Read Online Single Player: Humor, Love, Breast Cancer and a Gaming Girl... by Jamie Nicole - Free Book Online

afraid to talk in front of her, but really I was just embarrassed about the stain of dried blood all over my butt.
    “Oh daddy, I have terrible news. The worst news of all other news and I just didn’t want to tell you.  I didn’t want to tell anyone… well, because… I’m dying.” I sobbed, my tears soaking through his cozy sweater onto his pasty, white skin. The weeks of hiding and scrubbing and praying on my knees to cure my affliction had finally caught up to me and now I was ripping off the band aid that had been covering up my ugly confession. 
    “Shh… shh…” why back rubbing is so soothing when mixed with this shh-ing sound I’ll never know, but it’s comparable to a Jedi mind trick when my dad does it, wiping away whatever current turmoil I’m in and leaving me able to organize my thoughts again. Once I was calm enough to talk he asked, “Tell me why you think you have cancer CeeCee?”
    “It’s so embarrassing dad… I didn’t tell you because it’s so gross but, I’ve been…” Almost too soft to be heard I finished with, “bleeding.” Then my dad, the man who always soothes my soul in times of sadness started… LAUGHING! OUT! LOUD! The ridiculous LOL-ing you see as a sentence enhancer everywhere!
    Well guess what? You will be surprised to learn that this did not make me feel better! At least not immediately, but then, as I sat staring in shock at my sickly father, who was currently bent over, tears streaming down his face, hands on his knees supporting himself, something miraculous happened. I realized I could laugh even in the face of fear.  My dad still had cancer and I believed that I did too at this point but yet, it wasn’t stopping my dad in this moment from having a good, hard, much-needed laugh.
    From the absolute absurdity of it all and with nothing left to do but follow, I began to laugh as well. And to my surprise, the LOL-ing felt amazing. To this day, I’ve never had a better laugh. I’ve been hoping for one, but there’s not a single moment that has compared to date. 
    It felt like we were laughing for hours when in actuality it was probably more like five minutes before my father finally wiped the happy tears from beneath his sunken eyes and began to give me “the talk” right there on the floor of the girls’ room. Oddly appropriate, I think. I hugged him within an inch of his life after that talk.  Chemo had nothing on this hug. I quite literally almost squeezed him to death. Best hug… ever. I miss that specific hug. It was a once in a life-timer.
    My dad, the hero, then took off his big, squishy man-sweater, wrapped it around my soiled bottom and, holding my small hand, took me to the office where he could explain to my very kind principal what had happened. At first she looked like she would weep when he told her about his cancer (no one at school knew until today), then she wore a small grin when he explained what I was thinking (the grin was not a mean one, it was one of understanding and relief). After that day I always felt a certain bond with Mrs. Winiford, one I was sure she shared with no other student, and from then on school became a bit more bearable. 
    Now, back to present day. Through the years this story has become legendary amongst my closest friends and family. Whenever I freak out, have PMS, get lost… I am mocked with, “Oh no Cecilia! Your breast cancer’s acting up again.” In some very obscure way though, my period now soothes me.  Every single time I have my “girl-time” I think fondly of my dad, that squishy sweater and that moment the two of us shared that I’m pretty certain has never been replicated between two other souls on this planet. So there it is, that was how I came to call my period “the breast cancer” and now I have “it” at the exact wrong moment in time. 
     
    ***
     
    Turns out it doesn’t matter that I’ve been rebooting my ovarian operation system for the last three days, because Ashton’s