Justin's POV

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I know that Brian and the others have been dealing with a lot since this has all started. I know that. And I know that they've been through a lot and that everyone is scared and angry and all of that. I know that, too.

I know that I am.

I know that the bills that aren't being covered by my mother's insurance are killing her and that Brian is putting his job on the line to be with me and help me with everything and I wish that I could do something or say something that would make them stop.

It's not that I don't appreciate them or anything like that. It's not that I don't love them. It's just that I know what this is costing everyone and I feel so guilty about it.

It's not like I wanted cancer, sure, but this is pretty much fucking up everyone I know and I wish there was something I could do to make it better for everyone.

Look, I know that there are really only two alternatives here-either I'll get better or I'll die, but sometimes I wish that it was settled one way or the other. I really do. Every morning I wake up and for a minute, maybe two minutes , maybe five if I'm really lucky, I forget that I'm sick. I don't remember the first thing in the morning. I'll usually wake up pretty slowly, you know how it is when you just sort of climb out of it into being awake and I'll feel Brian's warmth next to me-except that I don't really notice it unless he's not there for some reason-and for just a couple of minutes I don't remember that I'm sick. I forget that this is probably another day that I'm going to spend on a bed in a hospital with tubes in me and poison being fed into my veins and that when it's over I'll feel so damn awful that I'll wish that I was already dead.

I forget, well until I remember again, and before that happens I think about whether or not I remembered some assignment for school that was due or if I have any errands to run or what shift I'm working at the diner. I lay there and I try to get my day lined up and then it hits me that today is one of the mornings when I have to have chemo or radiation or another MRI or more blood work and then it's like the sun isn't shining and there are clouds and the wind is going to be cold and it's just another day to get through.

When this all started, when I was first diagnosed I thought that I'd get the treatment and it would work and then I'd be OK. I know that was stupid or naïve or whatever, but I just assumed that. I mean, that's the way things are supposed to work, right? You get sick, you take your medicine and do what the doctor tells you, you eat good food and get plenty of rest-when you're not throwing up-and then you get better.

Simple, follow the steps and you'll be fine. That's what's supposed to happen.

It doesn't always turn out that way.

I did everything I was supposed to. I went through the treatments, I moved away from home so that I could get the best care they said was available. I lost my hair, dropped out of school for a while so I could just concentrate on getting better. I threw up ten times a day and there was a lot more crap that I'd rather forget about and after all that you know what? They said that I was getting better.

Honest to shit they did, all those hotshit doctors. They said I was in remission. That's what they told me. They said that the tumors had shrunk and that it was looking pretty good. My hair started growing back and I could eat again, not like I used to, but at least I didn't look like a fucking victim of Auschwitz anymore and I felt better.

I really did. OK, maybe not 100%, but better enough that Brian and I could make love now and then and we could go out sometimes and I could take a couple of classes like a normal person. I still got tired easily and I wasn't hitting on all cylinders, but I felt so much better that it seemed like it was going to be alright.

So then the other shoe dropped and we're not just back at square one, we're about three steps behind.

I know the others try to protect me, try to keep my spirits up and all of that, but I'm not stupid and when I ask the doctors they tell me the truth. They couch it in fairly optimistic terms, but it's not hard to cut through the bullshit and see what's really going on.

I have new tumors and a couple of the old ones; the ones in my lungs are inoperable. I asked about a transplant and they won't actually come out and say that there's no time soon that's going to happen, but I get the picture. And, fuck me, I saw the look on the tech's face when they found that new tumor on my ribs while I was in the middle of the last round of radiation. He looked like he couldn't fucking believe that a new one had grown while I was in treatment. He called the doctor right then and there and, OK, he went into the next room but there's nothing wrong with my Goddamned hearing and it was pretty obvious that he wasn't telling the guy anything that he wanted to hear

Oh, shit-and do you want to know what another kick in the teeth was?

While I was going through the first round, when Brian and me were living at Ronald McDonald House and getting the lay of the land and still naïve enough to think that this might be over in time for Christmas-the first Christmas, not the third one-while we were doing that I found out that my Mom was having a biopsy to check out a lump she'd found in her right breast.

She was scared to shit, so scared that she was afraid to even call the doctor to find out the results and she was dealing with me and my damn bills and being a single parent to Molly and fighting with the school about getting some of the tuition money back after I'd been forced to take a medical leave.

She'd gone through the biopsy with just a local anesthesia so she was awake through the whole thing and I found out later-like a year later, that she watched as they removed this fucking thing that was about the size of a golf ball from her.

Jesus.

I mean, fucking Jesus.

She didn't even tell me about it, Molly spilled the whole thing one day because she didn't know that I'd been kept out of that particular loop. God, that pissed me off.

It turned out to be benign, but fuck. You know?

Everyone is trying to make it easier for me and God I love them for doing it, but sometimes I just want to have everyone tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I get so damn tired of everyone walking on eggshells around me and knowing that when I go to the bathroom or something they're talking about what's really happening with the treatments.

I know they do this, I've known about it since the beginning when Brian and my Mom were talking and thought that I was asleep. You learn a lot when people don't think you can hear, you know? That's when I learned what kind of cancer I have and how aggressive it is and that the odds were that I'll be dead within five years of the diagnosis. No one has had the balls to tell me that to my face yet, even after all this time, but that doesn't mean that I don't know it.

Of course I know it. I've known it since I learned the name of what I have.

Face it, I can surf the net with the best of them and it wasn't even hard to find.

I just so hate this.

I hate being so fucking sick and I hate feeling like crap all the time.

I hate the pity I see when people know what's wrong with me.

I hate all the well-meaning smiles and prayers and tokens that come my way.

I hate that Brian and I can't make love like we used to.

I hate that I'm nineteen years old and I'm probably not going to see twenty-one or two.

I hate that I'm not me any more, that I've become this shell that houses a parasite that's eating me alive.

I hate that I've become the charity of the month at my school. Trying to help? Sure, but it's like I'm being hit with a brick over and over again about it.

I hate seeing the guilt from people who are healthy, the ones who thank God it isn't them.

I hate that I won't see Molly get married and have kids.

I hate that I'll never have kids of my own.

I hate what this is doing to my family.

I hate that my friends, most of them, anyway, don't know what to say to me-so they don't say anything and they've stopped calling.

I hate all the well-meaning strangers who think that they can make things better. Sure, it's nice that they leave me the cards and the notes and tell me that they're going to pray for me and I know it's pissy of me, but give it a rest, will you. Please? Treat me like a person, not a Goddamned walking time bomb.

I hate that my days are spent fighting a fight I probably won't win.

I hate that it's taking what time I have and stopping me from doing what I'd like-the things I love.

I hate seeing the look on Brian's face when he wonders how much longer he'll have to deal with this and then how guilty he feels when he knows it won't be all that much longer.

I hate that everyone treats me like a fucking piece of glass that's about to break.

I hate that everyone seems determined to cram a lifetime of things into a year or two-all the museums and the shows and all that shit.

I hate that I think that time is running out and there's not a Goddamned thing I can do about it.

I wish that I had more time.

I wish there was just one day I could wake up and know I was healthy again.

I wish that I could do normal things. I wish I could go to school and see a movie and go out to dinner and not have to worry about throwing up.

I wish that Brian and I could be like we were.

I wish I could look at my Mom and not see the terror she carries with her.

I wish I didn't know about shunts and rads and gating and anal fissures.

I wish that this wasn't happening.

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