Slow Burn by Christine L'Amour

Author:Christine L'Amour [L'Amour, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Joanne wanted to shout. She wanted to scream about it, to dance, to sing, to tell someone, but instead she went to her little apartment and stayed alone and kept the knowledge like a well-hidden secret, like a child holding a butterfly where nobody could see it.

She was in love and Bea was her girlfriend and they had kissed and life was beautiful, everything was suddenly beautiful. She went around cleaning her apartment, having to do something, to spend this energy on something. She then called for take-out and stayed up until five in the morning watching movies.

She still woke up feeling rested. She sighed and stared at her ceiling.

“I have a girlfriend,” she murmured.

She couldn’t imagine Janet’s face if she ever learned, much less their mother’s or their father’s. They all felt so distant, now. She was glad to understand, finally, why exactly she had left, even if it left her feeling quiet and sad. Her ceiling had a big crack crossing it from one side to the other, cutting her room in two.

She could imagine Janet’s face, actually. She just didn’t want to.

She sat up in bed. Her lovely reverie was broken—she remembered, suddenly, Janet’s frantic visit.

Our mother—

Surely… it wouldn’t hurt if she just logged on to her social media accounts, would it? She hadn’t been checking things ever since she arrived, but she had logged out altogether after Janet told her how she was found… She could just open her phone and check her notifications. Just to see. Surely if anything really horrible had happened to her mom, somebody would have said something.

She breathed in deeply and let it out slowly. She stood up and got her phone from the dresser.

As soon as she logged in, she was assaulted by notifications. She quickly did away with them, trying to find anything relating to her mother. She scrolled through things for a few seconds before she saw something important: she had been added to a new chap group.

The group’s name was Friends of Gertrude, who was her mother.

She clicked on it. She read the messages as quickly as she could, skimming them as she scrolled up to the first ones. Something about… exams? It seemed like her sister and her father were asking for money. Joanne felt her heart constrict, but kept on reading before she could draw any conclusions, what if she thought something wrong?

Apparently, the group had been created only a few days after she had left.

Finally, she got to the first message. It was by her sister.

Hey, everyone, she had written. Sorry to put you all in a group all of a sudden, but it’s the easiest way for us to deal with this. I know that some of you already know what’s going on, because Mom spoke to a few of her friends about her fears before she told her family everything.

Unfortunately, Mom’s fears were right. She’s been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Apparently, it wasn’t caught as quickly as the doctors would like it. She’s going to run more tests and start some medication and we’ll see how things go.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.