Althea receives a call as she ponders which fast food place she should go to before her next class starts. She is surprised to get a call at this hour, mostly during her inability to answer during class hours. She jumbles for her phone answering it before it goes to voice mail without looking at the caller. 

"Althea!" The sound of her mother's voice blares through the phone. Althea pulls her ear away wincing at the sound.

Althea did not tell her mom about her diagnosis. She and her mom rarely got along, and their relationship had not been the same since she was a sophomore in high school. Her mother had never been satisfied with anything that she did. She never went to any school functions nor had she been there when she needed her. It was always her dad. Her dad constantly made time for her, took out his time and would schedule his work hours just so he didn't miss a single moment of her life. With the blatant comparison, she couldn't understand why her mom couldn't do the same. Althea felt unimportant in her mom's eyes, and because of that she always strived to do her best. She made straight A's, volunteered her services, became apart of extracurricular activities, held out on dating (until recently), avoided partying and having social life to focus on her studies, graduated top of her class, and made it in one of the most prestigious school Dartmouth University.. Yet, her mom never gave her the time of day unless she needed something and never failed to point out her misdoings and failures rather than her successes.

"Why didn't you tell me you had leukemia?" She yells. "I had to hear from your daddy that you had cancer. Why the hell haven't you told me yet?"

"Mom, I was going to-"

"Going to? Going to? You wasn't going to nothing. Why didn't call me sooner? How much is it gonna cost to get treatment? What kind of leukemia you got?" She continues asking many questions with no end in sight. 

Althea groans. Her mother was going to fast for her to keep up with everything. She can understand her mom's worry, having to find this out from a second source, however, she feels that her mom was being over dramatic, as she always was. It is the number one reason why Althea did not tell her mom, as she had a way of adding more pressure and weight onto a situation then necessary. As hypocritical as the statement sounded, it was her mom who she got that bad habit from.

"Mom, calm down. One question at a time." She says quickly to stop her.

"Althea Monique Hamilton. You better start talking or cancer won't be the only thing you will be worrying about."

Althea cringes imaging the thought of her mom doing something worse to her than what any disease could possibly do. "I, um," She stutters trying to get her words together. "Well, I kept getting sick and feverish. Like it kept going on and off again. This started last year, but it didn't seem that bad until now. So I went to the doctor for a check up. Blood test came back with some abnormalities and I ended up taking a few more tests to find out I have leukemia, chronic ly-something." She explains to her mother. "He said it wasn't that bad at the stage I am in, but they want to monitor me closely and so I have to go back."   

"Mhm," She hears her mom smacking her lips over the phone.

"Momma, I was going to tell you." She says. "I just wanted to wait until I was ready to share the news."

"But you tell your daddy as soon as you're diagnosed." Althea keeps her lips together to avoid saying anything that may set her mother off. "I don't where I get you children from. You and your brother just keep breaking my heart."

Althea looks at the time on her phone. It was almost time for her class, perfect excuse to get out of this escalating conversation, "Sorry, mom gotta go. Love you." She says before tapping the end call button as hard as possible. She lets out a sighs as she realizes that she was unable to get anything to eat and now had to go to class hungry. She walks to class, belly empty and a little down.