IV.
The next time my eyes opened, I was on my back under warm sheets that wasn’t my quilt. The room was bigger than my own, the walls paler and more windows.
“Are you okay?”
I was expecting the school nurse, a sing-song lady with hazel eyes and hazelnut hair. It hadn’t been the first time that I blacked out during the school day, yet this place was different. Instead of the hazelnut nurse, the hummingbird, my mother looked down on me.
“Aussie. Honey.”
Her voice was not the humming voice of that same morning. It was raspy and quiet, like whimpers after crying.
“Yes mom?”
My mother’s work-worn hands caressed my cheek. Her green eyes were cloudy, losing the vibrant tint of the wings of a hummingbird.
“Aussie, listen to me. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worrying mom. Where am I?”
“The hospital.”
She was the one worrying. Her throat did not allow another word to pass through. She bit her quivering lower lip and closed her gentle eyes. This was not normal, not the ordinary.
I couldn’t help but be in a daze, for once feeling like I was flying with the puffy cotton clouds and beautifully colored birds.
However, my dreams are always ruined. A doctor, a stern man in his fifties, clomped in ungracefully. I was never the type to sob and worry, but wanting to know the solid truths.
“Doctor, right?”
“Yes. Dr. Beaker. Nice to meet you, Aussie.”
“Nice to meet you too. Doctor, don’t keep anything away from me. Just tell me why I’m here.”
I must have been disrespectful. Dr. Beaker raised his eyebrows in question, while my mother held my hand tightly. The doctor coughed with his husky tone quality, which I disliked.
“You have cancer.”
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