Status: In Time

To Caress My Day

Chapter 235: Thyroid Cancer

Today Twigs was on a photoshoot her manager managed to nail for her. It was for an independent Australian magazine called Russh that primarily centered on art, fashion and music. There was a little segment for small urban artists in the UK and Twigs was one of them out of a group. According to her manager, her being a dancer in London won the team at Russh magazine over and that she’d need to bring some urban edge to the photoshoot. And so donned in a light gray university sweatshirt over a black lengthy sleeveless top, her baggy navy blue joggers and black combat boots, Twigs painted on a bright red lip to go with her neutral eyes, plopped her ebony curls up on top of her head to where they spill down over the right, swallowed back her sobs, and draped on a gold necklace with a lion medallion mixed in with other gold chains, her gold septum ring, and as many gold hoops she could fill in her earlobes. With her fingers bedazzled in gold too, she was out the door and drove to a location where the photoshoot had been set up in a small vacant warehouse.

Within the structure was a small group of other dancers that were huddling a few feet behind the photographer as he took shots of them one at a time. Numbing her emotions up, Twigs intermingled herself among the fellow dancers and fell into conversations with them, sometimes even joining in in demonstrating the fundamental steps to a specific dance move they were animated to learn for themselves before they were called to the front by the photographer.

When it was Twig's turn, she silently strolled up to the set and naturally positioned herself in what felt right because the photographer wanted them to pose as naturally as possible. The camera was mainly fixated on her face, not on catching a dance move in motion. At the command for her to look into the camera, Twigs tilted her head up and kept herself composed as the camera clicked several times. Incapable of getting out of her own state of trauma, she couldn’t hear anything anyone was ordering her to do. They all sounded like they were underwater to her ears. She could at least read their hand gestures though and so she knew to angle her head here and there. When her hearing soon came back, Twigs picked up that the photographer was asking if she was wearing anything under her sweatshirt. She was, and so he asked her to take the sweatshirt off and then proceeded to take more pictures.

Even though this photoshoot was for a magazine, there wasn’t a rack of clothes on set. No attire was handed to them, and the makeup artists were so few you could tell they were only there for touch ups if the photographer found that their models required it. Whether this was gonna be a big cover or not didn’t matter to Twigs. She needed the money, that’s what mattered. She wanted to pull back out of the photoshoot entirely after this morning, but couldn’t afford losing her apartment to it. Still, this wasn’t even on the forefront of her mind anymore like it should have been. What was was the news she received that morning before she left her apartment to arrive at this shoot wearing clothes she couldn’t care to pick out with a clear mind.

When she was finally finished with her part, Twigs put her sweatshirt back on and stepped aside to let the next dancer get photographed. Instead of leaving like she wanted to, she dallied despite the emotions within her threatening to boil over. Craving to feel normal like her old self again, she stood behind the man with the bigger camera and softly interviewed him on this and that when it came to the job of photography. It was something she’d always been interested in, what went on behind the camera in terms of angles and capturing sublime images and such. She was comforted to find the man more than amenable to answer and not the least bit bothered by her infinite questions.

As the shoot was wrapping up to a close, Twig’s manager rang her. “Hey, Mikey.”

“Hey, Twiggy-baby! I was calling to see how the shoot went.” Mikey inquired intently, having always been protective of his clients in this industry especially the females. “Was everything alright? Did anybody cross the line and make you uncomfortable?”

“No, everything was fine.” Twigs told him in a robotic tone that sounded void of any human emotions. “I had a wonderful time actually.”

“Are you sure? You don’t sound like you did to me.” Mikey told her, skeptical, his brow arching from where he sat in his office trying to schedule a gig for another one of his clients. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just…coming down with something.” Twigs misled him, resisting the urge to bite down on her lower lip as the tears she’d been choking down all day threatened to rise to the surface. Desperate to change the subject, she asked him for a favor. “Hey, Mikey. Could I get copies of the photographs from today’s shoot? I want to send some of them to my family if that’s okay.”

“Say no more! I’ll get right on it!” Mikey promised her. “But only if you go home and put yourself back to bed before your sickness gets worse, okay?”

“You got it.” Twigs swore, having already made her decision to do the very thing when she got home from today’s gig.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Back home in her little apartment all by herself, Twigs sat on her living room couch sipping some freshly made tea in a mug while despondently staring at her TV. She hadn’t turned it on to distract herself from the doom of today, she didn’t want to. Instead, she knew she needed to go back and replay it over in her mind. She needed to steep herself in the tragedy to see it head on and quit dancing around the edges of it to try and bypass a full confrontation.

Her mother had Thyroid Cancer.

Well, she supposed she should look at it as a ‘might’. It hadn’t yet been fully confirmed, that’s why her mother hadn’t been so speedy to let her in on the news when it was first distributed by her doctor. She didn’t want Twigs keeling over on her feet which is exactly what she would’ve done and why a part of her was so damn pissed at her mom for hiding this paramount disease from her!

Twig’s step-father, Luther, felt it was imperative enough that Twigs should know about it. If it hadn’t been for him ‘stepping out of line’ to tell her, Twigs wasn’t sure if she would’ve ever known.

Unfortunately now, her mother was livid at Luther for going behind her back and dropping the news on her daughter, and wasn’t talking to him for the time being. Luther felt Twigs had every right to know, and Twigs didn’t think she could love him more than she already did for it.

Twigs had stood up for Luther when the call had been made and the two adults were bickering amongst each other. She tried to conceal the fact that she was furious with her own mother for not being the one to tell her first, but…at the same time it was so like her mother not to.

If it hadn’t been confirmed by the doctor then why worry about it, her mother said.

Even having already understood her mom’s way of thinking, Twigs still found it heart-wrenching that she hadn’t been told at all, it stung just as sharply now as it did that morning. Now that she was home alone to deal with this privately instead of in front of strangers, all Twigs wanted to do was run away to her mother’s side…only she didn’t exactly have the money to spare to do that right now. That’s another reason why she had to take this photoshoot despite the news her mother MIGHT have Thyroid Cancer.

Feeling her tears flooding back to the surface again, Twigs tried to suck them back down again. She didn’t want to waste any more time crying over this than she already has. Tears weren’t getting her anywhere. She just…she just needed someone to talk to about this.

Someone to lean on.

She needed Seth.

Picking up her phone that hadn’t left her side since she got back home, Twigs tried to reach him, but didn’t pick up. Sighing in defeat, but still reaching for that elusive lifeline, she left him a voicemail. “Um, hi, baby. I…I miss you and…and I miss you. Bye.”

Hanging up the phone, Twigs burst into tears, nearly spilling her tea on her couch. She couldn’t stop once she let the floodgate loose and was snotting, and weeping like the world’s most damaged woman.

Twigs had wanted to tell Seth of her mother’s cancer so badly, but it got caught up in her throat when the voicemail presented itself. At first, she played dumb, not knowing why that was the case. Deep inside though, she knew she didn’t want to overwhelm him with the news on top of everything else he’s got going on in his life. Their relationship was already a struggle as it is, could he handle his girlfriend’s mother possibly having cancer as the cherry on top?

Because Twigs had consumed her day on the couch in a state of deep grieving of the worst possible scenario which was a life without her mother, Twigs gave in to going to bed early, and hopefully would perish in her sleep so the pain in her heart would finally subside. Sadly she wasn't close to the feathering edges of sleep when she ensconced herself under her comforter. Rather, she was impeded in that process when her phone went off on her nightstand. Picking it up, Twigs saw that Amira was calling.