CHALLENGES SUCK SOMETIMES. Which, I don't really have a problem with. Except when I get so distracted with said challenge that my coffee turns cold and I can't even afford money or patience or even time to get a new one.

Not Interested still has her stubborn act up and, honestly, I can't figure out why I'm not letting her go already. I guess I was drawn to the idea of her. Infatuated by the blues of her eyes. Held captive in the smooth rivers (short, at that) of her hair. All that crap that I would say if I was a hopeless romantic or a poet-which are basically the same thing.

Sure, she was hard-headed at times (most times), blunt and sarcastic all of her wake. Definitely not like girls I was normally attracted to. But what I admire most about her is that the hard exterior she puts up-in theory-covers a vulnerable, soft side of her. Which, I know, does sound quite cheesy and desperate. It's a cliché; a really misused cliché most of the time. But I could fall in love with her.

I really could fall in love with her.

"But you barely know her!" My mother exclaims, coughing lightly from her hospital bed. "And she most likely hates you, from what you've told me."

"Mum," I shake my head, chuckling a little. "I'm not saying I am, I'm saying I could."

"Okay, so," My mother goes along with me. "You're saying...you could fall in love with a complete stranger? That probability is one in seven billion. Quite literally."

I nod. "Doesn't that make more sense? It's crazy, right? People fall in love in mysterious ways. And someone's significant other is their 'one in seven billion,' too. Love does that."

My mum sighs. "Devon, you can't reason your way out of this with Ed Sheeran lyrics."

"Hey!" I laugh lightly. "You've been listening to the playlist I gave you?"

My mother sits up proudly. "Memorizing every line."

Our chatter is filled with laughs and reciting song lyrics, the topic of love and one in seven billions completely forgotten. We slowly fall into the regular conversations we have about her current health state. She tells me everything's stable, that she's managing through it all and and and.

And she smiles.

She always smiles.

Like this is okay, like it's normal. Like it's normal for mothers in their forties to be sitting in their hospital beds.

And because she smiles and says she's fine and that she's getting through it all, I have to smile and say that I'm fine and that I'm getting through it all. Because, really, how selfish would I be? To burden her with my worries when she's the one having to go through multiple hospital checkups a day and suffer silently? When she's the one having to act strong because she doesn't want to worry her son? When she's the one who's helplessly laying all day in a hospital bed waiting for the doctors to tell her it's time?

I had to be her burden at one point but she got through it. Now it's my turn to be my own burden, and worry about the both of us, afford for the both of us. Get through it. And if she's still strong, I surely can, too.

With that mindset engraved in my mind, I head to work after visiting hours close. I tell her I'll see her tomorrow, same time, and-unfortunately-same place. I tell her I'm going straight to bed to sleep, but I don't. I tell her I'm tired, which is true, but I really can't let that feeling soak through.

I tell her I love her. I think she tears up a little when I wave to her goodbye, walking out her door.

Then I head to my next work shift.