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Mia

My body felt like it was breaking in half and o to the bathrooht me food and so did Adam And I ate a little, because neither of them would leave me alone until I did But I didn’t take the pain ument about it before I shut him down

After that, I would take a few of the pills out of the bottle and throw them ahen he wasn’t there to see But he wasn’t stupid It was impossible for me to hide the pain and he kneouldn’t be like this if I had taken theot the deeply concerned looks when he thought I wouldn’t notice theainst medication at all But for this… well… I couldn’t explain it fully So, the e, the physical pain I was afraid to be nu I couldn’t afford was to fall into depression That would defeat the purpose of why I was going through all this in the first place--depression would only inhibitthe cancer And I had to survive, especially after this I’d done this for everyone who loved ive up

But Adam didn’t understand and I lacked the words to explain it to him All I could feel, in his every stiffme in his aruilt It made it hard for us to talk and, to be honest, I don’t think either of us could have even if anted to

On one of the days when Adam had to put in a few hours at work in the afternoon, and when I was feeling well enough to rate to the couch and watch TV, Adam’s cousin William paid me a visit with a plastic box tucked under his arm

"Hello, Mia," he said with a nod as he sat down on the chair, facing me where I reclined on the couch His mannerisms were formal and stilted in social situations I was used to his autistic quirks by now but soto re I ran a self-conscious hand over it, gathering it behind me into a makeshift ponytail Willia?" he said, his eyes on the floor in front of him

Willianancy or specifically why I was feeling under the weather at this time But Peter and ently but Mo an anxiety attack Peter had been able to calm him down but they’d all discussed it and decided it would be best if he didn’t visit me until he felt he could handle it

Apparently this was that day So I was going to ht of doing that should have exhaustedto know that I could step outside of my own misery and worry about so just fine, Willia his eyes up to ain He rubbed his hands across the front of his jeans and appeared out of things to talk about already

"Hoork?"

He grunted and shrugged "It’s okay There is a lot to do We have deadlines to meet for the new expansion"

"Yeah, I can’t wait until that comes out"

He frowned "Well, unfortunately, you have to"

I smiled at his literal interpretation I usually tried not to use figures of speech around William because they weren’t his forte

He rubbed his pal to snatch up the box he’d set next to hi for you" And he presented me with the box

I took it from him "Oh, thank you"

It looked like a portable box for fishing tackle I knew, because Heath had one like it, which was actually full of stuff he took on his caave William a fearful look and he said, "Do you want me to open it for you?"

"Uh…no, that’s okay You know I don’t fish, right?"

William stared atanything further, I opened the box Inside, each tiny co tackle items was instead filled with pieces of foa in the urine--the figurines he loved to paint in his old roo his dad’s house