Charlotte<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDo you think I should just shave my head or wait until the hair falls off during radiation?\u201d I close one eye and lift my long hair off my neck.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you going to get a pirate patch?\u201d Nick asks. He is lying on the hospital bed next to me playing on his DS. Mom and Dad had moved an extra wide hospital bed in here after the surgery because someone was always lying on the bed with me. Not that I minded it but I didn\u2019t even know that they made beds bigger.\u00a0 The nurses grumbled because apparently it was harder to take my vitals when one side was squished by the body of some teenager.<\/p>\n But friends from school came over and invariably they ended up beside me. Or Nate who\u2019s been here every night like a giant muscle bound teddy bear. He\u2019d disappeared before and after my surgery and then came back late that night and sat with mom all night until my mom left to get something and Nate nudged me over. I like it more than I should because I\u2019m sure that Nate is just being brotherly. But it\u2019s a nice change from him always giving me a hard time. His default mood for the last year has been pissed off. Even Nick gives him wide berth. When I got sick, I was sure he was thinking I\u2019d ruined something for him and that\u2019s why he took a runner during my surgery.\u00a0 But now he\u2019s back to being big brother Nate. Unfortunately I have some not so fraternal feelings toward him.<\/p>\n But a girl whose got a tube in her neck, a slightly enlarged noggin, and a bald head isn\u2019t going to get someone like Nate to notice her in that way.\u00a0 I should probably just enter the nunnery now.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, why? You think that goes with a bald head?\u201d I ask Nick trying to shove Nate out of my head. I have weird feelings toward Nate and I\u2019m not really up for dissecting them right now.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m wondering why you are closing one eye.\u201d<\/p>\n I punch Nick in the shoulder. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to see it from a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n Nick sets down the DS and pushes me upright. He pulls up the hair tight and away from my face. And then\u00a0he<\/em>\u00a0closes one eye and then the other. \u201cI think we should shave our heads today.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHell yeah,\u201d Nick looks at me like I\u2019m bonkers. \u201cYou know I\u2019m shaving my head in solidarity. A bunch of us are. Even Meghan.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe its the drugs but I start to cry. Even Meghan? My best friend from gymnastics?<\/p>\n \u201cAh shit, don\u2019t cry.\u201d Nick awkwardly pats me on the shoulder but I don\u2019t stop leaking water everywhere. I\u2019m afraid and I\u2019m grateful to my friends and I love my family and everything that is going on is overwhelming me.<\/p>\n \u201cShit shit shit.\u201d I hear Nick say and then I feel him moving off the bed. I want to call out to him that I\u2019m fine but I can\u2019t because I\u2019m really not fine.\u00a0 What Nick doesn\u2019t say and that we both know is that I have to shave my hair off because they\u2019ve already taken a huge hunk of it off to operate on my head. And who the heck cares about my hair when they are sticking a plastic tube down the back of my neck to drain off excess fluid that is now collecting in my brain. And the fact that I have a hard time comprehending reading or writing words down. It’d be a struggle competing at a 2nd grade spelling bee right now.<\/p>\n I know I should be so happy that I made it out of surgery but all I can think of is how my seven years of gymnastics training is being flushed down the toilet; how everyone will stare at me when I go back to school; how my mom won\u2019t stop looking at me like she\u2019s afraid the next breath is my last.\u00a0 My mom is never worried. She\u2019s this business powerhouse who can climb giant mountains.\u00a0 But she\u2019s afraid which tells me I should be shitting my pants.<\/p>\n So I can\u2019t stop crying even though I\u2019m making Nick feel so bad he has to leave the room.\u00a0 The bed dips and a pair of strong arms gather me up. It\u2019s Nate. I recognize his smell and it makes me cry even harder because I have such a stupid idiotic crush on him and I\u2019m afraid no one will want to marry me because I don\u2019t have any hair.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve done what legions of other girls at school wish they had the power to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d I mumble into Nate\u2019s t-shirt clad chest.<\/p>\n \u201cMake Nick leave them alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Nate\u2019s bad joke prompts a watery giggle and I\u2019m able to quell my hysterics. Pushing away, I wipe ineffectually at my wet face. Nate nudges my hands aside and sops up the tears with a couple of kleenexes. I notice that the clock says its just after one in the afternoon.<\/p>\n \u201cIsn\u2019t your dad making you guys go to school?\u201d It\u2019s Tuesday, at least I think it is. I\u2019ve been here since Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cNope. You\u2019re little brain tumor is getting us out of school for the week. Mom\u2019s orders.\u201d Nate leans back against the pillows of the hospital bed. Even though the bed is slightly larger, his big frame takes up most of the space so that when I lean back I have to rest partially against his chest. I remind myself that Nate is like my brother. Just a brother.\u00a0 Like Nick.<\/p>\n If only I could just convince myself of that.<\/p>\n Want more Charlotte? Sign up for the newsletter and you’ll get the Charlotte Chronicles delivered to your inbox a week early! The next installment is due tomorrow morning.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Charlotte Chronicles III Charlotte \u201cDo you think I should just shave my head or wait until the hair falls off…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-charlotte-chronicles","category-general","tag-charlotte-chronicles","charlotte-chronicles","general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}