The Boy Who Sleeps On My Bedroom Floor

The Boy Who Sleeps on my Bedroom Floor- Part 22

A/N: Sorry it's taken so long. Real life has been getting in the way of my writing. I won't bore you with the details but I can reduce the explaination down to two words: Revision and Christmas. Erm, I hope you're happy I updated and I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. This is a long chapter for you.

Warning: For those of you who will be upset with the ideas of familial loss, cancer etc. please don't read this chapter, or if you do read it and then regret it do not blame me. I do not intend to upset or offend. Thank you!

As time went on, my mom was slowly getting closer. I couldn't bring myself to say, or even think, what she was getting close to but it didn't need to be said. I knew it, my father knew it, Luke knew it, Romeo and Hannah knew it; everyone knew it. Close friends and family had been notified by me or my father and a steady stream of visitors trailed in and out of the house and flowers, candles and messages lined the area outside our house that spilled over to the areas outside the Valentine's house and our other neighbours. The messages from her fans were heart warming and we collected them all so my mom could read them. Of course, the press were often outside but we were trying our best to keep the whole situation private.

My mother was well loved by the public and I soon found that whenever I went out, anywhere, there were people of all ages stopping me on the street. They offered me their sympathies and wished my family all the best. School was an issue. Everyone tiptoed around me and all were wary when they spoke to me, as if I was going to break down at any moment. I wasn't. I was going to be strong. I had to be, for the sake of my mother and my father. My mother was... going. My father was going to lose the love of his life. My strength would help them, make them stronger. They didn't have to have me to worry about either. My strength, therefore, was a necessity.

Romeo's mother and step-father had bought a house and Romeo, Hannah and his mom also dropped in regularly to sit with my mom and to help me and my father just cope with everything. Seeing my mom grow weaker by the day, seeing her struggle with the pain when the morphine was wearing off was tough. But what was even harder, was seeing my mom just disappear. She tried not to, I knew that. She tried desperately hard to hold onto herself but now, she was just a mere shadow of the person she once was. The cancer was changing her. The effort of living, of holding on seemed to be too much for her. She often sighed wearily and spent most of the day staring outside.

When my mother had gone into hospital all those months ago after collapsing, she had also vomited. I had later learned that this was because she was in the third stage, for lack of a better term, of the illness; the stage before the fourth and final stage, the one that she was in now. She had vomited because she was in the more advanced stages of cancer which meant that the disease had spread around her body. It is not very well understood why the vomiting occurs, but the doctors put it down to some kind of imbalance of something in her body. I tried not to get too involved with the terminology and the way the disease worked. I knew that many people tried to familiarise themselves with the working of the disease as a way of coping- they would know exactly what was happening to their loved one. I didn't want to know. Not because I didn't care, but because I didn't want to surrender to the thing that was taking my mother away from me. I didn't respect the disease, and therefore I wouldn't learn about it.

I only really knew what the doctors told me. And the doctors had just told us that she could go at any time. That she was coming close. School became even more of an issue. I was always waiting, always anticipating The Phone Call.  I was always tired because I couldn't sleep at night. Luke's parents gave him permission to stay at our house as soon as I was told that my mom... that she was close. I had run to his house after pushing my way passed the reporters and paparazzi and pounded on the door. I hadn't realised I had been crying until his mom opened the door and immediately pulled me into a hug. I had wondered my we were moving around so much and it was then that I realised I had been shaking so violently it was moving the woman holding me too. I felt a soft pat on my shoulder and then a hand wrapped around my arm and tugged me.