Words Received, 3/4
part two
After Greta's seizure, Patrick undeniably starts spending more time with her. He panics -- every moment he's away, all he can think is what if, what if, what if something similar happens, but the outcome turns out much, much worse? So, he stays at the hospital a little longer now, even though it doesn't make such a huge difference, considering Greta is usually asleep for the majority of the day. It's those what if's that keep him there, though. Just in case, he thinks. In his head, it sounds rational, but when he voices these concerns one day to Brendon, while they're at his house, doing little, he very clearly hears the flaws in his theory for himself.
Brendon is quick to confirm, "Well, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
Patrick stares at the ground for a moment, runs the idea through his head again, and this time it sounds much more foolish. "You're right," he declares. "It doesn't."
"So, why do you still do it?" Brendon asks.
"I don't know," Patrick says.
"Then stop," Brendon says.
"It's not that easy."
"Why not?" Patrick looks at Brendon, who is waiting for a reply, but Patrick doesn't have one. He doesn't know why.
He says, even though it sounds lame, "Because, like, it's my sister. You try seeing her and wanting to leave, especially knowing what could happen when you're not there, and--"
"Okay," Brendon interrupts.
"What?" Patrick asks.
"I'll try seeing her." Patrick frowns and looks at Brendon, assuming he's joking. He sits there though, looking dead serious, and Patrick isn't going to be the person to tell him no.
Brendon goes into the hospital that day, for the first time, to visit Greta. He admits to Patrick on the walk up to the room that he's never really been to a hospital before -- not like this, to visit someone. Only for doctor's appointments, vaccinations, and this one time when he went to the ER because he thought he broke his ankle and "I don't even think that counts, because I left two hours later, and it was only a sprain." He seems kind of nervous, honestly. He's talking a lot, even more than usual, cracking his knuckles every couple of minutes, and he's already asked three times if he's going to have to look at any blood. ("Probably not," Patrick calmly repeats each time the question pops up.)
About halfway up to the room, Patrick stops Brendon and tells him, "Hey, no one is forcing you to visit her. It's cool if you're nervous."
"No," Brendon replies, forcing a smile that's probably supposed to make him appear calmer, "I'm fine. Really."
Brendon seems to have calmed down after that. Either that, or he suddenly became very good at covering his nerves up. He's talking less, his knuckles have stopped cracking and, in general, he looks less tense.
The reach Greta's room, though, and Brendon's face becomes pale again, more pale this time. Patrick tells him, growing more concerned that he might faint or pass out, "Are you sure you don't just want to wait out here? I can go in, say hi, and we can just head back to my place, or we can drop you off at yours, or--"
"No," Brendon interrupts. "She wants the company, right?" Patrick nods. She hasn't had any of her friends from school visit her -- they're too little for something this depressing -- and even though they made her a giant get well card, it's not the same. And, while Patrick is sure Brendon's not going to make her as happy as one of her friends, that's her age, he's confident that he'll be better than nothing.
"I think she'll love the company," Patrick tells Brendon. "We don't have to stay long, if you don't want to, either."
"We'll see," Brendon replies, pursing his lips. "We'll just--we'll see." He gives Patrick a reassuring smile and takes a deep breath. Patrick walks inside the room, Brendon close behind, and says hi to Greta.
"Hi," she replies, waving from her bed. She looks from Patrick to Brendon and asks, "Who are you?"
Patrick says when Brendon doesn't immediately reply, "This is Brendon. He's a friend of mine. He wanted to visit you."
"Oh," Greta says, looking Brendon up and down. She purses her lips, tilts her head, and finally declares when she deems him acceptable, "Hi."
Brendon smiles and says, "Hey!" His voice sounds very nervous again, and Patrick doesn't know whether or not they should stay. He goes to ask Brendon if he wants to go, but Brendon asks Greta before he can form the question, "Is there, uh, anything you wanted to do?"
"I like coloring," Greta says, still looking a little confused.
"Dude," Brendon says, his voice too earnest to make Patrick think that he could possibly be making the statement up, "me too." He walks up to Greta and continues, "Do you have any crayons, or colored pencils? And something to color, or whatever? Because I am a master colorer."
"A master?" Greta asks suspiciously, pointing toward a box of crayons and a coloring book on the nightstand just out of her reach.
"Oh yeah," Brendon says, grabbing them for her. "I've got a degree and everything."
Greta says, "I don't believe you." Brendon sits down in the chair next to her and sets the crayons where they both can reach them.
"Well," he says, flipping through the pages of the book before settling on a picture of a turtle, "I'll just have to prove it to you."
: :
Greta clicks with Brendon almost instantaneously, and for as much as it surprises Patrick, it doesn't. Brendon has always been a generally hyper person. He talks a lot and smiles a lot and seems like the kind of person that is naturally good with kids. Patrick, on the other hand, isn't so great with them. He's quiet and impatient and can't usually put up with them for long. He only gets along with his sister because, well, she's his sister. He's had four years now to figure out how to get along with her, and even though they fight a lot, they get along a lot too. But Greta, really, is the only kid he gets along with.
So, when Brendon comes along, and clicks with Greta immediately, to the point where he makes her laugh more and smile more and colors better, Patrick is admittedly a little jealous. He shouldn't be, because Brendon seems to be like that naturally, but Greta is his sister, and he thinks, genuinely, that she must really like him more. It seems like Patrick is more lame, and Patrick wants to slap Brendon for making him feel that way. Greta has clicked with people before -- Gerard and some of the nurses and kids at her school -- but when it's someone his own age, when it's Brendon, it feels like she's being stolen from him.
On the car ride home, Brendon rambles on about how visiting her was so much more fun than he anticipated. He explains that he didn't just have fun, but that he feels like a good person for doing it, even if it's kind of cliche. He says he always wanted to do something like that, but was nervous to. He's glad that he did, and hey, he says, maybe he'll come back and visit Greta again later. "If that's okay with you and your parents," he adds, when Patrick doesn't immediately reply.
"Oh," Patrick says. "Sure. She'll love it." He bites his lip, because even though he's not happy with Brendon stealing Greta, he's not going to deprive her of the company. "Whenever you're around, you know."
Brendon says, "Awesome," and grins.
"Right," Patrick replies, trying harder than he should need to not to roll his eyes. "Awesome."
: :
Right when she's doing her best, when everyone thinks she's going to be discharged, Greta starts throwing up. And it's not even that; the throwing up is a side effect of the chemotherapy, and it's happened before, and it's never been a big deal. The real issue is that it takes little time at all before she can't keep anything down. It's then that she starts getting skinny -- too skinny -- and the doctors say that she's not getting any nourishment, and no, that's not normal.
They start to look into it right away. Researching, testing, getting her temporary nutrient supplements, and coming to the conclusion that she has ulcers. Her lead doctor tells their mom, "They're mild peptic ulcers. They're gastrointestinal -- er, in her stomach -- which is causing the vomiting. They're very minor, and we're going to start her up right away on carafate, which should get rid of them with hopefully no complications." Patrick's mom nods, but she looks as though she hasn't followed a word of what the doctor has said. "Look," he patiently clarifies, "if the carafate helps, like we're anticipating, Greta could still be very well discharged within the next week or two."
"Very well," his mom says, sounding more relieved. "All right, yes. Well, thank you."
"It's no problem," the doctor replies. He places Greta's chart back on the end of her bed, waves to her, and excuses himself from the room.
Greta, who looks positively frightened, states with too much confidence in her tone, "I'm gonna die."
"What, Greta?" her mom says. "No, no, of course not."
"But they said--"
Her mom says, "What you have isn't very bad, sweetheart. Not at all. The doctors will fix it right away, I'm sure." Greta looks from her mom to Patrick, who nods earnestly in agreement.
"Oh," Greta says, but it sounds unconvinced. Just as nervous as she is, Patrick can't really blame her.
: :
Sometimes, Patrick thinks, his parents don't understand. Maybe it's because he's a teenager, and that kind of a thought is naturally wired in his brain for several years, but Patrick thinks it's sometimes more than that. Every now and again, when he makes a sarcastic comment or talks back to them, he tries to explain that he's just stressed. He doesn't need grounded as much as he needs a break.
When his report card comes in the mail, so long after school had ended that he forgot it was coming at all, he debates opening it. He knows it's not going to be wonderful -- not that it was ever wonderful to begin with. But the grades he usually gets -- A's and a few B's in classes that aren't honors for a reason -- aren't going to be on this report card. He knows it, because with everything that's happened with Greta, he's just simply slacked a little in school.
He opens his report card up, figuring he better see his grades before his parents, and it still comes as a shock when four out of his eight final grades for the year are in the C range. He cringes a little, scolds himself right away, and reminds himself not to crumple up the paper. He sighs, feeling more frustrated with himself than anything, and folds the paper up, tucking it into the folder and at the bottom of the mail pile, wishing his parents didn't have to see it.
They do see it, later that night, and Patrick gets a lecture that doesn't seem to help anything. He gets told that he obviously needs to put more focus into school. He insists that he does, but gets told that it obviously wasn't enough.
He snaps at his parents after about ten minutes of this, exclaiming, "I can't help it! This was just a stressful term, I just--next year, okay? I'll live up to your standards of perfection or whatever next year."
His dad tells him to cut it out with the attitude, and when Patrick doesn't, his laptop sits in his parents room for the rest of the night while he lies in bed, staring at the ceiling. This, he thinks, isn't fair. The fact that Greta's cancer caused him to fail, he thinks, isn't fair. He stares at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about everything that's unfair in his life, until he gets tired and manages to fall asleep.
When his parents still address him with a tone of disapproval the next day, he wonders what he could do, if there's anything he could do, that would help them understand. He has a funny feeling that for as long as Greta has cancer, there won't be.
: :
Patrick finally takes some initiative and seeks out Gerard to talk to when he gets his report card and there are four C's on it, Greta has ulcers that are making her loose too much weight and look way too sick and make Patrick more scared than ever, his parents hate him, and it just sort of feels like his world is about to fall apart. He thinks he might cry, because he's never gotten a C before -- ever --and Greta finally looks like a cancer patient, which is the last thing he wants to see, and he wishes his parents would back off, and really, when his entire world is about to fall apart, it's hard to hold it together.
He gets to the hospital and tells his mom when the elevator is stopping on the seventh floor, "I'm going up another floor. I'll be back whenever." His mom doesn't say anything -- the tension between them is still very much there -- but she nods curtly and steps off the elevator without otherwise regarding him. Patrick presses the button for the eighth floor, and when the door shuts, he crosses his arms tightly.
The elevator stops after a moment, the door opens, and right on the left, like Gerard said, are some bright red lights that say "Child Life" and are undeniably annoying. He walks out of the elevator and opens the door, and inside is a large area with child-sized tables and games and activities and children. Lots of children.
Patrick almost turns around and goes back to the elevator, because he expected some sort of office where there wouldn't be a bunch of little cancer patients watching him try not to cry. Instead though, Gerard is sitting at a table with a little boy about Greta's age, sees him, grins, and waves. Patrick realizes too late that he really has no choice now but to stay, because his face must visibly drop or something, and Gerard's does the same when he sees him. He says something to the kid before he stands up from the tiny table and walks up to Patrick.
He says, "Hey, what's up?"
Patrick shakes his head, feeling stupider than ever. "Nothing. I--nothing. I'm just gonna...," he trails off and turns around, starting to walk away. Gerard grabs his shoulder and stops him so that he has no choice but to turn back around.
"Whoa, whoa, fuck. What's wrong?" Gerard whispers, quickly glancing behind him toward the children when he swears.
Patrick breaks eye contact and shrugs. "Nothing," he replies, but his voice cracks a little over the words.
“No, seriously, what is it?” Gerard presses. There's this genuine concern underneath the question that takes Patrick a moment to recognize. When he finally does though, it almost comes as a revelation, because Gerard actually is genuinely concerned. It's not like all the other nurses who ask him if he’s okay sometimes without even waiting for a response before walking away.
Patrick almost replies, “Everything.” Really, he almost does, but instead, and he barely realizes it, he forces out, eyes watering, “Nothing,” because he’s hoping, maybe just a little, that he can convince himself with the word.
"Bullshit," Gerard says. Patrick knows he's right. Gerard says, "If you want to talk, there's an empty room back there. It's kind of, uh, hectic here right now." He makes a general hand gesture toward the area and Patrick just sort of nods and Gerard says, "Okay, here, follow me." Easily, Patrick obliges, and they get back to the room, which still has kid-sized tables that they both sit in, making them both look and feel like uncomfortable giants. Gerard looks at the table and says, "Not ideal, I know. But talk, kid."
Patrick doesn't. He feels stupider than ever for coming up here, but now that he's here, he doesn't know what to say.
"Fair enough," Gerard says. There's a moment of silence before he asks, "Well. Are you hungry, at least?"
: :
They end up in the hospital cafeteria with cheap lunch. Patrick can't say he was starving, but eating helps to fill the silence. Gerard is pretty patient -- he's not pressing any matters, and Patrick doesn't understand why not. He's taking all his time, and he should be making him leave, or something, if he's not going to talk.
Patrick doesn't exactly feel like he's going to cry anymore, but if he starts to talk about any of the issues, or even think of them, he's not sure that the statement will still hold true.
Finally though, about ten minutes in, Gerard asks, "So, is it Greta?"
"That's, uh, part of it." Gerard gives him a pressing look. After a moment, he says, "She's just. She's sick. And she's starting to look it. And--and my parents hate me, and I'm, like, failing my classes and--" He stops talking when he realizes that his cheeks are hot. He wipes at them -- they're wet -- and he can only say, "I'm just fucking--I'm overreacting."
"No, you're not," Gerard tells him.
Patrick insists, "Yeah, I am. I'll be fine."
"Are you sure?"
Patrick purses his lips, and waits a moment before saying, "Maybe."
Gerard asks after a moment, somewhat abruptly, "What did your parents do?"
Patrick begins to explain that his parents are assholes -- total assholes -- that don't understand his life and that he can't be perfect. By the time he finishes talking, he's not really crying anymore. His voice is just cracking here and there, but he sounds angry more than anything. Gerard nods along, and when he's finished talking says, "Sounds pretty asshole-y to me."
"Yeah," Patrick says. "It was."
"And your grades," Gerard states next, stealing a few french fries from Patrick's plate. "How bad?"
"Like, four C's," Patrick says.
"That's not horrible." Patrick rolls his eyes and nods when Gerard asks, "It is?"
"I've never gotten a C for the year before. It's pretty bad."
"Do your teachers know about Greta?" Patrick shakes his head. "Maybe you should tell them. They might reconsider, you know? Give you some leeway."
Patrick sighs, frustrated. "I should have. The year's over, though. Grades closed weeks ago."
Gerard says, "That's a fucking bummer," before asking, "And what about Greta? What happened?"
"Ulcers," Patrick says. "She can't stop throwing up everything she eats, and now she can't get discharged. And she lost all this weight and her hair is gone now and--" He pauses and after a moment and a deep breath, says, "--and I never thought she was actually going to look like a cancer patient. She looks, you know, cliche."
Gerard nods like he understands and says, "Sounds like you've got a lot on your plate." Patrick nods this time. "You know, it's all going to clear up. The grades aren't ideal, but it just means you try harder next year. Keep it up with the good ones, you know, and the C's probably won't even matter. And parents are really good at being assholes. As long as you try your hardest, you know? And you did, and I'm sure they'll realize that."
"I guess," Patrick says.
"And Greta. It's all temporary. You're a really good brother, so of course it's going to be hard to see her like this. Just know that everything will clear up with time and shit, and for right now, just try to make her comfortable. If you sit here wishing you could get rid of the cancer yourself, or make her better right now, you're just going to drive yourself insane. That kind of stuff isn't possible, and as fucked up as it is, you have to be able to sort of accept that."
"Yeah," Patrick says, sighing. "You're right."
"Unfortunately," Gerard tells him.
Patrick nods and repeats, "Yeah, unfortunately."
They sit there for a little bit longer in silence before making small talk. Eventually, they end up in a long conversation about video games and by the time they have to split up and go their separate ways, Patrick is feeling a lot better. He tells Gerard before he goes, trying to sound casual about it, "Thanks a bunch," but he knows it comes out sounding overtly sincere.
"It's no problem," Gerard tells him immediately. "Like I said, if you ever have to talk. I'm glad you came and found me."
"Yeah," Patrick says. "Me too."
Gerard tells him, "Good luck with everything," before looking at his watch and cursing." "I'm kind of--"
"Running late?"
"Yes. Only a little, though! I'll see you around, okay?"
"Sounds good," Patrick says before Gerard goes running off in the opposite direction. He starts walking back toward the elevator, feeling a little bit better about everything going on.
: :
Greta finally gets discharged two weeks after they start her up on the carafate. She still can't eat; apparently it takes time for ulcers to go away, and no matter how much she begs to try different foods -- the crackers, the cake, the fruits and veggies (it's clear she's desperate) -- she can't keep them down, and they still decide to send her home with an IV.
Before she's discharged, they send a nurse to their home who shows his parents how to work the IV. They're going to give her TPN, they say, a nutrition supplement. They start to ship it every couple of days, and they store it in the fridge in their basement. It's an ugly color, and doesn't look appealing in the least bit. Greta agrees.
She gets intravenous TPN once a day, and every time it's hooked up, she stares grimly at it. She crosses her arms and treats it like a punishment. When it's not on, she's much more grateful. She's glad to be home, even though it's different.
She sleeps a lot more. She stays on the couch in their living room the majority of the time and mostly sleeps. Consistently, Patrick is told to be quiet, so he doesn't wake her up. Greta isn't herself at home, not like she used to be.
Patrick doesn't exactly know what he was expecting. Maybe it's that he thought things would return to normal because she was healthy enough to go home. He thought that maybe she would start to bug him again wanting to play, or run around the house laughing, or invite her friends over again. Maybe he was stupid for expecting that, hoping for it.
His mom tells him, for the millionth time, that things won't return to normal right away. It doesn't happen like that. She reminds him that she's going to get chemo for three years; even then, she says, life isn't going to be exactly like it was before. She tells him that's something he has to accept.
He tells her he doesn't want to do that.
She tells him that's not his decision. She tells him to just worry about today, to worry about the present.
Patrick tells her that the present is more depressing.
She asks, "If it's that bad for you, how bad do you think it must be for Greta? You should be grateful it's not you out there with cancer."
"I am," Patrick says, and he means it.
His mom replies, "Then try to show it better. I want to hear a little less complaining and -- really -- be respectful toward your sister. You should be doing that regardless."
"I am," Patrick repeats. His mom raises an eyebrow in suspicion. He stands up and says, "Fuck you, mom." He goes to his room.
He gets there, shuts his door, locks it, sits down at his desk, and wonders whether or not this actually is for the better. Probably, he thinks, it isn't.
: :
Brendon texts Patrick two days later, asking if Patrick is free to hang out. Patrick, having nothing better to do, says that he is, and within an hour of the conversation, Brendon ends up at Patrick's house to hang out. Originally, their plan is to go and play some video games, but then Brendon finds out that Greta is home, and Greta realizes that Brendon is over, and things go downhill from there.
For the three hours that Brendon has free, he hangs out with Greta in the living room on the couch, Patrick sitting in a chair on the opposite end, arms crossed, staring at the TV while he waits for Brendon to finish.
He never really does, not until Greta says she doesn't feel well, and ends up throwing up in the bathroom. Brendon has to go around then anyhow, but bounces nervously in the living room asking every couple seconds if she's going to be okay.
"She'll be fine," Patrick tells him. "It's normal."
"Normal?" Brendon asks. Patrick nods and Brendon goes to ask another question, but a horn honks and Brendon says, "That's my ride, dude. I had fun today! Tell Greta bye for me, and tell her to feel better."
"Right," Patrick says, frowning as Brendon walks to the front door, oblivious to Patrick's frustration. "Will do." Brendon shuts the door behind him, and Patrick asks himself if that really just happened.
: :
Greta is admitted into the hospital about a week later when she has to get chemo again. Her platelet counts are low, though, so she can't get it yet. They keep her there anyhow -- the counts aren't just low; they're too low -- and she cries for the first two hours.
Patrick's mom is at work this time, and his dad is taking a smoke break again, and Patrick is left dealing with Greta. He's sitting next to her, and he's been blabbering for the past ten minutes about absolutely nothing, other than telling Greta that it'll be fine, she'll get to go home again, and that maybe they should do something to divert her attention.
"No!" she exclaims. "I just want to go home."
"I understand that," Patrick says. "You've told me several times now, but I can't do anything about that. I'm sorry, but really, maybe we should color or something to keep your mind off of it." Greta shakes her head fervently. "Okay," Patrick mutters to himself. "Well."
Patrick goes to hug her a few minutes later, but instead of it helping, she just breaks down further and Patrick doesn't know what to do when she's this inconsolable. When he tries to slip out of the hug, she clings tighter, and somehow, within five minutes of this, he ends up being the one sitting on the hospital bed, with Greta in his lap, still crying. She's calmed down somewhat, but it doesn't make a big difference when she's clearly just as sad.
It's around then that the door opens, and Gerard steps in. He grins and says, "Hey," but his face drops when he sees Greta. Behind him, Patrick notices, is someone else -- a tall, skinny guy with his hands in his pockets. "Okay, well, this is my brother, Mikey."
Mikey waves, says, "Hey," and it all sort of makes sense. Patrick looks at Mikey again, better taking in his appearance and noting how little he looks like a cancer patient. He has a full head of hair, he's not very pale, and even though he's skinny, it's not horrible exaggerated. He's walking fine -- it's not slow or anything, like how Greta walks now -- and he looks, very simply, normal.
Greta has temporarily stopped crying (it's turned into nothing more than some loud sniffles) in order to wave Mikey over and question his presence. Somehow, within 30 seconds of his interrogation, he gets pulled into a game of Candy Land while Greta explains that "I have cancer too!" and starts to, more or less, bond. Mikey can only laugh, and Patrick isn't far off from doing the same.
Gerard says, "You've replaced me already, Greta? I am deeply wounded."
Greta looks up from the game and says, "Well...we have band-aids here." Gerard laughs this time.
He says, "It may take more than a band-aid to heal this wound."
"Ouch," Mikey says through a monotone, distracted by the game. "Good thing you're in a hospital."
Gerard laughs loudly and Mikey cracks a smile. "Touche," he says, and rolls his eyes.
: :
When Greta has calmed down enough that Patrick feels comfortable leaving her side, he manages to get out of the bed, walk over to the spare bed, and sit on it. Gerard isn't far behind, sitting down next to him. Patrick looks at Greta, and then Mikey, and says, "You're both really good at this. Go figure."
Gerard laughs. "Yeah," he replies. "Lots of experience, I guess."
Patrick replies, "I bet," and there's a brief moment of silence.
Gerard breaks it shortly after it begins by saying, "When Mikes was first diagnosed, you know, he was confident he would be doing something like this as an adult. But then the second time around, I guess it sort of got to be too much for him. He stopped wanting to be around this." Gerard makes a vague hand gesture toward the room before continuing, "Even now, it's too much to be here all the time, for him. It's different for me, but back then I got to leave whenever I wanted. Even now, I get to go home at the end of the day. These kids here -- Greta and Mikey, too -- they don't get that, you know?"
"Yeah," Patrick says, glancing at his sister, who's laughing loudly at something Mikey said, "I know."
Gerard says, "Don't get me wrong. He loves coming in here and seeing the kids, because he likes making them happy and sh--tuff. Just in moderation. I think he kind of takes comfort now in knowing that he can leave whenever it gets to be enough. He's not confined to a bed, or whatever."
"Right, yeah," Patrick says. "That makes sense.
"Do you ever picture yourself doing anything like this when you get older?" Gerard asks.
Patrick doesn't respond immediately. He frowns at the ground, because he's never considered the idea before.
"I don't think I could," he finally says. Even now he can't handle seeing one cancer patient. To see tons of them, every day? To know that any of them might die? It seems too hard. "No offense, but it would be kind of depressing, I think."
"None taken," Gerard says. "And I guess you're kind of right."
"Except you get to make people happy," Patrick says. "And you're really good at that -- better than me, at least. It seems kind of natural for you."
"Maybe a little." Patrick looks up from the ground, at Mikey, then Greta, then Gerard, and looks at the ground again. He feels stupidly weak -- like the weakest one in the room, because he's never had cancer like Mikey or Greta, never had to deal with it twice, and only deals with one cancer patient a day, unlike Gerard, and it's his sister, and he doesn't really think that counts.
He frowns, wishing he were a little bit better with this all.
: :
When Patrick's dad gets to the hospital from his office, it's time to go back home. Right then, though, the doctors show up and Patrick gets that "better go wait outside" look. He rolls his eyes, but leaves the room after saying goodbye to Greta.
He gets outside the room and only a moment later, Mikey follows. "Hey," he says. "I never actually caught your name."
"Oh. It's Patrick."
"You're a really good brother, Patrick, you know that?"
"I don't really think so," Patrick replies. "But thanks."
"You've got to give yourself more credit than that. Don't think you're not making a difference."
Patrick just kind of nods because Gerard walks out the door and it's clear they've got to go. Mikey says goodbye, and Gerard does the same, and they leave. Patrick stands where he was, eyebrows furrowed, feeling oddly recognized, like that first time Gerard talked to him outside of Greta's room.
He goes home that night, feeling particularly appreciated, but he knows the feeling won't last.
: :
Patrick's birthday starts to near, and it's clear that his parents aren't going to be as frivolous with their present buying as they've sometimes been in the past. A lot of it has to do with the medical bills. Insurance covers many of them, but it still leaves some bills that his parents have to pay. Another issue is that both his parents are working less now. Fewer hours results in less income, which also impacts their financial situation. The other issue is that, now and again, they spend more money on Greta. When she wants something, they do what they can to get it for her. Before the diagnosis, saying no came to them much easier.
So, when they buy her a new DVD played two days before Patrick's birthday, it just doesn't come as a huge surprise.
"Why would you buy her that?" he asks his mom that evening on the car ride home. "My birthday is in two days and you bought her a DVD player for, what, like a hundred dollars? Two hundred? That doesn't seem right."
"You know why," his mom replies with a sigh implying that they've been through this a million times. That, or she's tired. Either way, Patrick knows it's because Greta has cancer and he doesn't. That's always why; the answer is fairly consistent, though Patrick suspects they use it as a response because it's hard to argue. Greta has cancer, is in more pain, is better-liked, and obviously has not received enough presents already. Patrick, on the other hand, does not have cancer, is apparently perfectly content, and is a teenager who has enough already. "How can you think about yourself like that when Greta is in the hospital? Do you realize how scared she is, and how much pain she's in?" they always ask when Patrick starts being "greedy".
His birthday, he thinks, may not be a top priority, and he's willing to admit that. What he doesn't understand is how a DVD player is.
He replies with a sigh, "Just because I know why doesn't mean it's fair."
"Life isn't fair," his mom says. Her tone is less upset sounding, like she's trying to offset how rude the statement is. "You're just going to have to accept it."
"Accept it," Patrick says. "Right, yeah, okay." He rolls his eyes, because it isn't really as easy as that.
: :
Patrick's birthday comes and goes uneventfully. He only gets a couple of small presents -- some CDs, a couple new shirts, and a new video game -- but they clearly don't add up to the price of a DVD player.
Patrick spends the majority of the day home alone. They go to the hospital for cake -- it's supposed to be a "family" sort of thing, even though Greta can't eat any of it -- but Greta is asleep anyhow, refusing to wake up to sing happy birthday.
His parents persist in trying to wake her up, but eventually Patrick says, "Just forget it. She doesn't want woken up." He goes home, and surfs the web for a little while, and goes to sleep not feeling a whole lot older but a whole lot worse.
He isn't surprised.
: :
With time, new routines develop in Patrick's family. They have to adapt to Greta being in the hospital. Patrick knows now that, any day, her condition could change, and the new daily question is no longer about hanging out at a friend's, or what's for dinner. Plain and simple, it boils down to one thing: "How's Greta?"
And today, the answer is much more complicated, the kind that he never wants to hear: "She stopped breathing today during her LP."
His reply is simple: "What?"
His mom sighs. "I know. It's--well, it's very complicated. She--"
"Is she okay?" Patrick worriedly asks.
"She's fine," his mom says quickly. "Completely fine. She has no idea that anything happened at all." Good, Patrick thinks. Good, good, very good. His mother continues, "We don't know why it happened either, but we just know she can't go under anesthesia for her next lumbar puncture." Patrick's eyes widen.
"You can't do that!" he exclaims. "They hurt; she would never let you guys--"
"I know," his mom says. "We're trying to figure something out." Patrick's hands clench into fists instinctively. He doesn't know a lot about this medical nonsense, but he knows, very well, that lumbar punctures are painful. Way too painful to not knock Greta out. He bites his lip and hopes, hopes a lot, that they figure something out before her next one.
Already, they're on their way to the hospital. When they arrive, Patrick nearly sprints to the seventh floor. He slows down once he gets inside the unit, but still is quick to make it to Greta's room. He opens the door and, disregarding Gerard, who's sitting next to her, walks around to her other side. He kneels down and says, "I love you, Greta, okay? I just--man, I love you."
"Yeah," she replies, distracted with one of her Barbies and oblivious to the situation's tone, "you too."
Patrick steps back a little, sighs, and sees Gerard, who says, "Hey, Patrick."
"Oh. I--hi, Gerard." Gerard gives him a confused look that's blatantly asking what his declaration was about. Patrick shrugs. Gerard frowns, but looks back at Greta, not pressing it.
He tells Patrick, "We've just been playing vampire barbies." He holds up his own, which is wearing a makeshift Kleenex cape and a flowery dress. "You have to pretend the cape is black. And the dress, well." He pauses and looks at the Barbie. "Well, she's just a vampire with a good sense of fashion. No harm there."
"Of course not," Patrick says. Gerard goes back to playing and Patrick frowns this time. He looks at scene and, considering the circumstances, it looks very normal. Greta looks very normal. He gives it a minute, waits for the world to topple, and when it doesn't, he stops frowning and says, "I'm going to go wait outside for Dad to take me home but it was, uh, good seeing you both." Greta happily waves and Gerard does too, though it's much more distracted. He goes outside the room and frowns a third time.
His world may not have fallen apart yet, but still, he can feel it quaking underneath his feet.
: :
Patrick doesn't think he's ever taken the time out to appreciate the fact that he's wasn't the one to end up with cancer. Sure, he hears it a lot: "You're not the one with cancer," but it only stings to hear. It doesn't make him value his life any more than he did before.
But after a three months, about ninety days, Patrick sits down in his room, and he realizes something: he doesn't have cancer.
He gets it.
He looks at the wall, blinks, thinks about Greta sitting her hospital bed, right that moment, while he's at home, sitting in his room. He gets to see his room, he realizes. He thinks about the absolute cocktail of medicines Greta gets, the needles, the MRI's, the spinal taps. Thinks about how she could have died, could die, and that even at four, she's aware of this.
He thinks about how that could be him.
And the thought is scary, incomprehensible, and he realizes that, compared to Greta, he's so weak. That he nearly cried getting his flu shot last week while Greta got that, as well as her blood and labs drawn, without even flinching. He has no pain tolerance, no way to mask over what's going on like Greta can.
It scares him that Greta could die; every day, there comes a point where he has to divert his mind from the thought. And even scarier, as selfish as it is, is that he could have been the one that had to worry about dying.
He never realized how grateful he is to be healthy. The fact that he had a shitty birthday, that he didn't get much, doesn't seem to matter when he puts things into perspective. He's healthy, which will always be more important than material possessions. Any day, in a heartbeat, he would rewind time, and make it so that Greta didn't end up with cancer. But would he take the diagnosis so she didn't have to?
He can't necessarily say he would, and that's what scares him the most.
part four