Gallavich AU: The Fault in Our Stars

Chapter Two: The Start of Our Journey

So the room was full of regulars, plus the two newcomers. Patrick opened up by telling us about Sandy, she’d been coming ever since I’ve been here and now she had finally finished her journey.

Fuck I hate that expression.

‘Journey,’ like we’re on some magical spiritual quest or something. Well, we’re not. We get stuck in this cancer void where time stands still because we are so limited in what we can do. Doctor’s appointments and chemo and being so sick you can't even move some days and so a week feels like forever, or having a good few days where you can walk around and maybe feel like you did before your diagnosis, and it only feels like a few hours.

So yeah, maybe it is a fucking journey, but I feel like that word was meant for greater things.

I wasn’t really sad for Sandy, the girl knew it was coming and so did we, I think she was kind of ready for it in some really sad way. She was in a lot of pain and on a lot of meds – I mean I’m on a lot of meds but she basically lived on the things.

Patrick had us bow our heads for a moment to ‘wish her well on her next chapter in heaven’ and I had to close my eyes so that I wouldn’t roll them with the exasperation of it all.

After that was done, we moved on to how the rest of us were doing.

I hate that expression too.

‘So how are you doing?’ Well, I’m a sixteen – almost seventeen – year old kid with terminal fucking cancer. Yeah, I’m doing fucking peachy.

I had resisted the urge to look over at the new guy until now, and I really have no self-control anyway so even that was a stretch. I was sat back in my chair, my arms folded over my chest, and I turned my head only just to the side to look.

He was hunched over, elbows resting on his knees and tapping one of his feet. He looked like he really didn't want to be there. The girl he came with seemed to really be listening to Patrick, clearly she hasn’t heard all this shit a million times over. The two of them had the same pale skin and dark hair, probably siblings.

He had a sweet face, albeit rough around the edges, he looked like he could probably kill me if he wanted to. Then again, most people do, but you get the gist. His shoulders sloped downwards and he had a strong frame, I kind of wish I’d watched him as he walked away before.

He let out a big sigh and looked up, catching my eye and doing a double take. He narrowed his eyes at me and for a second I didn't break, but I lost my nerve and stared down at my hands. How long after someone catches you staring at them – for the second time – is it acceptable to look up again?

Screw it, I thought as I looked back up again. His eyes were still on me and this time he cocked an eyebrow.

‘What?’ he seemed to say.

I opened my mouth as if to reply, even though Patrick was still giving us some kind of spiel about Jesus and how all he wants is for us all to be – whatever, I don’t care. I opened my mouth and closed it again quickly, turning away and pulling my beanie further down over my forehead.

What is it that compels me to do this kind of shit?

I turned my head again and he seemed to chuckle to himself, turning away and shaking his head a little, so I kept staring at him. The whole thing was becoming a game. He was still chuckling to himself. I don’t know how it is that people can feel someone’s eyes but they can, and when I looked away I felt his eyes scorching me like they were fucking laser beams.

I almost missed Patrick asking me the dreaded question.

“So Ian, how are you doing?”

I looked over at him and sighed, getting to my feet and clearing my throat. “Well I still have cancer,” I said.

“But you’re holding steady?”

I shrugged, “when I can breathe, yeah, but so what else is new.”

“You hang in there,” Patrick said with a smile and a sympathetic nod and I just inhaled to stop myself from saying something sarcastic as I sat back down. “We have two new faces today everyone, would either of you like to stand up and let us meet you?”

The guy rolled his eyes a little but the girl stood up tentatively. “Uh, hi, I’m Mandy, this is my brother Mickey. I don’t actually have cancer but someone had to drag him along to this thing so…”

“Well we welcome anyone who needs our support… we’re here for you Mandy,” I just groaned and closed my eyes at the mantra which some of the others said along with him.

I looked up at Mandy who seemed like she was a little off-put by the whole thing but she kept going anyway. “Uh… yeah, thanks. Well Mickey never came to one of these things last time and now he’s in recovery so I just thought it might be good idea for him to have some form of human contact.”

She coughed a little to herself and then sat back down.

“Mickey, do you have anything to add?” Patrick asked.

He looked like he would rather be anywhere else. Patrick was smiling like a fucking idiot. You would think that after having cancer he would know that those of us with it really don’t need people giving us looks like that.

Mickey stood up reluctantly and huffed out a great sigh. “What’re you all expecting me to say?”

“Tell us about you; about your journey, your thoughts, fears, anything,” Patrick said.

“My journey huh? I had cancer, kicked it, came back and now I’m back in remission.”

“And how are you doing?”

“How’m I doing? I don’t even―” Mandy kicked him in the ankle and he rolled his eyes.

“Are you worried about the cancer coming back a third time?” Patrick asked.

He shrugged. “Third time’s the charm right?” So he’s kind of morbid, I like that. “Not like it matters, I’m fucked for life anyway.”

“Oh, we try not to use that kind of language in here, some of us are only young,” Patrick said and Mickey cocked an eyebrow.

“Half of ‘em are from the South Side, you think they haven’t heard it before?” Mickey said.

“Well we like to try to keep things age appropriate.”

At that I couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter, a smile brimming on my face. Mickey looked over at me, they all did.

“Ian, did you want to share?” Patrick asked.

“I was just thinking about the irony of what you just said. I mean, you want them to keep their childhood innocence or whatever by keeping the swearing to a minimum, but these are kids who spend half their lives in hospitals getting poked and prodded and shit, we live just trying to deal with the fact that half of the people in this room right now won't be here in six months’ time. You really think that keeping us away from swearing is more ‘age appropriate’ than telling us that we have terminal cancer and that our deaths are coming before we even get to do anything worthwhile? I can say pretty safely that the levels of innocence in this room don’t really exist,” I said, and I saw Mickey grinning over at me from the corner of my eye.

Patrick didn't have much to say to that.

After the meeting I went and stood outside, waiting for Fiona. She had to stop off at the grocery store first so I sort of expected her to be late.

I saw Mandy come out of the building and run into the arms of some guy who was leaning against his car. Then began the visual onslaught of ridiculous and grotesque making out that was impossible to turn away from.

I thought there were rules about dry-humping in public.

“You really like to fucking stare, don’t you?” I turned my head quickly to see Mickey walking towards me. “What? You checking out my sister?” he said with a grin.

“No, I was actually just wondering what the laws on indecent exposure extended to,” I said.

He laughed a little and stood by my side.

“What was your name again?”

“Uh, Ian, Ian Gallagher,” he nodded to himself a little. “And you’re Mickey?”

“That’s the one.”

“So I guess your sister dragged you here, huh?”

“Yeah, I owe her one and she won't let me fucking forget it,” he grumbled. “Seems like you wanna be anywhere else, the fuck would you choose to come here?”

“My sister thinks it’s doing me some good,” I shrugged.

“Is it?”

“Kind of the opposite.”

He laughed again. I like the sound of his laugh, it’s the kind of laugh that you know he comes out with at inappropriate times. He seems like the kind of guy who would use the cancer excuse to laugh at shit that to most people just isn’t funny.

“You trying to hide something with that stupid thing or you just like it?” he asked, nodding to my beanie.

I reached up and pulled it off, revealing my short buzz-cut of red hair and his eyes grew wide.

“That’s some bright fucking hair, Jesus, you have that before or did radiation fuck you up?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty red, I get it,” I said as I ran my fingers through it.

“That just ain’t natural Firecrotch,” he said and I smiled to myself at the name he gave me.

I looked up and he was pulling a spliff out of his pocket.

“So you’ve had two lots of cancer and you’re still willing to light one of those things up?” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “It’s medicinal.”

I smirked a little, “yeah, maybe, but do you have a prescription for it?”

He grinned and gave me the finger. “I got more if you want some.”

“This is all the high I need,” I said sarcastically, tapping my oxygen tube. “All I have to do to get light headed is take it off.”

“I got other shit, and good places to get high.”

“Yeah, probably not the best to mix that stuff with the cocktail of shit that I’m on.”

He shrugged, “suit yourself.”

Wait, was he asking me to hang out? I mean you don’t just offer your drugs and hangouts to someone you don’t intend on spending time with, right?

“We could watch a movie or something if you wanted, my brother just downloaded a bunch of new shoot-em-ups,” I suggested quickly.

He turned his nose up a little, his eyes wandering over to where his sister was still being mauled by her boyfriend. They kept repeating the word ‘always’ to one another.

“How long have they been together?” I asked.

“I don’t know, two weeks maybe. I wish they’d shut the fuck up though, all I ever hear is fucking always,” he rolled his eyes and put the joint behind his ear.

“What does it mean?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

“Fair enough I guess.”

It was at that point that Fiona pulled up in front of the curb. “Hey kiddo, you ready to go? You’ll have to kick Carl out of the front seat,” she smiled.

“I don’t want to sit in the back with Debbie and Liam!” Carl groaned.

Mickey raised an eyebrow, “this is your fucking family?” he asked.

“Some of them,” I grinned.

“Jesus,” he mumbled. “My brother’s heading out on a run tonight and Mandy’s off with that jack-hole if you want to watch some real shoot-em-ups at my place.”

I tried not to look so thrilled as I turned back to Fiona. “I think I’m going to go with Mickey for a while if that’s cool.”

She looked him up and down and then back to me with an ‘are you serious’ look and I just glared at her with wide eyes for a moment until she sighed.

“You better be back tonight, and call me if you need me to pick you up because you know I’ll―”

“I know Fiona, thanks.”

She pointed her finger at me and I rolled my eyes. “Be good,” she said as she drove away.

“You do have a car, right? I kind of suck at walking long distance.”

He laughed in that totally inappropriate kind of way and I smiled.

“Yes I have a fucking car,” he said and started walking into the car park. “You ever watch On Deadly Ground?”

I shook my head and followed him. I don’t know how, but something half decent actually managed to come out of this fucking support group. Who knew?