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"What?" asked Brian quietly. Lauren knew then that she had pretty much destroyed their hopes, but she felt as though it needed to be said. "My friend's father had Leukemia," she said sadly, as a tear fell.
"Had?" Howie said, his voice breaking on the word. Lauren nodded solemnly. "He died about nine years ago," she answered, as more tears trickled down her cheeks, "he died in his sleep when I was in the sixth grade.....my friend was devastated and I was too...." By this time she was fully crying.
"Shhh," AJ comforted, as he held out his arms for a hug. Lauren entered his arms and cried against his shoulder. "I mean, he was like a father to me.....he was the only father figure I had in my life...." she sobbed, then stopped talking almost immediately when she caught herself.
"What happened to your father?" asked AJ, as he kept rubbing her back to comfort her.
"He....um...well, he left before I was born," she answered. It wasn't a lie, but she still felt uncomfortable, "I never knew him."
She stepped back and avoided eye contact with AJ. She looked around at the other guys. Howie and Kevin looked sad, but Brian was desperately fighting off tears. "Nick has Leukemia?" he whimpered, looking lost.
Now Lauren regretted she mentioned that at all....Brian looked on the verge of a breakdown, and AJ thought she was strange because she wouldn't talk about her father. It was not a good moment.
"I'm sure he's okay," reassured Lauren, hugging Brian, "I'm sure everything's fine."
*************************
Lauren sat motionlessly, staring out the window of the hospital. The doctors had kept them guessing about Nick....they hadn't gotten any results back from anything and were feeding him intravenously. Nobody was allowed to see him.
She thought about the day she had seen the guys for the first time. It seemed like she had known Nick forever, when it had only really been a little over a week. She remembered how old he seemed, when really he was only 17....how she had pretty much been infatuated with him since the day they met. She wasn't really sure how to show it, but in her mind she thought about him constantly.
It was just his happy-go-lucky attitude that attracted her to him....and it was also his features. His bright blue eyes always seemed to sparkle with happiness and his blonde hair was always so perfect. At the beginning, she had dismissed her secret crush for Nick....she wasn't sure how she could be so attracted to someone who theoretically wasn't out of High school, but it was more than that now.
'Oh God,' she thought to herself, as her heart fell into the depths of her stomach, 'the hair......he's gonna lose his hair.'
Ever since the episode in the hallway, the only thing she could think about was the possibility of Leukemia. She remembered how her friend's father had lost all of his hair during chemotherapy, and how he had become weak and tired. She tried to picture Nick with no hair, but it only made tears sting her eyes.
"How are you doing?" Kevin asked, suddenly appearing from nowhere and catching her off guard. "Okay, I guess," she answered, hoping the tears that had formed in her eyes weren't apparent. It was no use, however, because as soon as she spoke, the lingering tears began to fall. She looked around, but the other guys and Nick's family were nowhere to be found. "I...I-I just don't know...." she stuttered, as she cried deep sobs.
She kept on sobbing heavy sobs that came from her chest until she felt Kevin's strong arms around her, leading her to the end of the hallway where no one was. "I'm so scared..." she cried, as Kevin rocked her back and forth in his arms. "You don't have to be scared," he comforted, rubbing her back.
"Yes..." she stuttered, "I do.....I'm scared of what's gonna happen to Nick...I mean I just met you guys, but I don't wanna lose you! I don't wanna lose Nick, and I don't wanna ever lose you, or Howie or Brian or AJ.....God, if I lost AJ I'd have nothing left...."
"Why's that?" asked Kevin, inquisitively.
'Shit,' thought Lauren through her tears, 'why the hell did I say that?' "It's just that you all have been so good to me...if I lost you I'd be lost," she said, covering for her slip up.
Kevin continued to comfort her, until she completely stopped crying. Already it was closer to one in the morning, but still no one had informed them of Nick's condition.
She fell into a troubled sleep against Kevin's shoulder, and dreamed many dreams in which she lost everything: Nick was diagnosed with Leukemia, and the other boys left her.
She sat up suddenly, as she heard the doctor's voice. She glanced quickly at her watch and saw that it was now three thirty in the morning....but the doctor had news for them all.
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