Was It All Worth It? (standard:romance, 2641 words)
Author: Red XIII	Added: Jun 08 2004	Views/Reads: 3380/2372	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A year of love and fame that slowly slipped away from her.

I'd had so long to prepare for it, months. But the truth is nothing can
prepare you for the death of a loved one. It still feels so sudden. 
I've hardly slept since. In the few minutes I have managed to sleep I 
have relived it all, waking in a cold sweat, crying, wishing things 
could have been different. 

It started out a blast, my life with him. It's everyone's dream to be
loved by the world, to hear multitudes of people shouting your name as 
you walk into view and the guitars begin to blast. I remember he once 
said to me: 

“Sometimes you suddenly realise that every single person knows every
single word to one of your songs, it's just pure ecstasy. It's like you 
have such power.” 

He had it. My John had everything. 

I first met him when I was 14 years old; he must have been 16. I'd just
moved into the village because my parents taken over the Post Office. 
He did one of the paper-rounds. He'd always do his round as soon as he 
was back from school. I used to watch for him out of my bedroom window. 
When I saw him coming I would dash downstairs hoping he wouldn't be in 
a hurry, so I could talk to him for a bit. 

I knew he was special from the first day I saw him. He intrigued me. So
humorous, so happy. He always looked directly into my eyes when he 
spoke to me; no one else has done that, before or since. I don't know 
what it meant, but I liked it. 

* 

One day I went to see him. What was meant to be a quick "how are you"
proved to be a changing point in both of our lives. He just looked at 
me and his tears began to flow. I put my arms around him. I knew 
something was seriously wrong, and I asked him if he wanted to tell me 
about it. 

“I've...” 

We were both sat on the edge of the bed. The chill down my spine was
tremendous as he opened up to me. 

“Come on John, you know you can talk to me.” I hoped I wasn't being too
ambitious. 

“I've got leukaemia.” 

I felt like someone had just knocked me on the head with the butt of a
shotgun. If he'd been a doctor telling me that I'd got cancer, I don't 
think I could have felt any worse than I did at that moment. I must've 
had stronger feelings for him that I'd thought. I put my arms around 
him again, as the first of the many tears I cried for him rolled down 
my cheek. 

A pathetic: “John, I, I'm so sorry,” is all I could manage. 

He then told me that I was the only person he'd confided in. Even his
parents were none the wiser. If you're 16 or over, your parents have no 
more rights to your medical records than your next-door neighbour. He'd 
only managed to hide it from his parents because he was away a lot of 
time at college and the treatment he was on had worked so well. 

“I've kept it bottled up for so long, isolated myself, lost all my
friends, got behind in my college work and...” he paused. “Today the 
doctor told me that I'm in remission. I should be happy. But...” 

The glimmer of hope he had just shown me went dull again. 

“He also said that it will eventually recur.” 

I took him under my wing. I knew I couldn't force him to tell anyone of
his problems. But since he'd told me I figured I was the only person 
who could help him. I realised all I could do was try to get him out of 
his shell, to get him out into the world again, socialise. Just have 
fun with the rest of his life, however long or short it turned out to 


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