Magan Vernon - The Only One

“Hello, Melanie, how are you feeling?” she asked in her heavy accent and took a seat on the stool that the nurse was just previously occupying.

“Anxious. Nervous. All of those feelings.”

She nodded. “Understandable.” She looked at Monica in the corner. “And is this your sister or your partner?”

I had to hold back a laugh. “Neither. This is my friend, Monica.”

Monica put down her magazine and waved.

The doctor smiled at me. “It’s good to see that you have people to support you.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t want to small talk. I just wanted to know what was going on. My knees were shaking and I had to constantly wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans.

Dr. Rodriguez opened her folder and scanned through it. “We do have the results of your biopsy.” She closed the folder and looked straight at me, her eyes serious. “We did confirm that you have moderate dysplasia and it’s cancerous, stage 1A1.”

“Is that bad?” My voice squeaked.

“It’s the very beginning stages, so we caught it early. But since it is moderate, we do need to take care of these cells.” She folded her hands on her lap and crossed her ankles. “The least invasive would be for us to use laser therapy, which is an outpatient procedure in which we laser out the cancerous cells and they will be completely destroyed.”

I nodded, unsure of what to say.

“The next is called Diathermy. This is another laser treatment, but we would remove the tissue instead of destroying it so that we can examine it further. It’s another outpatient surgery and you would have some bleeding or discharge for a few weeks after.”

“Okay.” I should have been taking notes or doing something, but instead I just stared at the doctor.

“The next set of options would be chemotherapy or full hysterectomy. Since you’re so young and it’s the early stages, I wouldn’t recommend those since you may still want to have children in the future.”

“Then what would you recommend?” I asked.

She let out a deep breath. “After looking at all your information, I think the best action would be Diathermy. We can set up your appointment when it’s most convenient for you. You will only feel a little bit of pain and would be able to go back to school within a week.”

I nodded and looked back at Monica. “Mon, what do you think?”

“It’s not my body, but I would go with whatever the doctor thinks.”

I couldn’t think straight. There was so much information to take in, so I just turned back to the doctor and said the first thing I could think of. “Okay. Let’s set up the Dia thing.”

The doctor smiled and patted my knee. “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to call the surgical department and get you set up. Do you have a preference of when?”

“Well, Fall break is the week after next, so I’ll have off.”

“Okay. I’ll see if we can get you in for the week of Thanksgiving.”

She stood and walked out of the door, shutting it behind her.

“Whoa. Surgery. Lasers,” Monica said. “Are you okay with all of this?”

I shrugged, glancing back at her. “It’s better than needing you to wheel me around campus while I wear a head scarf.”

It was only a few minutes later when Dr. Rodriguez came back in, holding a few sheets of paper. “We have you all set up for Monday the 20th at eight am.” She handed me the papers. “Your directions on what you’ll need to do beforehand are on this sheet. I’ll need you to go into the emergency room entrance an hour before to check in.” She waited to speak again until I met her eyes. “Do you have any other questions?”

I had a million questions. Like what would happen afterward? Was there a chance I would still need more treatment? But instead all I did was shake my head. It was too much to process and my head was swimming. “Nope. I’m good.”

I walked with Monica back out into the waiting room and texted my mom to call me after work and gave her a quick gist of an outpatient surgery on the 20th. She texted back that she would call as soon as she could. I knew she couldn’t talk while at work, but I didn’t want to make her wait.

And once we stepped out of the office there was someone else waiting for me in the tunnel to the parking garage. John stood there. His hands were in his pockets as he paced back and forth between the walls.

“John Boy?” Monica asked.

“Monica. Melanie. Hey. I was just...” He stopped pacing and walked over to us, letting out a big sigh. “Okay. I can’t come up with a better excuse. I came because I wanted to see how the appointment went and if everything was okay.”

Monica side stepped me and inched her way behind John. “I think that’s my cue to leave. I’ll be waiting for you in the car, Mel.” With that she turned on her heels and walked toward the parking garage.

John cupped my face, forcing my eyes back in his direction. “Is everything okay?”

“I thought you had some fraternity stuff to do today?” I raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore how warm his hand was on my cheek.

He took another step closer. “I do, but this was more important.”

I swallowed hard. “Um, well it’s only stage 1A1 cancer, so I guess that’s a good thing and I’m having surgery the Monday of Thanksgiving break to have it removed.”

His eyes widened. “Is that like a chemotherapy type thing? What kind of surgery?”

“No. It’s just some sort of laser that removes the cancer. The doctor said I should be fine in a few weeks.”

“What time on Monday?”

“Eight, why?”

The lopsided grin that I loved so much made an appearance on his lips. “Because I need to know what time to be there.”

“John, you don’t have to—”

He put his fingers to my lips, stopping me mid sentence. “I know I don’t have to do anything. This is something that I want to do, Red. And you can’t stop me. You can think whatever you want to think about me. About us. But know this. I do care about you. More than I probably would usually admit. And whether we’re just friends or we’ll eventually be something more, doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’m going to be here for you.”

And at that moment I almost forgot about the girl and the lap dance. I could almost forget about the cancerous cells that were hanging out in my cervix and past cheating boyfriends. Because I knew that I had friends that were there for me. Whether romantically or otherwise, they were there.

Both my mom and sister made plans to come in for the surgery. My heightened sense of joy that John and Monica would be there was deflated as soon as I thought about my mom and sister meeting John. I could just imagine how many questions they would hound him with. Maybe it was a bad idea for him to come. And that was exactly what I planned to tell him that Monday in class. One week from my surgery.

“Hey, Red, good to see you showed up for class.” He smiled, taking the seat next to me.

“I always come to class. It’s you who I haven’t seen around for awhile.”

“So, you’ve been looking for me?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Kind of hard to miss you. You do have the body of a pro wrestler you know.” I smiled, pulling out my notebook.

“Speaking of body. How are you feeling?”

I rolled my eyes. “That was a horrible segue.”

“Hey, I can’t be smooth every time.” He looked at me with his big, puppy dog eyes. Why did I have to have cancer? Why couldn’t I just be a normal girl that could have hooked up with him and didn’t have to stare at him every day, knowing that I couldn’t have him?

“Well, I guess that leads into what I wanted to talk to you about. You don’t have to come to my surgery. It’s Thanksgiving break and your family will probably want you to come home.”

“It’s fine, Red. Thanksgiving isn’t until Thursday. I can spare a few hours for my favorite Harry Potter fan.”

I opened my mouth and then shut it again, trying to think of another excuse for him not to come. “Well...uh...you know it’s really not necessary. My mom is going to be there and Monica said she would come and it will just be a lot of people sitting in a small waiting room. I probably won’t even see you or will be too doped up afterward to remember that you were there.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you embarrassed of me? Do you really not want me to come that bad?”

I shook my head ferociously, my curls bobbing around. “Oh, no, it’s totally not you at all.”

“Then what is it?”

Our professor walked to the front of the room, booting up the computer to start the power point presentation. We only had a few more minutes before he started the lecture.

“It’s nothing. I just don’t want to put you out,” I whispered.

He leaned in closer. I could smell his freshly laundered shirt and the cologne that smelled like heaven. “You aren’t making me do anything that I don’t want to do. I want to make sure you’re okay and to be there for you. If you tell me you don’t want me there, then I won’t go.”

I did want him there. I wanted him everywhere with me. I wanted to sit with him every day and eat cheesecake and watch Harry Potter. I didn’t care that he was with another girl or that he wasn’t ready for a relationship. I wanted to forget about the past and just think about a future with him. If only cancer wasn’t in the way.

“I just...” I sighed. “I don’t know.”

He put his hand on my knee. “I’ll do whatever you want, Red. I’ll stay in town this weekend and we can hang out. If you want me to leave on Sunday before your surgery, I can do that. But either way, we’re hanging out this weekend. You don’t have a choice on that one.”