Until Death Do Us Part

Thomas’ P.O.V

I rolled out of bed feeling like pure and utter road kill. My mother and I had had a little stand off the night before because I called Jay after Julie’s funeral and it left me feeling rough. But not as rough as Chemo after school will make me feel.

I stepped into the warm spray of the shower and let the heat of the water try to wash away the dread I was feeling. I was almost certain that Jayson wouldn’t be at school so soon after that.. and I would have to face the day alone.

Word had spread that I was cancerous and people were treating me like I was contagious. Jayson and our lunch gang, minus Kaleb, had been doing a pretty good job at keeping people in check. But who am I kidding; they are really Jay’s friends. I had no way of knowing whether they would keep on defending me without him here.

I turned off the water and stepped out, blindly grabbing for my towel. I dried off and wrapped it around my waste. I shuffled through my closet trying to find something to wear. I didn’t really want to wear anything but the baggiest sweats I owned. Unfortunately that has all I have been wearing lately. So I settled on a pair of loose fitting basketball shorts and one of Jayson’s too-big shirts that I kept here for him when he stayed over.

Normally I skipped breakfast, unless Jayson was over, but I decided it was a good idea to fill up my belly as much as possible before another treatment. I placed two Ego waffles into the slits of the toaster and pressed the button down. I got out a plate and a fork and dug through the cabinets for syrup. By the time I found the Aunt Jemima bottle my waffles had popped up
.
“Owwie! Son of a-!” I wailed picking up the really freaking hot waffles and burning the crap out of my fingertips. I flung them onto my plate and sat at the table.

I heard the horn of the bus honk and just left my half eaten breakfast on the table in my mad dash out of the door. I did manage to pick up my bag and sling it over my shoulder in the process. I muttered an apology to my bus driver in passing and dropped down into the single seat in the very back. It had been reserved as my seat for the past week because lord knows the boy with cancer can’t share a seat with someone without giving it to them.

I leaned my head against the back of the seat in front of me in frustration. It was extremely irritating that people were okay with me being gay, but now that I was sick they were treating me like some kind of aids ridden animal. Like seriously did they think that I that I got it from being gay?

Similar thoughts bounced around my head all morning until I wondered into gym. I had been visiting Tommy in Journalism every day since I brought in the note that excused me, but because he wasn’t here I had to stay in class. People gawked at me thinking I had transferred out here. I took a seat on the bleachers next to Steven, who used to be my teammate during basketball.

“Hey, man,” I said brushing my black fringe out of my face, “When did you do that?” I asked pointing to his arm. It was bandaged in a sling.

“Oh, right after you stopped coming to class. Is it true what they say?” he asked bending his head, in a whisper.

“What do you mean?” I asked, knitting my brows.

“That you have cancer from being gay,” he whispered. “I didn’t even know you were gay,” he added almost to himself.

I clenched my jaw. I had an idea that’s why people were treating me this way, but I wasn’t sure.

“Steven, I always thought you were a sensible guy. You cannot get cancer from being gay. And you can tell whoever has been spreading that rumor that, I, Thomas Woods, am a virgin and so is Jayson Vance.”

Steven’s mouth hung open and he just stared at me. I rolled my eyes and excused myself to the restroom.

The lunch bell rang and I pushed out of my class room as fast as possible. I was starving for Jayson. Instead of going to the lunch table first, it was unnecessary seeing as how Jayson wasn’t here, I got in line. I scanned the lunch room out of boredom and noticed Steven and his friends talking animatedly. They were staring at me. I knew that he was telling them what I told them and for some reason couldn’t look away.

“Next,” Mrs. Swimmer snapped.

I mumbled an apology and slid my lunch card out of my wallet to let her scan it. I rolled my eyes and placed the card back in its slot in my wallet. I picked up a tray, sticking it under the sneeze guard. I marched back to the table and dropped into my usual spot.

“Hey, guys,” I said suddenly craving normalcy like a mother.

I was greeted by a chorus of half-hearted ‘hi’s.

“So how is Jayson holding up?” John asked concern obvious on his face.

“Not good. I was only able to talk to him a little bit last night, but he’s crushed. He may have gotten into a lot of trouble because of Julie, but he’d do anything for her when it came down to it. He’s eaten up with guilt over the whole thing.”

John nodded glumly.

“What about you? How are you doing?”

I thought about it for a while and decided he must be talking about how I was coping with being so sick at fifteen. I was feeling pretty think-y today, but really not that bad. Granted I hadn’t had my round of Chemo yet. “Physically, I’m feeling okay. Mentally, I feel like crap.”

“Can I ask why?” Jeremy asked.

“Well, a lot of things. I have Chemo later, Jayson is really really upset and people are spreading stupid rumors that I am sick because I’m gay. I told Steven to tell whoever was spreading it that Jay and I were virgins.”

“You are a virgin?” John asked quickly.

I shot him a look. “I’ve been with Jayson since the start of last year when would I have found time to have sex?”

“Oh, yeah, I forget you are younger than us,” he said quietly.

“What does Jayson tell you?” I demanded.

They all dropped their heads guiltily.

“What. Does. He. Say.” I demanded again making each word exaggerated.

“He has told us about all the times you’ve tried to get him in the sack and what you two did a little bit ago,” Adam said still looking down.

“We just assumed you weren’t a virgin because of that,” Jenny piped up.

I took that opportunity to kindly bang my head on the table multiple times. Jayson would do something like that. He would tell people about my attempts at a sex life with him.

“Tommy? Are you like broken?” Adam asked.

“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just banging my head on the table because my boyfriend can’t keep things about our privates, private,” I said still banging my head on the table.

“Yep, he’s broken,” Jeremy confirmed.

I ended my little head banging episode and sat up straight. “Guys, you wouldn’t blame me if you saw Jayson without a shirt on.”

With that everyone started cracking up. I just looked at them deadpan still wanting to crawl into a hole and die. Ugh. How embarrassing. Crap, I said die and me in the same sentence. I mentally face-palmed.

XxXxX

“What’s up, Doc?” I asked as I slid into the room.

“Like I haven’t heard that one before,” he said with a laugh. “I’m glad to see you in such high spirits, Thomas.”

I lay down before answering. “Well, how I see it now is that you have to have some kind of sense of humor to get through life.”

“Oh, when did you get this new outlook on life?” He asked pushing the meds through the tube sticking out of my chest.

I winced. It always hurt. A freaking whole lot. “My boyfriend’s sister was in a car wreck the other day. I realized life sucks and you don’t even have to be sick to die. No one knew her life was going to end. No one had the chance to say goodbye. With me, at least they have plenty of time to wrap their mind around the fact that I may die in the near future.”

"Oh, wow, I’m sorry to hear that. But it looks like that incident has put things in perspective for you.”

The fire-y liquid made its way through my veins and set me on fire. As the fire receded the nausea rolled in. Hard. I couldn’t even make it out of the room, I just rolled over and barfed up the crappy lunch I had at school. I began shaking and before a very alarmed Dr. Kradic could do anything else I heaved again. And again. And again. And again.

By the time nurses cleaned me up there was nothing left in my stomach. This one pretty black haired, black skinned, nurse wrinkled her nose at the stench of stomach acid that filled the room. I just wanted to tell her that it didn’t smell too good to me either. When they finally let my mother see me she lost her s***.

I had to listen to her ramble on and on about how badly this Chemo was affecting me. I really didn’t listen, I still felt too sick.

I knew that being sick should make me want to be closer to my mother, but it has only made me want to get as far away from her basket case a** as possible. She has become unbearable to live with. And she’s ruining my time with Jayson. I mean if this is really it shouldn’t I be spending all of the time I can with my mother instead of wanting to run off with Jayson?

I shook my head free of those thoughts and went to my room. I needed to lie down.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my bedroom door and saw a sleeping boy in my bed.