As Planned

Everything was bright. Like someone turned on twenty lights and put them all in one room. It was extremely annoying and I hadn`t even opened my eyes yet. I could faintly hear mumbling around me but it was mostly drowned out by a buzzing noise. Where the hell was I?

With great difficulty and quite a bit of rapid blinking I finally got my eyes open. I had to squint for a few seconds while my eyes adjusted and when they did I wanted to scream. I was in the hospital. Again! I was hooked up to all kinds of fluids and machines and both my arms had little bruises on them from what I`m guessing to be all the needles they must of poked me with.

When I finally looked around the room I realized I wasn`t alone. Mom and aunt Sarah were here but none of my friends were with them. Not even Morimoto.

"What`s going on?" I rasped. God, my throat hurt.

"Oh! Oh, honey your awake," Mom exclaimed.

"I`ll get you some water," aunt Sarah said before quickly exiting the room.

I managed to get out an, "Why am I here?"

"You collapsed," Mom explained while walking over to me. "Your friends brought you here. They were very worried."

Of course they were! I apparently collapsed! Even I`m worried. Why did I collapse? What`s wrong with me now?

Aunt Sarah walked back in a few minutes later with a cup of water. "So, do you want to explain why you were in a club?"

I motioned for her to give me the cup and thankfully she did. I doubt I`d be able to talk if she hadn`t. After downing the most of the water I answered her question, "I wasn`t in a club. I was in the garage. The club is basically a different building."

"That`s not the point!" Aunt Sarah hissed. "There was a party and you collapsed!"

"Now, now. Calm down," Mom soothed. "She wasn`t drinking and there was nothing in her system other than her normal medicines. Stop trying to accuse her of something she didn`t do." She looked back at me and frowned. "Why were you there?"

I resisted the urge to groan. "I was at Han`s garage. He`s one of my friends."

"You`re friends with a man that owns a club?" Aunt Sarah exclaimed in outrage.

"Is that all you heard?" I whined. "He owns a garage too. And that`s exactly where I was, drinking water I might add. He doesn`t serve alcohol to miners. He`s not that stupid."

"How old is Han?" Mom asked.

I shrugged. Truth be told I never asked. "In his early twenties. I never asked for a specific age."

Aunt Sarah scoffed, "This man is supposedly your friend and you don`t even know his age?"

"That does seem a little odd," Mom added.

"He doesn`t like talking about himself and I can understand that," I defended. "Han is a great friend. I don`t understand why you would judge someone you never met. Haven`t you both always told me to never judge a book by it`s cover?"

"That`s before you collapsed in the garage of a man who owns a club!" Aunt Sarah yelled.

"Sarah!" Mom hissed. "Calm down. Amelia doesn`t need this right now."

At least she got the garage part right. "What do you mean I don`t need this right now? What happened? Why did I collapse?"

Mom bit at her lip and wrung her hands. "I`m so sorry, sweetheart. The treatment stopped working."

"It what?"

"But they have another one you can try."

It stopped? How could it of stopped? Everything was going great. The doctors kept saying I was doing well. That everything was fine. "Where are my friends?" I choked out. "You said they brought me here. Where are they?"

"The lobby or home," aunt Sarah answered. "Some left."

"Go get them. Please. They need to know," I whimpered.

"Why should they get to know?" She asked in disbelief.

"Because I want them to!" I shouted, furiously wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to regain my composer. Yelling at family wasn`t going to do me any good.

"Just go get them," Mom murmured to her sister and with a huff she left. Mom turned to me, "You didn`t have to yell."

"She didn`t have to judge people she doesn`t know," I countered weakly.

"No, she didn`t," She agreed. "But yelling isn`t the answer. And while you talk to your friends I`ll talk to Sarah about her yelling as well." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I want you to tell me about Han and I want you to explain why I shouldn`t be freaking out about him like Sarah is."

"You`re really going to listen?" I asked.

"Of course," She chuckled. "I`m trying to be the reasonable one."

Despite the situation I smiled. "Han is a friend. He owns a garage...and a club. The two buildings are separated by two doors and hall. And you have to have Han`s key to get into the garage from the club so it`s completely safe."

"Alright. What else? What`s he like?"

"Smart. Very smart. A bit of a gear head too. Twinkie told me how he rebuilt a whole car once all by himself in two days."

"Explains why he has a garage."

I nodded, "Yeah. The garage is really his main thing. The club is just there so it wasn`t wasting space. And it`s a good way to make money if the garage is having a slow day."

"Personality," Mom encouraged. "Don`t tell me about him job. Tell me about who he is."

Cars are part of who he is, I mentally corrected. "He`s very sweet. He um, I think he`s actually the first person to get me in a car without a real fight. He eats sweets constantly. I swear he`s never without a bag of candy. And it`s never the same kind. It`s always the most random stuff that he probably has to hunt to find. He` s really patient with me and respectful too." I bit at my lip, trying to think of something else. "Some days he um, he kind of goes into himself and he pushes everyone away. I don`t think he does it to hurt us though. I think he lost someone very close to him and it really hurt him. Neela says he likes to pretend he doesn`t care so he doesn`t get hurt when he gets close to people. Iv`e actually experienced that firs hand. He can be really confusing at times but overall he`s a great guy."

"Babygirl!"

I didn`t need to look at the door to know Twinkie had arrived. That boy can make an entrance, I swear. And he has the worst timing.

Mom leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Now how come you don`t talk about Morimoto the way you talk about Han?" She straightened back up, smiled and greeted Twinkie, Neela, Reiko and Earl. "I`ll leave you all alone. I need to talk to Sarah anyway." And with that she left the room.

"So what`s going on?" Earl asked.

I bit my lip and looked at Neela, "They both know, right?" She nodded and I looked back at them. "My medicine stopped working."

"The cancer..." Reiko trailed off.

"It`s still there. I don`t know anything else right now. But my meds aren`t working." I quickly wiped at the tears lining my eyes. "I`m screwed."

"No your not. There has to be something else," Twinkie said.

"Mom said something about there being another treatment," I murmured. "I don`t know if it would work."

"Try it anyway," Neela encouraged. "We can`t lose you!"

I shook my head while wiping at my eyes, "You won`t lose me." I glanced around the room and frowned. "Where are Han and Morimoto?"

"Han went back to the garage," Reiko said.

"And we don`t know where Mormoto is," Earl said with a shrug. "He left after you were admitted."

"Do you want me to call them?" Neela asked.

I nodded, "Please."

"They`ll probably only let one more person in the room," Twinkie murmured. "It`ll be too crowded."

"Twinkie`s right. Which one do you want me to call?" Neela questioned.

I pursed my lips in thought, my mom`s question ringing in my ears. "Han. I want Han."