Some Bad News ((Tyler))
Mar 31, 2012 9:50:26 GMT -5
Post by Holly Hale on Mar 31, 2012 9:50:26 GMT -5
The last thing that Holly could have expected when she woke up today was the fact that her twin sister, the one which she hadn't gotten along with in ages, would decide to try and contact her. She'd been reluctant to even give her number, but if Vicki was asking for it, she knew there had to be a serious reason behind it. So, she'd given it to her and waited for the phone to ring, setting her laptop aside and hoping that whatever it was it wasn't all that serious. A part of her mind though, the part that usually got on other people's nerves pointed out that it was Vicki and if she wanted to talk to her, there had to be something pretty big going on. No part of her honestly believed that the other girl was just maturing and wanted to talk because they should repair their relationship and blah blah blah. That time, if it ever came, probably wouldn't come until they were much older than they were now. After all, it very rarely bugged her that she didn't talk to her sister and mostly she didn't even think about her that much and she probably felt the same way.
Her thoughts were interrupted as her phone started ringing, hitting the green button the screen. "So, what's this all about?" she asked, not wasting time in pleasantries or anything of the sort.
"Well, glad to see you figured out that this wasn't just a social call," came the voice that sounded so much like her own, but it was off. There was something clearly wrong. "I'm not really sure how to say this-"
"Just spit it out already," she said, though her voice wasn't as snippy as it might have been otherwise. A tightness forming in her chest as she wondered what was going to be said next.
"It's about Mom. She's... well, she's got ovarian cancer," Vicki's voice cracked slightly on the last word and it sounded like she was holding her breath.
Certainly Holly was holding her's, finding herself unable to speak for a moment, gripping to the counter in the kitchen where she'd ended up. "How-" she cleared her throat. "How bad is it?"
"It's stage two right now, but the doctors say she's got good odds. Between fifty and seventy percent," Vicki answered, her own voice a bit thicker. "But there's a thirty to forty percent chance that even if all the chemo and surgeries work... it might still come back."
Holly didn't even know what to say at this point because the odds just seemed terrible to her. The numbers seemed like a death sentence and there was nothing that she could do about it. "How long has she known?" she had to believe that her mother had kept this from her because she knew the older woman and she didn't get her stubborn nature from her Dad in the slightest. However, she also knew that her mother would be stubborn because she didn't want to worry her children.
"I don't know, I just found out myself and I go to school here..." Vicki trailed off and then cleared her throat. "Look, Holly, she'd never ask it of you because she wants you to focus on school and you're married and all that stuff, but I think it would probably mean something to her if you could come out here and help encourage her, especially now that she's started chemo treatments..."
"Yeah, I'll try," she replied, knowing that she'd most definitely find a way to get there. Though right now she mostly felt lost and angry and scared and sad. She was in a daze of all the emotions as she hung up the phone with Vicki, barely hearing anything else that was said as she tried to figure out what she was even supposed to do at this point. How did a person deal with this kind of news? With the fact that her mother, her still young, kind, loving mother, might be facing the end of her life very soon. This wasn't supposed to happen yet and she had no clue how to prepare herself for any of what was to come or even how to act now. She dropped her phone on the counter pretty carelessly and just stood there, trying to figure everything out without too much success.