'll have the guys to keep me company too. And Andrew. And Kelly. I know that this is hard on you too, but I won't be alone. I'll be far from it.” I assured her, giving her the best grin I could muster.

My words seemed to have helped, Ava's expression reading relief as she listened to what I had to say.

“I don't know what I'd do without you.” She moved from her chair to the edge of my bed, hugging me. “You always know what to say.”

“I try.” I sheepishly smiled, hugging her back. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Can you arrange for my family to fly out to California tomorrow? I know John has been giving them updates but I want to see them and tell them about the diagnosis in person.”

“Your parents and Michael?” She clarified, nodding her head.

“Yeah, if that's not too much trouble.”

“Yeah, it's not a problem. I'm kind of surprised they aren't out here now.” She confessed.

“I mean, it's not cheap to fly, and they all have work and school. So unless I was on my death bed, I imagine that it would have been a logistical hell for them to make it out here. Besides, John has been giving them updates, and you were here, so they knew I wasn't alone.”

“I suppose...” She reluctantly agreed. “Anyways, I should go make these plans. Need anything while I'm gone?”

“Not that I can think of.” I shrugged.

Ava had turned to leave, her hand on the door knob when I called out to her again.

“Yeah?”

“Congratulations on the part. I'm so proud of you.” I told her. “And I can't wait to live with you. I missed movie nights with you.”

She turned around, grinning at me. “I missed them too.”

As I watched her leave, I couldn't help but think about how quickly things were changing. But even though everything was changing, it wasn't all bad. And I was thankful for that.