Chapter 1 - The sad news
Natalie POV.
As I was sitting there alone at the doctors, listening to him explaining they had found a mass on my spine, and the tests had shown it was cancer, I felt numb.
My mind couldn’t comprehend that this was happening to me. Life had never been kind to me, and now it was even more cruel. My parents had never cared about me, I was always left to my own devises, and if I ever made trouble, they didn’t tell, scold me, or even ground me, they just fixed the issue and kept on ignoring me. I felt worthless, like life had been wasted on me.
My mother was supposed to come with me to the hospital for the answers to all the tests, but she had forgotten about it and made other more valuable plans, plans she didn’t want to reschedule because it was a hassle to her. I had begged her to come with me, I was scared, she didn’t care.
I tuned in on the doctor again, I hadn’t heard what he was saying, lost in my own thoughts. I asked him to repeat what he had been saying to me. He gave me a pitiful look and started repeated himself.
“As I was saying ms. Smith, the mass we found on your spine, is inoperable. The mass is intertwined with your spinal nerves, so operating it away will make you paralyzed, at best from the chest and down, at the worst case you will be unable to breathe on your own, and you will die from the surgery. My best suggestion for you is to get a second, third or even fourth opinion from other surgeons, maybe someone will risk their career to do the surgery, but we, here at this hospital, cannot do anything more for you. We can make the last six months of your life more comfortable, but that is it. ” He looked at me again, trying to figure out if I had heard him properly. He sighed when I didn’t respond. “Is there someone I can call? Anyone at all?” I shook my head. No one had wanted to come with me. Not my boyfriend, mother, or father. I thanked him for his time, took the fliers he had given me, along with all the paperwork, and left his office.
I drove home in silence. When I arrived home, I just kept sitting outside in my car. I didn’t want to go inside.
I texted both my parents the results. I couldn’t handle calling them and hear the disdain and disapproval of me calling them, interrupting them in whatever they were doing. They hated when I called and interrupted them. Work and social gatherings always took priority over everything else. My mother’s response came “oh, I am sorry to hear that. I can ask my friends if they have any advice. They always have such wonderful ideas. I bet they will eat this news up raw when I tell them.” She always loved being the center of attention, telling everyone she met about sad things, so people would take pity on her and make her feel special. She had started doing that long before my parents got divorced, probably because she craved attention that my father wasn’t giving her.
My life had always been used by my mother as a sad tale she could tell others, how I was a big disappointment to her, that I was an awful daughter who didn’t appreciate her and her unconditional love and the topic she loved to talk about was my appearance. I had always been a little chubby as a child and growing up she had always called me fat and unappealing to look at. I had curves, a little too much for her taste, so she had always been very disapproving when I ate anything, so I stopped eating, so I didn’t see her disapproving look when we were in a social gathering. I hated that look. The look that made me quiet and made me feel awful about myself. I often heard how she spoke about me to others at social events, and they would all look at me with disdain, and then nod to my mother and tell her how right she was about me. I hated social gatherings.
My father responded after a little while. “Ok.” That was it. I always hoped for something more, I knew I shouldn’t, but it had always been my dream to have a family that cared about me. A family that was happy to see me when I came home, someone you could talk to, laugh with, and have a nice family dinner. I knew that would never happen with my family, but hope is a dreadful thing that doesn’t just disappear.
I got out of my car and got into our apartment, my dog Milo came running, he was a 3-year-old golden retriever, and I loved him dearly. I got down on my knees and hugged him and scratched his head, after a little while I got up and went into the living room door, where my boyfriend was playing computer games as always, he didn’t respond when I said hi, or ask how it had gone. He didn’t really care. I turned around and went into the bedroom and got changed into my running outfit. I needed to run to clear my head, but it was also a good way to give Milo his daily exercise. It was his and my thing. The thoughts of what would happen to Milo after I was gone brought tears to my eyes, I couldn’t leave him to my family or boyfriend, they wouldn’t love him like I did or give him what he needed. I had to give him away, find a good family for him, it broke my heart to think about it.
I got the leash and put my running shoes on and off we went. We ran through the woods, as fast as I could, Milo was running beside me without a leash, he loved it and always kept near me. Before I knew it, it had gotten extremely dark. We got to a lake with a lot of open space, and I slowed down, I needed to catch my breath and get some water from my water bottle. Milo was running around sniffing and finding sticks to chew on, he had such a playful personality, which is what I loved about him, he always found new ways to make me smile. Suddenly I could hear Milo growling and showing teeth, he never behaved like that, something must really be scaring him, I called him to me, and he was slowly backing away going near me to protect me. We needed to get away from here, from whatever was making Milo behave in such a way.
