Halfway to forever by Karen Kingsbury

sights on a room four doors down the hall. The girl was a highschool
track star and the oldest child in the children's cancer wing,
and she regularly complained about the fact.
Without making a sound, Jade let herself into Brandy's room.
A rerun of I Love Lucy whispered from the television. Brandy
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looked up, her eyes dark and sunken, then shifted her gaze back to the TV
"You're supposed to be sleeping." Jade smiled and set the tray down.
"I'm not three."
"No, but you're sick and your body needs rest." The bag hanging over the girl's bed was empty. Jade replaced it with the full one from her tray
and crossed her arms. "How are you feeling?"
Brandy's eyes welled up and she looked out the window. "Fine."
Jade's heart went out to her. It was prom week at Thousand Oaks High School where Brandy was a junior. She ran track and had been a
state contender with one of the fastest miles of any girl her age.
Then she started bruising.
When she was first diagnosed back in February, dozens of teens from the track team frequented Brandy's hospital room. It was all Jade could
do to maneuver her way through the maze of visitors to administer the chemo treatments. But over the weeks, as Brandy's long blonde hair fell
out and her muscled legs atrophied beneath the sheets, her friends stopped coming. It was track season after all, and Brandy's teammates
were busy.
This week especially.
Before Brandy got sick, there had been a boy-a quiet, darkhaired long jumper on the track team. The two of them had planned since
September to attend prom together. He'd come by earlier and hemmed and hawed for fifteen minutes before stating the real reason for his
visit.
He was taking someone else. He wanted Brandy to hear it from him first.
Jade prepared a needle with anti-nausea medication and injected it in the least bruised area she could find on the girl's arm.
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K A R E N K I N G S B U R Y
Then she sat on the edge of Brandy's bed and patted her frail hand. "How are you really?"
Brandy clenched her teeth. "It doesn't matter. The whole
year's a waste."
"Okay. So start working toward next year." Jade kept her voice
quiet, calm.. . subdued enough that Brandy took her seriously and
upbeat enough to do the one thing she believed in, the thing that
kept her working in this department: to infuse hope and life and
love right alongside the chemotherapy Drop for drop.
Tears welled up in Brandy's eyes again and she gazed at jade.
"What if there isn't a next year?"
Jade's heart sank as she layered the girl's hand between her
own. "There will be. You need to believe that."
Brandy blinked and tears forged their way down either side of
her face. "I don't have faith like you, Jade." Her fragile body
heaved twice as a series of sobs broke through. "It's hard... to
believe anything good will ever happen again."
The moment called for more than a hand hold, and Jade leaned down and hugged Brandy, letting her sob. "Shhh...it's okay, sweetheart. It's
okay"
"I'm...I'm afraid." The girl clung to jade as though she'd never
admitted her fears before. "What if I don't make it?"
"Oh, honey, look at you." Jade smoothed the girl's hair. "You're getting better all the time."
"But... but I'm still here. I'm still sick."
Since the day she was diagnosed, Brandy had acted as though her illness were nothing more than a serious inconvenience, a speed bump in
what would otherwise have been a wonderful year. She complained about being in the children's ward, complained about the food, and rolled
her eyes when she got word that she needed to stay another week. But never for a moment had she acknowledged any fear about the cancer.
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Her parents were no different. They were certain that the cancer would go away and their daughter's hair would grow back in time for her
senior portrait. That next year at this time she'd be competing at state.
With all her heart, jade prayed they were right.
Both Brandy's refusal to talk about her cancer and her parents' eternal optimism were normal, but they'd left Brandy nowhere to voice her
questions, no one with whom to share her deepest fears.
Until now.