My Bloody Idiot

I had just spent over ninety dollars for the uber and I was pissed beyond limits… and that’s if I put it mildly. The uber driver had taken me through the longest route and was constantly hitting on me… or at least trying to. If I take the seat in the back, you have to be really retarded not to take the hint that I want to be left alone.

My hand dove into the clutch bag as I searched for my keys. Surprisingly enough the lights were on. I looked down on the screen of my phone.

2:45 AM.

I put the key and the lock, but it seemed the door was left unlocked. “Mum?” I called out, going deeper in the spacious living room. The tv was on, her laptop was open and the lights were on, but I didn’t see mum anywhere. I sighed. This was not the first time a better offer came to her and she just jumped from the couch and ran like the wind leaving everything on.

I kicked away my shoes and stripped off the jacket, before I walked across the room to the kitchen. A big mug of coffee in the middle of night? Call me crazy, but I loved coffee too much to worry about such a meaningless thing as sleep.

As soon as I had found a decent sized mug – a little something caught my eye. “What’s this?” I whispered to myself right after the coffee machine indulged in the magnificent coffee making noises. A brown paper bag was sitting on the kitchen island. Those better be some pop tarts…

With a big yawn I walked around the island and poured the contents of the bag over the black marble surface. A deep frown took over my tired face when I realized I’m looking over a couple of orange pill containers.

“That’s a fuckload of pills…” I picked up each bottle, reading over the titles, “Hycamtin, Cytoxan, Oxycodone, Xanax…” I knew what Xanax was and surprisingly I knew what it’s worth on black market, but speaking of the other pills? I had no fucking clue what a bloody Cytoxan was, let alone the Oxy drug which I could hardly pronounce.

My feet carried me over the soft carpet of the living room to the spacious couch. I sat down in front of the laptop and typed up ‘Hycamtin’. I had to blink over the search results. “Chemocare?” I quickly searched the other drugs. Both Hycamtin and Cytoxan turned out to be widely used in chemotherapy and Oxycodone was a super kick in the ass painkiller.

My eyes wandered down the bottle. Prescribed to Jude Clarke.

As on cue – the patio door slid open and my mum walked in along with a cloud of smoke. “Oh hey kiddo, I thought you were out clubbing,” She said waving the smoke away. Was that marijuana?

“Mum? Don’t you want to tell me something?” Fine, maybe I was slightly tipsy, but as far as I knew Chemocare meant only one fucking thing. Cancer.

“Uhmm? No?” She replied as she walked over to the kitchen. I turned around to see her picking up my mug and simply putting it aside. Coffee was really the last thing on my mind right now. She pressed a button on the coffee maker and moved over to the fridge. “Shit, we’re out of milk…”

“Mum?”

“What’s up?” She asked simply as she shook the empty milk carton, before throwing it in the trash bin under the sink.

“Why do you need Cytoxan?” I raised the plastic container in the air. “And Hycamtin… and Oxycodone?”

Mum froze with the freshly made coffee midway to her lips. Just by the look of it, I could bet on a thousand bucks, at that very moment every single cuss word known to man was travelling through her brain at the speed of sound. “Look… I don’t know how to put this…”

“You have cancer, mum!” I screamed to my own surprise. “And you were just smoking outside… Are you mad?!”

“The cancer’s not in my lunges,” She said as she walked over and sat down beside me, “Although maybe next month it will be…” Mum sighed. I was on a fucking emotion-coaster right now. I didn’t know how to feel. I felt like crying, like punching something… someone square in the throat… like getting really shitfaced and eating a whole cheesecake by myself. “I have ovarian cancer, stage three… From what the docs are telling me I get it’s pretty bad,” She shrugged as if it was nothing.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I looked at her in shock. “I’ve been back for what around a month and you figured it’s a thing that would simply slide under the radar?”

“Well, yeah… Look, Riles, so what if my cancer cells are partying it up? I mean, I’m not planning on dying or anything…” She reassured, although, if I may add, it didn’t sound the least bit reassuring. “I had the surgery two months ago and I’ve healed nicely. You wanna know what’s the best part? No more fucking periods man…”

“They took out your ovaries?” I frowned. It was really hard keeping my cool, when all I wanted to do was to take my mum by the shoulders and shake her up. Why the fuck was she keeping this a secret for all this time? I was her daughter! I had the right to know!

“And my uterus… A blessing in disguise,” She laughed until she realized I didn’t find the situation the least bit funny. She had been drinking like a camel for this whole time. Was she fucking crazy? “Look, I’ve just started chemo… I’m gonna be fine.”

She was stage three… The biggest lie to tell would be that I wasn’t scared. I was. I was terrified. She was my mum… Jude Clarke couldn’t get cancer. It was impossible. She was the type of a person who took on the tequila suicide challenge and right after it, still with bright red eyes asked who’s next to challenge her. She could crash her car straight in a tree and come out of the scene with a black eye and a cut lip.

She couldn’t have fucking cancer.

I just kept looking at her, getting sick to my stomach just thinking about a life without her. Sure, she told me she was superman and that she’s not going to die, but what if… The whole world revolved around what ifs. You don’t even think about the possibilities until the old man up above decides to send Lady Luck to rehab to get rid of her coke addiction and suddenly her evil twin takes over.

Bad luck… This wasn’t fucking bad luck. Bad luck is when you run into your ex and he ends up moving into your house… Bad luck is falling off a bike and breaking your favorite drinking arm. This was Death playing poker with Life and the cunt was losing.

I hadn’t even noticed when mum disappeared and how the Niagara waterfalls started flowing down my cheeks. It made absolutely zero sense to me.

“She’s gonna be okay, Vex… She’s gonna be okay,” I cooed to myself as I wiped the tears away, hearing the front door close silently. Shit. Come on, Vex, stop crying… For the love of god… I cleared my throat as I looked Brian simply go for the stairs. “Hey… Can I-can I talk to you for a moment?”

He stopped with his hand on the wooden railing. He sighed heavily, before turning around. It was needless to say I was his least favorite person to have an early chat with. “What’s up?”

I took out the pack of Marlboro from my clutch and quickly got to my feet, heading for the patio door. “Can we talk out there?”

Another sigh and a surprising nod. With the corner of my eye I noticed a frown take over his face. “Have you been crying?”

“Yeah,” I replied, pushing the door open and going to sit by the garden table. I pulled out the cigarette from the pack and lit it up, waiting for him to take his seat. He didn’t say anything, he just kept staring at me as I inhaled and exhaled the nicotine filled smoke. “I was wondering… How far are you with your divorce?”

“Excuse me?” He looked taken aback, “My marriage or divorce in particular does not fucking concern you.”

“Yes, it does,” I stated quietly as I took another drag. “I get that you’re mad, but it would be for the best if you moved out.”

His eyebrows shot up, before they puckered together, creating a deep crease between his eyebrows, “Is this because of our fight? If that’s the—“

“No.” I mouthed, pulling my knees to my chest and resting my forearm on them. Fight away the waterworks, Clarke, just fight them away. “It’s my… mum.”

“What do you mean?” He questioned confused, leaning in to take a cigarette from the pack.

I lifted my head up, trying to push away the tears. Jesus fucking Christ… Why do even humans need these tear sockets? My vision blurred, but even through the haze I could see the sun rising above the horizon.

“Clarke?”

I sniffed. “She-she has cancer… Stage three…” I whispered right before I started sobbing. The pain in my chest was too much to bare. It felt like I had a huge hole inside of me which had been recently filled with all the worst, saddest things you could imagine.

“Shit…” I heard him curse under his breath as he pushed himself up from the chair.

“No,” I held my hand out, “If you come com-comfort me, I’m never gonna stop…” I sobbed. It took me a while to calm myself down. Come on, pull yourself together, Vex, you’re not a little bitch… I dried my eyes with the edge of my shirt, before I took my final drags and threw the cigarette in the ashtray. “So,” I sniffed, “that’s why I was asking how far are you with your divorce. If… maybe… you know… she leaves you the house…”

“Riles…” He started in a comforting manner, throwing the cigarette in the ashtray. My eyes landed on the little red light at the end of that coffin nail, thinking how fast can a life go out. Puff. And it’s gone. Just like that. “I can rent a place, that’s not a problem, but… won’t you both need help?”

“My mum? You’re asking if she’s gonna need help?” I laughed humorlessly, “Yeah, when pigs fly…” Which I assumed will happen real soon.

“And you?”

“Me what?”

“Aren’t you gonna need help?” He asked cautiously. Me? Help? I’m not the one who has bloody cancer, but oddly enough I’m acting like the one who’s fucking dying.

“And how can you help me, Haner?” I spat leaning in to take another cigarette, “Can you wipe out all her cancer cells? Can you honestly tell me she’s gonna be okay?”

“No.” He mouthed with a shake of his head, “But I can be there for you… For both of you.”

Notes

So, yeah, I know, I'm a bad person, but a great writer once said (don't remember his name) - to create a character you need to know only 3 things. What is the name of the character; what does the character want more than anything; And how can I prevent him from getting it?

Many of you will probably hate me for this turn, but I felt like this is the right thing to do.