Cancer

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"Kelsey? Are you alright, honey?"

Mom studied me from the passenger's seat, her pale blue eyes troubled. I pretended to be absorbed with driving back to our hotel so I didn't have to see the pain in her face again. She had aged so much in just a few days.

So I couldn't help but feel guilty: after getting out and socializing at the Uries' tonight, she was in the best mood she'd been in since Dad had died, and here I was, ruining it with my own pain. I should've tried harder to fight it off, or at least to feign cheer. For her.

"Yeah, Mom, I'm fine," I reassured her, but my voice broke. "Just, you know...tired."

She didn't say anything. I stole a glance at her out of the corner of my eye, but she was looking out the window now.

We were both silent all the way to the hotel. I should have made conversation with her, tried to keep up her good mood for as long as possible, but I couldn't think of what to say, couldn't laugh, couldn't smile. I had no fight left in me.

We got back to the hotel and it was dark outside. I couldn't see the look on Mom's face as she asked, "What did Brendon have to say?"

My whole body stiffened immediately, and my throat closed up. For a moment, I couldn't force the words out, and then finally I scraped up the strength to lie. "Not much," I said.

We kept walking. We were out of the parking lot now, in the warm light of the hotel lobby. The lady behind the front desk smiled at us as we walked by, but I didn't feel cheered, and Mom didn't smile back at her, either.

Mom didn't speak again until we were in the elevator, and then she said, "I'm sorry, Kelsey. I wish I had known."

Her face looked more pained than I had ever seen it before--even in the past few days, after Dad had died.

"What do you mean?" It didn't sound like a question; there wasn't enough force in my voice to create the right emphasis. The words just sounded blank, empty.

She pursed her lips hesitantly--not like she was thinking of what to say or how to say it, but wondering if she should. Finally, she said quietly, "I didn't know how it was for you two. How it still is."

I assumed she was still talking about Brendon.

"What do you mean, 'still is'?" The words hurt before they even came out, and I was wincing, flinching away from my own voice as I said bitterly, "There's nothing there anymore, Mom. You know that."

Mom just shook her head a little. "You're still hurting. You haven't gotten over him yet."

"Well, that's not 'you two,'" I whispered. I was hurting--hurting too much to be angry or bitter anymore tonight, hurting too much to be anything but sad. "That's just me."

The elevator doors slid open and I hurried off down the hall ahead of her so she couldn't see the look on my face. I would never allow anyone to see that level of emotion in me again. I would never let anyone see me like that again. It was the biggest mistake I had ever made, and I'd be damned if I made it again.

-----

Inside the hotel room, there were a few outdated magazines on the desk in the corner, in case its occupants got desperately bored during their stay. I was too upset over my conversation with Mom in the elevator to say anything else to her for a while, so she watched some Lifetime movie in silence while I flipped through one of the magazines on the other bed. The distraction was working pretty well (I almost laughed a little at a few of the celebrity's sarcastic anecdotes) until I turned the page and found myself staring at the last person I wanted to see right now, smiling.

The caption below the photo read: Brendon Urie and Jon Walker of Panic at the Disco, filming the video for their new single, "Nine in the Afternoon." Brendon was wearing a bizarre tan jumpsuit and faux British army get-up and smiling, standing next to a lifesize golden elephant, but even the absurdity of the image wasn't enough to keep me from tearing apart inside.

I threw the magazine across the room. It hit something with a loud thwacking sound, interrupting my mother asking me if I was okay. I didn't answer. I ran into the bathroom and shut the door.

It was so pathetic, the way I crumpled so easily at every tiny reminder. I couldn't even look at a damn picture of him without breaking down. All it took was one memory, one stray thought in a moment of carelessness, to trigger the rush of searing emotions. One thought of Brendon took root somewhere deep in my mind and multiplied again and again and again until there was no room for anything else. The dark thoughts, the painful memories crowded out everything else. The hurt took me over, possessed me, drained all the good parts of me in order to fuel its endless endurance. All those feelings of worthlessness and stupidity and loss and betrayal and guilt doubled and tripled and quadrupled until they were all I could focus on, all I could think of. They suffocated every last healthy bit of my soul until it was dead, until I wasn't even Kelsey anymore. I was just a shell, a hollow reminder of what used to be, empty except for the pain and the memories that didn't matter anymore. The memories I still couldn't let go of.

It was just like cancer. Just exactly like it.

I was dying--not visibly, maybe, but inside I was wasting away day by day. Pretty soon there would be nothing left to hold onto, nothing left to fight for; I could already feel my grasp slipping. Soon, I would give in and let the water take me under. Soon, the cancer would have me.

It was incurable.

How?, I wondered, staring at my haggard, sallow face--the face I hardly recognized anymore--in the dingy hotel mirror. How could I allow this to happen? How could I allow one person to wreck me so entirely? It was shameful. It was disgusting. It was so pathetic.

The words took root alongside the memory of Brendon's smile, multiplied, suffocating. Cancer cells.

Cancer.

The dreaded word--cancer--brought back an abrupt, unexpected memory of my Health class back in California, in my freshman year of high school. All at once, I could see it so clearly in my mind, like the dog-eared textbook was open right in front of me again, the bolded words jumping out of me, morbidly unapologetic...

The Five Stages of Grief:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

It all came back to me suddenly--that random bit of knowledge I was sure I would forget as soon as I passed the test: The Five Stages of Grief, as defined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in On Death and Dying. The stages people go through when they are told that they're dying, or when they lose a loved one.

Was this so different? Strangely, it felt the same to me. It felt like I was dying.

No, I was dying. I could see that now. Maybe, in some twisted way, the very real appearance of Death in my life had been some sort of grim wake up call.

Why? Why was I waking up now?

As quickly as the question came to me, I knew the answer as well.

Because I had to save myself. If I didn't take action soon, all would be lost. I would lose myself to the memory of a boy who should have meant nothing to me if I didn't step in and stop this.

Yes, I had to save myself. That much was suddenly very clear to me. It was the most obvious thing in the world--the most important thing.

I had to stop drowning and tread water. I had to fight the pain, to push it so far away that I would never be its prisoner again. I had to beat the cancer.