• •Is It Too Late?

[Sorina Elisabeta Lupescu]

Sorina wasn’t going to take her doctor up on his invitation to check out the group meeting he organised. She hadn’t felt like she really needed to sit in a room with others who had similar backgrounds as her and talk about their experiences and traumas. She had long ago come to terms with everything that had happened to her but she still found herself standing outside the room they were using, just looking at the door. No one could see her yet, she could turn around and walk away. No one would even know she’d been there and it could be her little secret that she’d even shown up at all. But she was a little bit curious about how it all worked. She’d never been to a meeting like this. Sure, when she’d been in the hospital, the doctors all got together and put their patients in a room to talk about how they were coping. Of course, they were all friends so they already knew the answers to the questions. Those sessions became more of an hour where they could all just hang out together without fear of getting caught in each other’s rooms. The nurses weren’t exactly fans of that and too often sternly spoke to them about contamination on their watch.

It had all been bullshit, Rina knew that now. But she hadn’t known that then and it had scared her that she could accidentally make some of her friends sick and vice versa. They all should have known the nurses were just trying to scare them and do it anyway but they had succeeded and quite a few of the kids had been terrified to even see each other in the hallways for fear of making the other sick. Rina hadn’t been quite so bad but she’d mostly stuck to her room with her books anyway. She wanted to be ahead of the curve when she got better and was released. It was that stubborn streak in her that gave her the determination to get better and fight with everything she had. Hers was already a pretty rare case. A child her age having a predominately adult type of leukemia, add in the fact that there was an overall low chance of survival, it was a miracle Rina even survived. Reality was, she should have died. She shouldn’t have seen her eighth or even ninth birthday but she had. And she’d seen so many since then; which was why she did something big for her birthday every year.

It was silly, no one knew why she was throwing a bash every year when they weren’t even big or special birthdays but she knew better than most not to take anything for granted. Every chance to celebrate life, she did it because she might not be around the next day. The cancer could come back, she could get hit by a bus or get into a car accident, there were no guarantees that she would see eighty. So she was going to throw herself into everything and enjoy the ride because it was a hell of a lot shorter than people thought it was. The bigger picture was, eighty years wasn’t all that long, it was a blink of an eye. One day she was going to wake up and realise fifty years had past and she’d spent the majority of it doing as she pleased and answering to no one because it was the best possible way for her to deal with everything. Rina shook her head, running her fingers through her hair and turned her head to look down the corridor she was in. No one was paying attention to her, she could slip away, acting as if she was just reading the paper posted to the door and nothing more. But, did she want to? For once in her life, Rina was actually a little scared.

Tag || @open
Words || 686
Clothes || Scaredy Cat
Music || Homegrown Honey --Darius Rucker
Notes || <3

[chloe yvette haynes]

Chloe didn’t think anyone was ever a fan of hospital visits, but ever since Leander had decided to leave the city, she hated hers even more. In the past he had always accompanied her and they had gone out and done something afterwards to take her mind off of whatever the doctor had said to her. Chloe hated hearing the usual talk about how they could never guarantee she would live the rest of her life without getting sick again. The leukaemia had already stolen so much from her and yet the doctor still spoke to her like she was a kid on the paediatric ward, too young to be facing off with the Reaper. Chloe had grown up during those years, and she had known before the doctors had spelt it out to her that she was being stripped of so many chances because of the aggressive treatment they were hitting her with just to ensure she might live to adulthood. She wasn’t naïve or stupid, and just because she liked to bottle all of her feelings in regards to that up, it didn’t make her crazy.

Her specialist wanted her to speak to someone. He thought it might help the now adult Chloe come to terms with everything her body had gone through and would never go through. Chloe didn’t want to do any of that though. The only person she had ever opened up to had packed his bags and ran off without so much as a goodbye before he was beyond the city limits. It had shattered her trust in people and she wasn’t about to confide in a stranger or a support group who ‘could relate to her experiences’. Chloe had been around enough sick kids when she had been sick, and she didn’t want to spend any extra time in the hospital than was necessary. She only stuck around after her appointment to grab a bottle of water from the vending machine. She needed to do something with her hands to calm her nerves. Coming back here, facing the thoughts and emotions that she locked away so deep inside, it left her feeling shaky and so unsure of herself.

Chloe wanted to be in the pool more than anything else right then. She had every intention of heading home, grabbing her gym bag and spending the rest of the day at the pool until her body quite literally couldn’t take another dive. It might not have been the best idea for her when she was aching from a workout the day before, her legs tight from pushing the muscles beyond their limits. Chloe wasn’t going to listen to reason though when her emotions were very much in control right then. She didn’t want them to be and usually she had a much better handle on them, but everyone slipped up from time to time. As she swigged from her bottle, some of the water trickling down the side of her lips to the front of her sweater, she spied someone staring at the door to the recommended group therapy that had also been highlighted to her. The leaflet was shoved into her bag and would be tossed the moment she emptied her bag out next; of that much Chloe was certain. She paused for a second, shaking her head at the paper pinned to the front. “Shove everyone in a room and let them sort their own problems out. Some help.” She wasn’t explicitly talking to the girl, but rather just vocalising her own annoyed feelings. If she had wanted to talk everything through she would have done so already, but her doctor had been adamant in this appointment that she needed to speak out about what she had been through. Chloe didn’t want to relive the past, she just wanted to get on with the future she had fought hard for and lost a great deal to actually have in the first place.

• • •

TAGGED! Sorina Elisabeta Lupescu!
WORDS! 662!
OUTFIT! Confused Cutie!
LYRICS! Lost Stars - - - Keira Knightley
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Sorina Elisabeta Lupescu]

Rina had been given the all clear years beforehand and so far she’d lived her life the way she wanted to. She didn’t regret anything, take anything for granted nor did she let people tell her she couldn’t do something. If she wanted to do it, she damn well did it. Elanor Roosevelt was known to say that no one could make you feel inferior without your consent. It was a quote that stuck for Rina. She didn’t know why but it had and since she’d become well again, she’d decided that she also wasn’t going to let what people said about her, pull her down to their levels. She was a strong, independent woman who knew what she wanted from life, who knew who she was and wasn’t afraid to go after it. It was probably that quote that stopped her from crying when all she wanted to do was curl up in a corner.

It wasn’t just her stubborn nature that kept her from showing how much the words people said hurt, it was that quote because what people said didn’t hurt her. Once she finally realised her feelings were her own, the words were just that, words. And yet she still stood in front of the door to the group therapy session, wondering if she wanted to hear what these people had to say about how she’d chosen to live after she’d been green lighted. It was ridiculous because her was her own and she’d been free and clear from any cancer scares for years now, nearly a decade. Some of these people she was sure, were still in need of the therapy while Rina was not. She’d done her time on the leather couch, she’d talked herself hoarse more times than she’d care to count because that was what the doctor wanted. She could admit that she knew herself better for it but she didn’t need to sit around telling her sad little tale to other people who either knew what she was going through, were still going through it or were looking to what the future could hold.

But hers had been a rare case. So rare in fact, her own doctors when she’d been younger hadn’t even considered it until they’d run further blood tests. It was quite the surprise to find the severe adult centered leukemia in a small child who hadn’t even reached double digits. The survival rate was low in adults, it should have been nonexistent in a child but then, Sorina liked to think she was different. She was certainly beyond stubborn and the determination to live in her was so strong, she battled for everything and she came out victorious. “The pitying looks are somehow even worse when it’s coming from these groups, too.” Rina said with a sigh. The girl hadn’t just voiced her personal feelings on the meetings, she’d voiced Rina’s for her as well. When she’d been a child, in the hospital, it had been sort of mandatory, therapy, play time, whatever you wanted to call it, the doctors and nurses let them all hang out and talk about anything at all. But now that she was healthier and only in need of a check up every few months, she didn’t feel it necessary to talk about it.

Tag || chloe yvette haynes
Words || 608
Clothes || Scaredy Cat
Music || Homegrown Honey --Darius Rucker
Notes || <3

[chloe yvette haynes]

No one in Chloe’s life knew about her teenage battle with the Reaper. Her family knew and old high school friends had been the one’s to send their sympathies on cards and with candies, but she didn’t see any of them now. She had graduated high school later than most her age and they had all quickly grown apart and probably forgotten about the young brunette. Chloe had never made many friendships with the kids who were ultimately in her graduating class. She didn’t want the sympathy of others so it never went mentioned to anyone else she met. Doctor’s appointments could be for just about anything, and she kept mentioning them as vague as could be whenever she needed to bring them up as an excuse for missing class, or cancelling on plans. She couldn’t wait for the day she was finally done with them, but that day was still a long way off. Even then there would probably be some kind of trick to keep her coming back to the sterile walls of the hospital.

She wasn’t usually one to feel down about anything. Even when she had been sick Chloe had managed to keep a positive mind and a bubbly outlook. Her family had needed it, but ever since Leander had gone and she had found herself feeling lonelier than ever, she was really struggling. Maybe she just hadn’t realised how much she depended on him. She had always considered herself to be independent, which she was, but it was hard to keep her spirits up when there was no one to really turn to. High school friends had drifted away, and her college buddies were just as swamped as she was with deadlines of their own. Plus, none of them knew about her illness; she didn’t want to burden them by telling them this great story and have them pity her for everything she had been through. Chloe didn’t want them to see her as someone to be awed or sympathised. She was just Chloe. The same girl they saw most days either in the art rooms or working out before she hit the pool for dive practice. None of that changed should she ever choose to tell them the truth about all that she had been through. Before now though she had never needed to think about telling anyone. She had always just had her family, and her brother to shoulder that with her.

Chloe had never been to one of those groups. She stared at the door and for a moment wondered why. They had been recommended several times, but she had just powered on ahead with her life. She had been to a few mandatory therapy sessions with a doctor, but they had been one on one, and she had never heard any more when they were over. She had assumed that was because she was a-okay mentally and fine to go on with her life. Now she was losing grip on her happiness she was questioning whether that had ever been the case though. She had been really sick – dying – and then she had just carried on like it had been a standard case of the flu. Her life had changed completely and she had never confronted that. She didn’t want to either. “It’s one giant pity party. If enough people feel sorry for each other maybe they forget their own problems for a day.” It wasn’t like Chloe to be pessimistic, but she needed to get out and maybe get in the pool already.

• • •

TAGGED! Sorina Elisabeta Lupescu!
WORDS! 595!
OUTFIT! Confused Cutie!
LYRICS! Lost Stars - - - Keira Knightley
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Sorina Elisabeta Lupescu]

Sorina wasn’t the type for group therapy sessions. She wasn’t the type for therapy sessions at all. She had only done them when she was in hospital because she’d had no choice in the matter. But now she did and she didn’t go to anything other than her almost ritualistic check ups. They were all she really needed to do and so they were all she ever did. She found her therapy in other ways, throwing herself into other projects helped quite a bit. But sitting down and talking about what she’d gone through had never helped her at all; not even while she’d been in hospital, attached to all the gizmos and gadgets that went hand in hand with recovery. She’d been more concerned about being ahead of the game for when she got out of hospital that it had never actually occurred to her that she might not ever make it out. She would never have allowed herself to think about it really, not outside the mandatory therapy sessions where everyone went around telling the rest the same story they’d heard the time before and the time before that. Some people were new but most weren’t so the stories got old.

It had been obvious to all the kids on the ward that they needed something else to distract them. There were only so many times they could go over everything and still find it in themselves to carry on. Rina had reached that limit only three short but excruciating long months when she’d first been sent to the children’s hospital. And she’d been seven at the time! Her childhood had been lost to her back then but she refused to acknowledge it now. It wasn’t fair to her to have to relive the trauma of being in a hospital for years, having her entire family wonder if she would ever see her childhood home ever again, if she would ever play with her sister ever again, learn to drive a car or get that damn gold medal that had been just out of reach of her seven year old hands on the soccer fields. Her mother had kept up a good front, continuing to work and to teach Rina while she was confined to the sterile walls. She’d been Rina’s biggest cheerleader and had never missed a single appointment or anything, even when it put a strain on her relationship. But they’d known, and her sister had become a daddy’s girl and ultimately turned to take measures into her own hands for the same level of attention that Rina had gotten when she’d been small. Only now she was a drug addicted college drop out who was in and out of rehab more times than that celebrity everyone was always going on about.

She may have been a model but Rina rarely kept track of what they were all doing. She’d never been after celebrity status in the same way that the rest of them had been. She wanted status sure, but she wanted it to so she could eventually shed light on the children’s hospital that had saved her life. She wanted them to get more funding, raise more money so they could save more kids. They’d saved her and now she wanted to save them. It seemed only right to the young model. “Too bad all it does is bring all our mortality into sharp focus.” Rina said with a shake of her head and a deep sigh. “Well, I’m not going in. I’ve spent the better half of my life wondering if I’m going to croak on the spot, I’m not going to hear the same song and dance from the rest of the sick kids like me. Want a coffee, nice stranger lady?” Rina said, grinning at the brunette who’d walked up and paused outside the same door she had.

Tag || chloe yvette haynes
Words || 703
Clothes || Scaredy Cat
Music || Homegrown Honey --Darius Rucker
Notes || <3

[chloe yvette haynes]

Chloe had put on a brave face and faked a hell of a lot of smiles during the time she was sick and battling leukaemia. She had been a kid facing up to her own mortality when her friends were picking out dresses for prom and choosing what concert to see next. Part of Chloe had wanted to scream at them when they came around to visit her with Get Well presents, talking about their own lives like she was just resting up from a bad case of the flu, but she couldn’t take her anger at her own body and failing cells out on the friends she had had since she was eight. It didn’t work like that. So, she had faked the smiles, forced out jokes she hadn’t wanted to make, and eventually sent them away with a stifled yawn and some phrase that emphasised how tired she was feeling lately. They left without questioning it and she could go back to sketching, letting her frustrations out in charcoal until another pad was full. That was the best kind of therapy for Chloe, but doctors were adamant that she should talk about it with other people.

She didn’t see the point though. Her family were going through enough striving to keep up with the mounting medical bills and they didn’t need to hear from her as well as the doctors what she was going through. Chloe didn’t see the need in ruining her friend’s happy moods with the harsh truth of her reality when they came over to talk about boys or moan about the teachers at their school. And then the thought of sitting in a room with other kids who were as sick as she was, talking about why they were there and what was killing them…no, just no. Chloe didn’t want to make friends with someone who might not be around next week, and she didn’t want to put someone in that position with her either; and there had been times when she had wondered if she’d see the start of the next month. Just because she was better didn’t mean any of that had changed. She knew there was a chance of the ALL coming back for a second time during her life, but if that happened she wouldn’t sit down with a bunch of strangers to share her story, just like she didn’t want to go into a room now and brand herself a survivor for beating it the first time.

Chloe just wanted to get on with her life. Was that too much to ask? There was enough of a shit storm hitting as it was at the moment with everyone she needed just getting up and leaving her. She didn’t need to be forced through holes she didn’t want to fit through. This appointment had really lowered her mood, along with the suggestion of trying group therapy. Again. It was never going to be her thing, but they kept pushing for it like they had some damn quota to fill. Which they probably did now that Chloe thought about it. Still, she was already one statistic and she wouldn’t be another. “I’ve been through this too many times to need a refresher on how to live. I just want them to leave me the hell alone to do just that.” Chloe mumbled, wishing to any deity that might be listening that it could be true. However, she knew she still needed to check in for annual appointments, blood tests and everything else in between. She couldn’t drop off the radar like some unknown so easily. “Coffee sounds like the best thing right now. And far more therapeutic than what’s on the other side of that door.” She took the first step away from it, moving her long hair back from her face as she did so. “I’m Chloe, by the way.”

• • •

TAGGED! Sorina Elisabeta Lupescu!
WORDS! 656!
OUTFIT! Confused Cutie!
LYRICS! Lost Stars - - - Keira Knightley
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Sorina Elisabeta Lupescu]

For so long, Rina could only think about making it through the day to see the next. That was all that was on her mind. She wanted to wake up every morning, knowing that she had the entire day to get closer to being free of the hospital bed she was stuck in for the most part. It had been a torturous childhood to say the least and it was one she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy. No one, especially a child should have to go through what she'd done. All the pain, all the constant tests, it was too much. Hers more than some of the others for sure but there had still been some that were even more worse off than she'd been. And that had been a scary thought. Not at the time of course, she'd been too young to understand exactly what was going on but afterwards when she'd really sat down and thought about her time in the children's hospital. They'd all tried their hardest to make it seem like it was a nice and friendly place. They had a nice smell throughout so it didn't smell like the sterile place that it really was, they had games and there were proper classes for those who could get there.

She attended the classes when she could but she was usually stuck in her own room, hooked up to a dozen or more noisy machines with tubes and wires connecting her to them. It was enough to have any child falling into the deepest depression imaginable. And she'd known some kids on the ward that had in fact done just that, unable to cope any longer with the trauma their bodies and minds were going through. Rina had understood why they'd gotten so sad, but even at the age she'd started in the hospital she'd known she never wanted to be that girl. She wasn't going to give in and as it turned out, she had the strength to make it through everything. These days she was making sure she did everything she could, prove to everyone that she was still out there living. Not that they wouldn't see, her face was on nearly every billboard in her hometown, promoting all sorts of designer labels and shops. She wasn't quite so famous stateside but back in Romania she was quite the celebrity.

She understood the intentions of the regular check ups and did do those but she had a good mindset about it all these days though. She didn't need a therapy session anymore, she'd told her doctor back in Bucharest that she really didn't need the therapy sessions and though she would agree to the check ups, she was stopping the sessions with the shrinks. She was happy to be free and clear, she was happy to be out of the hospital and she was happy to be able to run head first into unknown territory because there had been a time when it was a chance she wouldn't see two decades. Rina had never thought that, she was too stubborn to think she wouldn't win the battle. And as much as she understood how there were people behind that door that were currently sitting through their very first session, she couldn't be one of the ones to show them that sometimes, it really did turn out okay.

Each of those cases were vastly different from the next. So by telling her story, she might be giving someone hope, sure but at the same time, it was also telling people that though she made it, they may not, no matter how hard they tried or how much stubborn determination they put into getting better. The Fates would decide at the end of it all, just how long their thread of life would be. Rina nodded her agreement, just barely hearing what the other woman was saying in the first place. She didn't want to overstep just in case she hadn't meant to say it out loud. "My thoughts exactly." She agreed, falling into step beside her, heading towards the exit and the nearest cafe. It didn't matter to Rina if it was a Starbucks or some little known local hot spot. A coffee was a coffee, though she could admit that the local places tended to make a better cup in her opinion. "Nice to meet you, Chloe. I'm Rina." She said, introducing herself, even as she reached for the door.

Tag || chloe yvette haynes
Words || 747
Clothes || Scaredy Cat
Music || Homegrown Honey --Darius Rucker
Notes || <3