"What does that mean?" I ask.

My doctor looks at my mother, asking her to step out for a minute so they can talk. I FaceTime Tim and hold my dad's hand for comfort. I'm scared, they would've told me if I was cleared right away. When my mom comes back in I can't read her face, it's blank. She tells me they want to run another scan, an MRI, and another CAT scan.

"Doctor, my cancer hasn't..."

"Your scans were not fully clear, it could be an issue on our part so we want to do a CT and MRI for clearer images, we booked you as soon as we could. Tomorrow at noon."

I don't know what to say, I can't think, I can't act on this. I'm frozen. So much time has gone into this, and it's just sitting there, not moving. And what's worse is I'm feeling the same tenderness on my other shoulder.

"Doctor," I call after. "What if it has spread?"

"We shouldn't have to worry about that, your chemo has been kicking ass," she smiled at me.

It's not proper language for a doctor, but we've known her since the beginning of my cancer, and she's gotten close to us. Not even my mom says anything about her cursing, because she knows my doctor is trying to make me feel better and reassure me.

"But what if it's in other areas we didnt catch?"

"That's very rare, Mac. I understand your anxiety, but everything should be fine everywhere else."

"Can we check?"

"Mac, have you noticed lumps in other places?" My father asks.

"No, not lumps. But the continuous tenderness came before the growth."

My doctor steps toward me and asks me where, so I gesture to my other shoulder. Same area, same tenderness, and pain. She feels around and feels nothing, but says we will scan my whole chest and both shoulders to make sure there has been no spread. She allowed us to leave after I changed out of the hospital gown. On the way to the car, Mom asked me why I never said anything. I hung up the call with my brother. Mom is about to break down, and so am I.

"I was scared. I'm allowed to be scared, and I know you're scared too, which is why I didn't want to tell you. I know what's going through your mind, and I'm thinking the same thing too."

"No, you really dont," my mom wipes her tears.

"Yes, I do! Imagine what I'm feeling! My body is giving out on me, and I'm scared. Im scared of dying, I'm scared of losing you and Dad, I'm scared. I'm 17, battling cancer since 15. It's not shrinking, it flows through my bones and soon enough it'll go to my skull and kill me. I'm scared, and I'm allowed to be scared."

She grabs my hand.

"I'm sorry. I know this is hard; it's hard for all of us. We love you so much. This is not going to take you away from us, I promise. We are going to kick this bitch in the ass."

I smile. She never curses, she's just trying to lighten all of our moods. I get it, I know she's scared too, I'm her son. I can't imagine losing someone I love to cancer.

"You will get better soon," she kissed my forehead and held me in a hug.

--

Tim has a sad look when he opens the door, I shake my head slightly. I don't want to talk about it.

"I made dinner while you were at the appointment, would you like to join us?"

I look behind him, his mother has an apron on. I smile and agree with my parents. They don't talk about the appointment, I guess they could tell from our red eyes we shouldn't talk about it. Instead, we have fun, we eat, and we play normal games. We're like a big family. We've been family for so long, years and years. We'll have dinner together twice a week, at their house than ours. I'll stay the night all the time, Tim will stay over all the time. Our parents go out to dinner together, we go on mall trips together, and we all go to events all the time. We are family, just not by blood.

--

"I can't go to school tomorrow."

My father looks at me with confusion. "Are you in pain?"

"Mentally yes," I say quietly. I've had a migraine from all the crying.

"It's okay, we understand," my mom comes in with a tray. "I'll call first thing tomorrow morning, it's important to me that you have light in all this dark. Mental health is just as important. I'll book you an appointment with your therapist too, how about that?" My mom kissed my cheek, then went to get her phone and her number book for all the doctors I had.

"Yeah, I could use that," I give a small nod, then go upstairs to sleep everything away.