After Forever

Chapter 55

Hardin

For the first time in days no one is here. Which is actually pretty nice. All the tests, the treatment and every other thing they are doing to me has been kicking my ass.

I feel a level of exhaustion I didn't know existed. But I tend to not get much sleep due to the constant pain my whole body is in.

The second I try to close my eyes. In walks Zed. Zed of all fucking people.

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"Hey man, Tessa called me and told me what was going on." He replies.

"Okay...so why are you here?" I ask

"Well I wanted to tell you I dropped the charges, and I wanted to try to put our differences aside. Before everything we were friends." He says.

"Well...You didn't have to do that man. I would have dealt with whatever was decided" I reply.

"I know but it was along time ago. Plus you look like shit...I don't think you could beat my ass again." He says laughing.

"You'd be surprised." I reply.

We spend the next hour or so bullshitting. It actually has felt better talking to Zed then every other one of my visitors. He's been the only one to make me feel like old times and just be normal with me. Everyone else including Tessa is treating me like I'm fucking broken and tip toeing around everything. I don't know if they are scared to piss me off or what but I mean look at me it's not like I can do anything or go anywhere.

"Hey I'll be back later this week if it's cool with you." Says Zed as he's leaving.

"Sounds good" I say as I shake his hand. What a turn of events. I did not expect that one bit. But that at least resolves one of my problems.

I was going to try and sleep but it wasn't happening so I decided to walk downstairs and go to the cancer support group. Which besides myself there was only one other girl who looked  to be around my age. Everyone else looked to be 45 or older. Kind of feels like AA.

It seemed like a lot of people were just tired of being sick, feeling like shit and having everyone treat them
different. Again kind of like AA.

After the meeting I was going to head back upstairs and the girl stopped me. "Hi, I'm Madi. I haven't seen you here before." She's cute she has long dark wavy hair but I think it's a wig? I'm not really sure which I guess is a good thing since I can't tell.

"Hardin." I simply reply back

"Are you not from here?" She asks

"What gave that away?" I ask back.

"I just thought your accent." She says

"I live in London." I reply.

"You live there? Then why are you here?" She asks.

"You ask a lot of questions." I reply.

"I'm so sorry I just haven't seen anyone besides my family or anyone my age in a really long time." She says.

"It's okay."i reply as I try walking away.

She stops me "umm do you want to hangout for a little bit?" She asks.

"Uhh sure" I reply

We ended up going back to her room and just talking. She grew up all over her parents were both in the military. So she never stayed in one place too long.

She had gotten a job right out of college as a kindergarten teacher because she loves kids. She was teaching and ended up going home sick one day only to find out she had stage 4 brain cancer.