I pushed the covers back and slid out 321 to the showers. There was the shower I always liked to use near the back wall on the right. The thing was, it was the only shower I could think in. I could plan out my day in that shower, think of all the best things in the world to say to try and make her know how I felt, I could hear songs play out in my head, that was my shower. Any other day I might have been angry if it was being used and I had to settle for the one with the broken nozzle, or the one with no pressure, but today things were different; today I just didn’t care. The water just fell down the top of my head, it was a perfect analogy of how I felt this morning. I couldn’t move, just stood there with water pushing my hair flat and burning my eyes shut. I could have moved,sure, but I didn’t want to. I just wanted to drown in all the sorrows of the day that I knew I couldn’t tell anyone in this town about. This shower was this safe haven that I almost regarded as close as sleep. These places you retreat to where you know while you are there you have nothing to worry about, nothing else to do but wash and count sheep. I stumbled to class with nothing but the worst thoughts entering my head. I tried so hard to concentrate on the instructor to push every nightmare I created out of my grasp, but here’s the thing; they are all coming true. And as I sat there trying to push my pen across my paper to try and make some legible sense, it occurred to me that my life is about to change for the worse. All the times I was younger and my mother tucked me in at night and told me she loved me, I took them for granted. I took my life for granted, I took her life for granted. So as this day blazes through me burning my insides up, I know what awaits me at home. A mother that was so strong, slowly being over taken by this cancer that eats away at her body and dignity. As a boy I ran to her and cried in her arms with scraped knees, as a preteen I ran to her and screamed of my scratched reputation, as a teenager I ran to her and spilt of my broken heart, and now at 18 I realize I have nowhere else to run... and I never let her run to me. I could cry, I could scream, I could just die. With entering my room again, I knew what to expect, I knew things would never be the same, I knew this was it. I could just hear it in my father’s voice on my voicemail: “Chad it’s dad...I just wanted...to tell you how mom’s operation went today and.. talk about some things.. we all miss you... mom loves you, we all love you.” I never said it before, I never let myself sink as low as to say I knew things were getting worse. I never said death, I never said dying, and I sure as hell never fucking said DEAD. But am I so terrible to finally come to some awful realization I denied so long? I’m sorry Mrs. Barker... I am for real.