1 in 100,000

A couple of hours later, Juliet was thinking that the tiny prick was nothing but an ant bite compared to the last few hours. Her blood test had come back bad, something about her white blood cells, so he told her to go to children’s hospital to get a bone marrow biopsy.

“Don’t worry about it.” Dr. Cohen had said to Juliet and her mother. “All we’re doing is trying to narrow it down.”

Thanks doc Juliet thought as she sat down between one screaming toddler and an older woman who was trying to control her eight year old twins. One had a bed pan on his head, and they were playing pirates with two tongue depressors.

Juliet had already had her biopsy, and she gingerly touched her aching hip. They had given her a shot to numb her leg, which had stung insanely bad. Not like it had helped any. Fact is you can’t numb a bone. Actually taking the bone marrow had been the worst pain she’d ever experienced, which wasn’t really saying much. In her eighteen years of life she had never once broken or sprained anything.

But by far the worst part was the waiting. When she’d asked the new doctor, a grumpy old man named Dr. Blackstock who wasn’t near as nice (Or good looking) as Dr. Cohen, what all they were trying to “narrow down” had gave her an almost evil stare and said “Could be nothing. Could be a life threating disease. We aren’t going to know until we do your biopsy, now are we Ms. Andrews.” Before walking out the door, leaving Juliet wide-eyed and wishing she had never asked.

Needless to say, Juliet’s hatred for anything doctor related was increasing at a very fast pace.

After a little while a nurse came to where she was sitting and told her that sense the place was getting a bit hectic that she could go and get something to eat if she wanted, and they would call her when they had her results. “Shouldn’t be more than an hour.” The nurse had said with a bright smile. The poor girl looked exhausted.

Juliet nodded her thanks and quickly walked outside, glad to be away from the chaotic kids inside. At first she was going to do exactly what the nurse had told her to do, go get some food. She’d stopped by the house earlier and gotten her own car so that her mom could take Jamie to soccer practice. But she realized that she was really too nervous to eat. Still she went to a nearby Starbucks to grab a coffee.

She ended up sitting on the bench outside the hospital, sipping her coffee, watching people go in and out, and waiting for her call telling her what was wrong with her. Juliet really didn’t think anything was wrong with her. She was just a normal teenager from Tennessee. Critical diseases don’t happen to girls like her, even though she knew they did.

What she probably had was mono. It wasn’t like she’d been kissing a bunch of boys lately, but she would always share her drink with Casey. That was the kind of things that happened to normal teenage girls. There was no way it was anything more serious than mono.

Tentively she took a sip of her steaming latte. The warm liquid soothed her throat from the cold air outside. She sat her cup down next to her on the bench and watched the toddler from before walk towards her car, one hand holding her mother’s finger, the other gripping the stick end of the sucker she was gnawing on. She noticed Juliet and let go of her sucker and waved. Juliet smiled and waved back.

Another family walked by, this time walking in the building. There was a little boy about three on an older boys back. He looked about Juliet’s age, maybe a bit older. He was by anyone’s standards good looking, with his swooping dark brown hair that was almost black in the poor lighting (It was getting dark). But despite that, she could still see his paralyzing blue eyes and charming smile. Close behind them were who Juliet assumed to be the little kids parents, who were holding hands as they entered the hospital.

After a couple of more minutes, she finally saw her mom’s car pull up. She was relieved to see her. She didn’t want to go through the whole thing by herself. She stood up and threw her cold coffee away in a nearby trashcan before walking up to them as they all got out of the car. To her surprise, Jason was with them wearing a tight black t-shirt that showed off all his muscles. Juliet rolled her eyes before she got pulled into a rib breaking hug by Jamie.

“Juliet guess what!” she yelled, practically jumping ten feet into the air. Juliet smiled. “What?” She asked, preparing herself for her little sister, who would no doubt yell back an answer.

“Coach David said I could be goalie next game! And he said if I do good, he’ll keep me there! Isn’t that awesome?” Jamie shrieked, making a few people look in their direction. Juliet smiled wider and hugged her sister again. “That’s great Jamie.” She said back as her mother and brother walked over to join them.

“Have you gotten any news?” Her mom asked, rubbing her bare arms from the cold weather. Sense it was already dark, the air was getting cooler outside. Juliet shook her head. “They said they would call me when they got the results.” Her mother nodded. “Alright, we might as well wait inside.”

Before anyone could respond, Jamie sprinted towards the entrance yelling “Thank you! It’s freezing out here!” Jason and Juliet looked at her as she half-ran half-skipped towards the doors with weird looks on their face. “Well, someone forgot to take their meds this morning.” Jason said under his voice. Juliet giggled, making her twin smile. Besides the fact that they looked similar in many ways, everyone could tell they were twins because they had basically the same bubbly yet shy personality that made everyone love them.

As they walked into the lobby, the nurse at the receptionist table waved her over. Her only though was Oh great, what did Jamie break. “Juliet, we were actually just about to call you. Dr. Blackstock’s shift ended, so you’re going to go down that hall,” she pointed down the hall to Juliet’s left “Dr. Martinez is in room 130 waiting.” Juliet gave her a quick thank you before motioning her mom to follow her, along with Jamie and Jason.

Just as the nurse had said, Dr. Martinez, a pretty Hispanic woman in her mid-thirties, was sitting at her desk. And she didn’t look happy.

* * *

“T-cell-prolymphocytic leukemia. It’s a mature T-cell leukemia with aggressive behavior and predilection for blood, bone marrow, lymph nodes, liver, spleen, and skin involvement.” She paused for a second to moisten her lips. “T-PLL is a very rare leukemia, primarily affecting adults over the age of 30. It’s very rare for someone your age to be diagnosed with this type of cancer. If we’re going to be honest, it’s extremely hard to treat. Basically, your white blood cells aren’t being fully developed and the ones that are don’t work right. You would get infections easily, as well as bruising and bleeding. What we would need to do is kill all of those inefficient cells with chemotherapy and radiation treatment, and find a person who has an almost identical DNA as you, take some of their bone marrow, and put it in you.”

Jason jumped in. “Me. I’m her twin. I have to be a match right?” she shook her head sadly. “It’s possible, but less than 30% of bone marrow donors are compatible with their siblings or any other family members for that matter.” Jason looked down at his shoes and didn’t reply. “We’ll still check all of you though. And we have many people donate bone marrow all the time-“ “What are my chances of finding a match?” Juliet asked, looking at the doctor with intent eyes. Dr. Martinez didn’t respond right away, but finally in a quiet voice she answered her. “There’s a 1 in 100,000 chance in finding a match. But that doesn’t mean-”

Juliet stood up fast and stormed out of her office. She saw her mom crying silently in the chair beside her, and Jamie was looking at the doctor like she was from outer space. And Jason, rock solid Jason, was wearing a tear streaked face. They were already grieving for the daughter and sister they haven’t even lost yet.

Juliet didn’t know where she was going, but soon she found herself outside siting on the bench, hugging her knees into her chest and sobbing uncontrollably. She didn’t care who saw. All she wanted was to wake up in her soft bed and for all of this to be a dream.

Slowly she stopped crying and just sat there thinking about what was going to happen next. She started tangling her fingers in her perfect blond curls. I’m gonna lose those too. She though sadly as a few more tears fell down her face and landed on her old tennis shoes.

“Ahem.” She heard someone clear their throat next to her, making her jump. “Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He faded off seeing what a mess she was. He was the guy that she’d saw earlier, walking in with the little boy and his parents. How could you forget those blue eyes? “Are you ok?” He asked, genially sounding concerned. Juliet glared at him. “No not really. I kind of just found out I’m dying.” Her words came out harsher than she’d meant, but at the moment she didn’t care.

She expected him to apologize and walk away, but he just looked at her with a sad look. “Sorry to hear that. Well, my names Justin.” He held out his hand in a handshake gesture. She stared at him for a second, as if to say Really? But then reached out and shook his hand. “Juliet.” She said looking into his beautiful blue eyes. He smiled. “Like the song?” She tilted her head sideways, confused at what he was saying. “Check yes Juliet. Are you with me? Rain is falling down on the sidewalk; I won’t go, until you come outside.” He sang out, and she smiled when she realized what song he was sing, and very well at that. “Yeah. Like that.” She said, and she felt herself smile.

“There’s the pretty smile I knew you’d have!” He said, making her smile bigger and blush slightly. Suddenly he pulled out his phone to check a message. “Hey Juliet. You wanna meet someone?” he asked looking away from his phone to her. She hesitated for a second, so he started talking again. “Man he’s the coolest. I’m sure you’ll love him. But I have to warn you, he’s a bit of a flirt.” She looked over at him and sighed. Slowly she held out her hand so he could lead her away

He smiled and walked her back towards the hospital. This time they took the right hall, down the corridor and took an elevator up. “So his names Tatum. I’m not trying to hook you up or anything, but I am his wingman so…” he winked at her. Whoever this Tatum guy was he must be amazing Juliet thought as the elevator dinged and Justin led her towards the end of the hall.

They stopped at room 439 and Justin turned to look at her. “Now be aware, I have girls come up all the time telling me he’s the cutes thing they’ve ever saw.” He smiled one more time before leading her into the room. “Uncle Justin!” was the first thing she heard and then she saw the three year old little boy from earlier run and jump into Justin’s arms. “Juliet, this is Tatum.” He said turning so she could see him better. An awful felling settled into her stomach when she realized the little boy was bald.