His Survivor

5. Appointment

Ashley's POV

Today is the day of my first appointment with the doctor here and Ian is coming with me. Martha, too, insisted on coming but I denied. I didn't want anymore people than necessary and if it was up to me, I would be going alone. 

"You sure are not coming to school today?", Chole asks me for the third time in the past hour and I am getting extremely irritated now. 

"Chloe, she isn't feeling well so she won't be coming today. How is that hard to understand?", Blake says in a frustrated voice. He has had enough of his sister, just like me. 

"I am just making sure".

"Well, the answer isn't going to change, is it?", he asks her sarcastically and I sigh in relief. I don't have to answer her same question for the nth time now. 

"Shouldn't you both be leaving for school?", Ian asks as he comes down the stairs, while fixing his watch. 

"Chloe wouldn't get up". 

"Chole?"

"I don't want to go to school either as Ashley is not going to be there", she wines. Ian smiles at her and then turns towards me with the same smile. 

"She will be there tomorrow, honey. Now, off you to go", he says and they both get up, Chloe begrudgingly picks up her bag and kisses my cheek which was unexpected on my part. 

"Feel better soon and call me if you need anything", she says and all I could do was nod. 

"See you soon Ashley. Feel better", Blake says and smiles before they both leave. Ian and Martha look at each other with a smile and turn towards me. 

"We will leave in half an hour, okay?", Ian says and I nod at him before excusing myself. 

While I was climbing the stairs, I hear Marth and Ian talking about me. I stop at the top of the stairs and listen their conversation. I know it is wrong to eavesdrop but whatever right. 

"I worry about her, Martha. I doesn't talk to anybody much and from what Chloe told me, she doesn't talk much in school either. She likes to be alone and I am worried that I might be loosing her", he says and I almost curse Chloe for passing on the information without telling me. 

"She will come around Ian. Give her sometime. She just lost her mom and we uprooted her life from a quite town to a city that never sleeps. She hasn't forgiven me or you for what happened six years ago and I don't expect her to forgive me but I think, if you try hard enough, I know you can get close to her. Don't loose it, Ian. She is your daughter, the one you left behind for me and this family. Her aloofness and being distant is completely justified. She will come around once she sees how much you love her and how sorry you are", she says. 

"I am sorry for giving up on her but not for choosing you or this family, you know that Martha, don't you?", and there goes all his efforts in water. If he wouldn't have said that one sentence, I probably would have tried a little harder to make things work but now, I just can't. He doesn't regret leaving us behind, leaving his sick daughter and his wife of ten years behind for a woman and her children. The man I knew, my father, my hero, the man who used to put a smile on my mom's face, would have never said these words. 

My mom, when I asked her what really happened between her and Ian, told me that they fell out of love. They just didn't love each other anymore and my naive self didn't question her further. I don't know how people can fall out of love. How is that even possible? When you love someone, you give them everything, along with your heart and soul and one day, you just stop. How can you do that? How can you stop loving that person when you pledged to love them and took vows to be there for them until death do them part? My mom used to tell me stories about their love story and how they were young and fell in love and got married. They had me just after their first marriage anniversary and mom told me, my dad cried for the second time in his life, the first being, watching her walk down the aisle. She told, my father was the first person to hold me in his arms and she had never seen him be so vulnerable. He cried so hard that day while clutching me to his chest, she used to say, that was the most beautiful moment she ever shared with him. 

My mother loved my father until the very day she died. I used to hear her cry sometimes but she never once did shed a tear when I was with her. She never wanted me to know how much he hurt her because she wanted me to have a good relationship with him. She wanted me to have a father in life as hers was taken every early from her. She tried very hard to get me to see him but I denied every time, not wanting to see the man who left us to fend for ourselves. He knew about my illness and yet he never once came to visit me. The calls became scarce after a while and stopped when I stopped responding to them. I had nothing to say to him so I never talked but mom did and always informed him about my health and that's it. Nothing else. I always received a gift from him and Martha on my birthday, Christmas and all other holidays, but I never opened them, because they used to say, from the 'Jennings', as if I wasn't the part of the family. My younger self knw they hurt my mother but she always smiled enthusiastically and gave them to me, in hopes that I would open it and respond to him back but I would just throw them in the trash. I knw my mom blamed herself for the strained relationship between me and my father but it wasn't her fault. It was partially mine and his too. I never responded and he just gave up which lead me to believe that I didn't matter. 

"Ashley, let's go honey", Ian's voice interrupts my voice thoughts and wipe the tears before clearing my voice and opening the door. 

"You okay?", he asks while eyeing me. 

"Fine. Let's get this over with", with that I leave him standing there and go downstairs leaving the house without stopping anywhere. 

Ian joins me in a few minutes and starts the car, revving it out of the garage. 

"Ashley, are you sure you are okay?"

"I am okay", I grit my teeth, stopping myself from telling him that I am not okay. I am not okay with him choosing others over his own daughter and the woman he loved but I keep quite not wanting to have a fight right now. 

We sit in silence for the rest of the ride. He doesn't say anything else and I don't have the will to talk to him, at all.

"We are here", he announces. I get out of the car and follow him to the reception desk where he tells her about our appointment. 

"Here you go. Please keep them with you until you are done", she says, handing us each a visitor card. 

"Thank you", with that we board the elevator and he presses the button for the tenth floor of the hospital where my doctors are waiting for me. 

"Honey, its going to be okay", I an says and holds my hand in his, trying to give me some comfort but all I could think about was my mom. She always comforted me and told me it was going to be fine but I knew it wasn't. I was small enough to not know what the doctor was talking because of the big his words but once I became old enough, I searched everything and read many books and I know, this is something very serious and its difficult to cure it. 

Ian knocks on the door and we hear a faint come in. He pushes the door and gestures for me to go inside first.

"Ashley, its good to see you honey. Mr. Jennings", Dr. Ken greets us and I nod at him before taking a seat. 

"I am so sorry about your mom, sweetheart", he says and takes my hand in his. Dr. Ken has been with me since I was a baby but he got a job in Australia a few years ago. He never gave up on my case though. He assigned me a doctor back home and always kept track and now that I am here, it is easy for him. 

"You look better than the last time I saw you", he says and I know he is lying through his teeth. I have lost a few more kilos, my eyes are sunken and my hair fall has come back. 

"Who are you kidding, doctor?", I look him in the eye and his smile falters for a second. Ian sucks a breath and clears his throat. 

"Ashley", he says but I just roll my eyes. 

"Its okay Mr. Jennings. I am used to this. Ashley, doesn't like me much", he says and laughs as if it is the funniest s**t ever. 

"That's an understatement", I grumble and he laughs again. 

"Let's get to the workup, shall we?"

He begins questioning me and i answer honestly already wanting to leave this place. 

"Any symptoms?"

"Fatigue, weight loss, hair fall and rashes". 

"Rashes?", Ian asks. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Its nothing. I get them once every few months", Dr. Ken makes a note of it and asks me show them. Thankfully they are on my arm and not of my inner thighs this time. It was very awkward the last time and I almost bailed out not wanting someone to see such an intimate part of me but I hadn't got no choice anyway. I show them to him and Ian, again, takes in a sharp breath and I could feel his eyes staring at my arm. Being the self conscious person that I am, I quickly cover them and look down at the hands on my lap.

"Let me check your weight", he says and stand up and walk towards the machine. 

"44. Not bad", he says and I roll my eyes. 

"It was 47 last time I visited which was two months ago", he ignore my comment and asks me sit back down. 

"Diet?"

"Okay-ish", he chuckles before noting it down. 

"I am giving you some more meds for the fatigue and hair fall and you have the cream for the rashes, yes?", I nod at him and he smiles. 

"Let's take some blood, shall we?", he asks me to lay down on the bed and brings the syringe closer to my hand. 

"The bleeding will stop, right?", I ask him in a very low voice and he lowers it before taking my hand in his and squeezing it. 

"It will", he reassures me and I nod before looking away. He quickly takes some blood and the bleeding stops after a good fifteen minutes. He sighs in relief and so do I. 

"I need to run the regular tests and I will have the results in two days. I will call you and then please come down again so we can discuss about the medicines and the chemotherapy we need to proceed with", he says while I still lay on the bed, wide awake. 

I was diagnosed with Leukemia aka blood cancer when I was just eleven years old, a year after my father left us. I didn't know what was happening when the bruises would appear out of nowhere and I would be so fatigued, you would think I was a fifty year old rather than an eleven year old kid. 

I was at the first stage when we knew about it and it grew rapidly after that. The medicines that I was given were really heavy and I was always tired and couldn't go to school most days. My mom consulted as many doctors as she could but everyone told her that I won't be cured but Dr. Ken was the one who gave us hope. He explained everything in detail and was ready to fight for me and he still is. He has helped me and my mom in ways I can't thank him for. Whenever we were a little low on the budget, not that my mom told me that but I knew, he never stopped my treatment. He proceeded nonetheless, making me respect him not only as a doctor, but as a human being. He made me trust humanity again. Ian visited sometimes during the hospital visits but it was expensive to travel to California from Australia every time so he on the video call most of the time. 

"Ashley, can you come out honey?", Dr. Ken calls me and I get p slowly before walking out. 

"Dizzy?"

"Not much", I reply and he nods. 

"I will give you call, till then take these medicines and skip school for two days, yeah?"

"I have a test tomorrow", I whine. I hate missing out on tests. He laughs while Ian looks too out of it to even c***k a smile. 

"Fine. But no working too much, got it?"

"Yep". 

"The rashes will fade in a few days, so don't worry about not wearing those amazing sleeveless dresses, yes?", he gives me a smirk and I chuckle, shaking my head. This was an inside joke. When I was small, I used to whine about not getting to wear the dresses because of those bruises and the rashes and he always remind me of my young self. 

"See you soon. Take care", with that, he hugs me and I return it. Other than my mother, I only hugged Dr. Ken because I felt safe in his arms. Ian's eyes glaze with some tears but he shakes his head before giving me a soft smile. He thanks the doctor and we leave. 

In the car, again, we are surrounded my silence. He probably didn't know what to say while I had nothing I wanted to talk about. 

"I am sorry, princess", Ian mumbles quietly but I catch it anyway. I don't respond, showing as if I didn't hear it. 

"You want to get something to eat, honey?", he asks in a louder voice and I shake my head. 

"I just want to lie down". 

"Tired?'

"A little, yes". 

"Okay", with that he drives a little faster and as we reach home, I go directly upstairs and lie down on my bed, passing out immediately.