"Happy birthday to you," the whole entire Hanson clan sang to me. I sat in front of a cake, fourteen candles lit brightly. Everyone clapped, and I stared at the candles.
Alright candles. You know what I want and this year it better come true. I wish that my disease would go away�I closed my eyes tight and blew out every single one of the candles.
I opened my eyes and they were out, and everyone clapped again.
The candles re-lit.
My heart skipped a beat as I saw the flames dance on the fourteen candles once again. "Trick candles," Zac informed me. "Try again."
Tears came to my eyes as I got up out of my seat and ran from the room. Zac looked surprised. "What's her problem? It's a joke�" That's all I heard.
I ran through the house and out the front door. So what if it was a joke, once the candles re-lit, I knew that my wish was never going to come true. It was a sign that they intended as a joke but I took it differently.
I don't know how far I ran, I don't know where I ran, I just ran. It was horrible, simply horrible. I don't take jokes when it comes to wishes and my life. I collapsed onto the ground, not knowing where I was or what the hell was going on.
I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move, I couldn't think. "No�" I whispered, it coming out in a sob. I tried to catch my breath but it was going to fast, I was running out of air. It was like I was in a chamber and all the air was being sucked out through a tube, limiting me to just a few minutes before my life was gone.
I was sobbing, not being able to control the tears. I knew I needed to take my pills but I didn't have any pockets, so they were left on the table, next to the horrid, fake birthday cake. I was having an attack and I couldn't control it.
I felt like I needed a gun and some ammo, then the whole thing would just stop and I wouldn't have to worry anymore. But where could I get a gun wherever I was, I never knew.
"Tini!" I heard from behind me. Zac's voice, it was Zac's voice. My mind cleared up but I still couldn't calm myself down. I saw a blur come in front of me. I could hear the voice, I knew it was Zac's but I just couldn't see him. It was the tears that blurred my vision.
"Tini, are you alright?" I wanted to respond, but I couldn't think, I couldn't handle anything. All I could do was rock back and forth with my hair in my hands and barely breathe. I felt his arms around me, but I couldn't respond, my whole stance was now rocking back and forth.
"Come on, we're going back," he said. I felt him pick me up. I let go of my hair, straightened out a little so he could hold me easier. "Sheesh, you're light."
I didn't care, I just wanted it all to stop. My head started pounding, I needed that gun right about now.
More voices, the last thing I needed was more attention. My mother, Diana, Zac, that's all I could recognize at that time. My mother took me over, and I could almost sense Zac feeling left out.
The familiar smell of my house drifted through me, I couldn't see at all so it was really something I had to rely. I was put on a couch, I could tell by the feel of it.
Three blurred figures huddled around me. The air that had just come back left again as I felt them getting closer, and closer and they wouldn't go away.
My image was getting clearer now, I saw my mother run to the kitchen and get my pills and some water. This was insane. The last thing I needed on my 'fourteenth' birthday was an attack. I couldn't believe this was happening. All over trick candles too.
But I had a right, I had a real right. I wanted this to go away and it couldn't happen because of the trick candles, so I suffered through another one, the worst one yet.
My mom put the pill in my mouth and it was forced down with loads of water. I felt embarrassed that two other people had to watch my mother give me a pill. I felt like a little baby that needed constant care.
Well that was what I was. My vision cleared completely, I made out everything perfectly. My mother, Zac (who looked horrible, probably thought I was dying or something) and Diana (who looked the same way).
"She'll be fine in an hour or two, don't worry about her." I wanted to protest. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. A salty liquid came up to my lips.
Blood?
It escaped my lips and started dripping down my chin. My mother looked down to me and jumped back, almost screaming. She took me quickly over to the bathroom and I must of gotten rid of half the blood in my body, it just all came out for no reason.
I stopped breathing, nothing came in or out besides blood. I could feel my lungs getting blood in them too�and I went blank. Everything went black.
"Honey, you're awake! Thank God you're safe," my mother said once I opened my eyes. I looked to her, looked around. Hospital. Too familiar.
This was like my room. This was all my room that I had stayed in for three months only a few years ago. A doctor walked in, probably because my mother pressed the little nurse button.
"Tini!" the doctor said. I rolled my eyes. "I'm guessing you want to know what happened?"
"Yes, and forget the sense of humor, I want straight forward."
"Tini, we found another tumor. This one is in your chest, and it grew to large and popped a hole in your lung. That's why you couldn't breathe and blood kept flowing out."
"Dude," I muttered. That was more than I expected. A popped artery or something, not another tumor. "Can you remove it?"
"It's grown attached to your heart."
"Dammit! Why the hell does it always have to grow attached to something?!" I loudly said, not quite a yell, but pretty close. "Just go away, both of you. I need to be alone. I'll ring the little button thing if I need anything."
My mother and the doctor left, and I was alone with nothing but my thoughts. This sucks, I have a tumor in my brain and heart, a hole in my lung, and my hysteria. What else could happen to me?
The doctor walked back in. "Oh yes, I almost forgot, Tini, your nerves had gotten worse, we have to keep you in here for another week or so."
I had to ask.
The doctor left. Whenever I saw one, all I got bad news. Being in a hospital for a month and every time the doctor came back something else was wrong with me.
"It would have just been better if I hadn't been born at all."
I looked out the small, thin window on the door, and saw Zac talking to the doctor. The last thing I needed was another person worrying about me. Zac had a smile on his face, but it didn't last long. I could tell he was worrying.
I took my remote and turned on the TV, clicking through the channels. Apparently they knew I was going to be there a while, or it was something new, but they had cable. The last time I was in a hospital, which wasn't that long before, they didn't have cable.
I realized how late it was when Jay Leno was announcing his musical guest. Hanson?
"Dude," I said, a smile coming on my face. They did a song off the new album, commercial cut and then interview.
"What's with the shoes, Zac?" Jay asked.
"What?" Zac asked, looking down at his shoes. My square knots. "Oh, you mean the laces?" Jay nodded. "It's a new fashion trend! Started by me! You haven't heard of it yet?"
"Zac's in his own fashion world," Taylor explained. He was wearing his leather pants.
"I don't think so, he's down to alright with those pants," I said, shaking my head.
"I kinda figured that," Jay retorted, talking to Taylor. I looked at Zac through the window and at him on TV. Seemed like two different people. Zac on TV was wild, zany and plastic. It had all been done before. Zac talking to the doctor was original, concerned, and much cuter.
Zac looked over to me, and I pointed to the TV. He gave me a look, and walked in. He looked at the TV and shook his head. "I swear Taylor and those pants."
"He's not proper anymore," I told Zac. Zac closed the door and walked over to me.
"Oh really? Am I still a slob?"
"Yes."
"Tini!" Zac said. "How could you still consider me a slob after seeing me with Tay and those ugly hideous pants!"
"I'm just kidding, Zac. You've been upgraded to alright. If you let me do one thing."
"What?" I took his arm and tucked his watch flap into the other slot.
"There. You're alright now. Actually, all three of you are alright now." He gave me a puppy dog face.
"No. I don't care how adorable and innocent you look, you need a lot of work before you can be proper, and you're not going to like it. But you're the highest alright out of the three."
"That's good enough. As long as I'm over Taylor after what he decided to wear." I smiled. "How long to do you have to stay here?"
"A week or so." He groaned. "And in reality a week or so means two months. The last time they told me a week or so, three days later they decided that I had to stay two weeks, then three�until they finally just called me an enigma and sent me home. But that was back at my old home, I haven't been called anything here. I hope the doctors are better."
"So do I. I really don't want you staying in here that long."
"Well I don't want to stay here at all but I don't have a choice, Zac. This is what happened to me. This is what I got chosen to do in my life, stay in a hospital and have people take care of me. I guess I was never meant to fend for myself."
"I guess not."
"You know, Zac. Sometimes I look at the last few years of my life and I realize that it hasn't been like a normal person. I was in a hospital for months, more things happening to me, more things being wrong so they had to do more and more tests and I felt like this was going to be the rest of my life. In and out of hospitals. Things started looking up and I come back here. It's terrible."
"Hey, you got cable! We're one of the few hospitals around that do! Probably because my mom decided to donate a couple thousand dollars�"
"Thank you for the cable, Zac. Or should I thank your mother?"
"Well I'm the person bringing in the money!"
"I swear Zac, you should be living in a mansion or something. You have enough kids to live in one!"
"I would my home way too much to live in a mansion. Besides, I never liked them."
"I would kill to be able to live in a mansion. I've always wanted to, we used to be able to afford one, when my father was still alive and I didn't have anything wrong with me. But my father brought in all the money with his job and he died, so my mom had to get a job and we went along O.K. Her job paid a good amount of money, but then I got sick and we're just covered with medical bills."
"Oh."
"I remember that she used to always try and calm herself down whenever the bills came because if she got nervous, I got nervous and that was the last thing we needed."
"Really? So, you get nervous and you have a panic attack?" Zac asked.
"Yeah, basically."
"So, if I were to surprise you with something, would you have an attack?"
"Wouldn't matter, I'm already in the hospital."
"Well, still, would it?" I gave him a strange look, and he just kept his smile. But it wasn't a normal smile, it was sort of nervous and sort of knowing.
"Depends�"
"On what?"
"Zac!" I yelled. "You better not have something up your sleeve." Zac took his sleeve and looked up it. "You're an idiot, Zac."
"I know. Wait here," he said, walking to the door. "By the way, this is your birthday present." Zac walked out, leaving me bewildered. Dammit I hated surprises.
Five or ten minutes later he walked back in, the smile on his face bigger. "What's going on, Zac?" I asked.
"I was talking to your mom when we were in LA, and she mentioned something about you having a brother that ran away when you were a little baby�"
"No�" I said, putting my hand over my mouth and shaking my head. He stepped out of the way and there was a tall�taller than Zac�man, 26 years old, jet black hair, green eyes.
I screamed into my hand.
He walked over, his name was Carlton, and I had heard so many tales about him over the 18 years in my life, which had been recently shrunk down to only 14. He was a legend, I was only a few weeks old when he ran away. I heard my father left because of his departure.
"I'll leave you two alone," Zac said, turning to walk away.
"Zac." He turned. "Come here," I said. He walked over, and I gave him a deep kiss. "Thank you. Now you can go." He smiled and walked out of the room.
"Hello�" he paused, not really knowing my name.
"Tini," I filled in.
"Hello Tini. I guess I have eighteen years to catch up on," Carlton said.
"Fourteen. I'm fourteen."
"Well, Tini, I left when you were a week old and I've been gone eighteen years�"
"Yes, but they don't know I'm eighteen, and I want Zac to think I'm his age. The last thing I need is for him to find out that I'm actually five years older than him."
"He won't care," Carlton said, acting like he had known Zac his whole life.
"But the police will." Carlton nodded. "I suppose you would want to know why I'm in the hospital�"
"I know why. Mom explained everything to me on the trip here. It really sucks, doesn't it?" he asked. "Being in here, cooped up without being able to do anything but watch TV?"
"It's not all that bad. I have people visit me. Can I see your shoes?" I asked. He smiled and put his foot on the bed.
"Tied horizontally, not vertically, and tightly. I was staring at Zac's shoes, it drove me insane."
"I know. At least there's someone else in this family who understands why I go ballistic over shoes." He smiled. "You're a proper."
"So are you." I instantly hugged him, I had to. He knew me like no one else did and I met him for the first time in eighteen years.
"Why are you the way you are?" I asked. "Why is it that the one person who understands me had to be gone?" He squeezed me tighter.
"I don't know," Carlton said.
"Whatever." He let go of me, and then just look at my face for the longest time, from my eyes to my nose to my lips. I couldn't handle him looking at me for that long, I hated people staring at me. "Carlton, stop it."
"I know you don't like it, that's why I'm doing it."
"Must you do this on purpose?" I asked. He nodded. "Why?"
"Because I'm your brother and I've missed out on years of tormenting and teasing." I sighed, sitting back. "Carlton, why'd you leave?"
"Let's not get into that now," he said. Basically meaning he wasn't going to tell me.
"Fine."