#aggressive isolation

“They shouldn’t have called you.” I hated seeing Dean and Sam here. They shouldn’t have to take care of me. I was an adult. I could do this on my own.

Well, theoretically.

The Winchesters shouldn’t have to worry themselves about me. Sure, we grew up together, but that doesn’t mean they need to watch my destruction.

“They said you collapsed,” Dean said, pulling over a chair beside the hospital bed. God, I hated hospital beds. I hated everything about the hospital.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I use to hate hospitals. Now though, I found a strange sort of comfort.

“I had them remove you as my emergency contacts last time. They shouldn’t have called.”

“Well, they did. Why’d you collapse?”

Why does anything collapse? Governments, buildings, organs… too much pressure.

At my lack of an answer, Sam sighed and came to sit on the edge of the bed. “We’re worried about you, Y/N.”

“They shouldn’t have called you,” was all I said. I’m an adult. I don’t need people looking after me. I should be able to do that myself. They could worry about their own problems.

“Why not?”

So far, my favorite part about living on my own was the independence. I could do whatever I liked. Whatever I wished. I just wish people would stop worrying about me because of it. I was on my own, so I should be on my own. I hadn’t talked to either Dean or Sam since the last time I was here. That was a whole month without any Y/N problems hanging off their shoulders. Now the hospital ruined that streak by calling them.

“I took you off my contact list. It’s unprofessional, really. And probably against HIPAA.”

“Why did you take us off your list?” Dean clarified Sam’s question with a sigh. He knew that I’d understood the first time. So he should also know that I wasn’t going to answer this time.

“They said they’re keeping me here overnight. You guys should go back to whatever you were doing. I’ll be fine.”

They shared a look and Sam stood up. “I’ll go find a nurse.”

He shut the door behind him. It was just me and Dean now.

“He’s going to get answers, Y/N. You might has well just tell me why you collapsed.”

Dean was raised right. Sam too. I suppose I was also raised right, but the lessons just didn’t stick for me like it did for them. The three of us. The fearsome threesome. A force to be reckoned with back in high school. Back when life was simpler.

“Have you seen the news? All those hurricanes and earthquakes? Man, I would hate to be there.”

He knew I wasn’t going to give him a real answer, so he just sighed heavily, pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes, and slid down the chair until he was comfortable enough. He was going to have to go to the chiropractor if he fell asleep like that.

“Dean, go home. Get some sleep in your bed. You have a game tomorrow that you need to be ready for.”

“Surprised you even know about that,” he mumbled, not moving.

The school sends out weekly emails about all of the events happening on campus I still get them even though I dropped out a month ago. Of course I know about the football games.

I’m not very good at being a real person lately. There’s just too much happening. Too many strings to keep track of. A to-do list that keeps getting longer and longer. More failures that keep piling up in the corner of my closet. I can’t do it all, so some things had to go. Dean and Sam just couldn’t see how much more free they were without me.

I guess they would figure that out soon enough.

“I forgot to eat,” I finally say out loud. It’s not completely the truth. I knew that I had to eat, but I just… didn’t.

Dean peeked at me from under the bill of his hat. “What?”

“That’s why I collapsed. They’re going to give me whatever I need then send me home. That’s it, okay? Nothing to worry about. You guys can go home now.” I closed my eyes, knowing that Dean was going to blow this completely out of proportion. If I had to hear it, I didn’t want to see it too.

“How do you forget to eat?”

It’s a lot of work. You gotta figure out what you want to eat, then see if you have everything to make it, then if you don’t you have to go to the store and spend money and time and be around people. And if your roommate is home, then you run the risk of having to be in the kitchen with her too and small talk is just something that I can’t do. Then, after all that hullabaloo, there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t just puke the food up in a few minutes.

It’s just easier to… not.

“Y/N, c’mon, what the hell?”

This would have been so much better if the hospital hadn’t called them. Dean was all about eating right. He cared about his body. It got him his athletic scholarships. It was his future. He was going to be in the NFL. He had to worry about that shit. And Sam? His future was all about being a personal trainer. It was his job to figure out the right way to eat and exercise and all that crap.

I was the brains. Well, I used to be. I used to think I was.

Funny how fast things change.

“Go home, Dean. Take Sam with you. The hospital’s got my back now. You have a game tomorrow.” I settle further into the bed.

“When was the last time you ate?”

The worst part of hospital beds was getting comfortable in them. It was impossible on a good day, but with wire and tubes sticking out of you? It was better to just resign yourself to a very uncomfortable night.

“Y/N.”

“And it’s not just the hurricanes and earthquakes. There was a giant tsunami too. It’s like the earth is trying to tell us that we’re not welcome anymore. Crazy.”

“I don’t care about that right now. Y/N, when did you last eat?”

I was so tired. And all this probably wouldn’t matter in a few weeks anyway. Dean had a game tomorrow. “If you don’t leave, I’m gonna call security.”

His mouth dropped open. I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore, so I stared straight ahead at the door instead.

“Y/N, what the fuck is going on with you?”

The door opened and Sam returned with a nurse and a doctor. It was never good when the doctor came back in. Especially with a nurse. I addressed them, rather than my friends. “Can you get them out of here, please? I don’t want them here.”

“Y/N, I don’t think that’s a good idea given—”

“Get them out of here!” I yelled suddenly, finding some hidden reservoir of energy to protect my friends from the ugliness that the doctor was about to tell me.

Dean and Sam protested, but they were too nice to fight against the nurse as she pushed them out the door. As soon as they were gone, I slumped back against the pillow.

“It spread, didn’t it?” I asked weakly.

The doctor nodded sympathetically. “The tumor in your brain that we found a month ago is growing faster than we thought, and the cancer has spread to your spinal cord.”

It didn’t take ten seasons of Grey’s Anatomy for me to know what that meant. “How long do I have?”

“It’s hard to say, but…” the doctor flipped through a few pages on my chart. It was just a stalling technique. It couldn’t be easy to tell a twenty-two-year-old girl that she was going to die soon. “I would say somewhere between three weeks and four months.”

“I can go get your friends, if you’d like. You don’t have to go through this alone,” the nurse offered.

I just shook my head. A single tear trailed down my cheek, but other than that I was able to keep all of my emotions buried deep. “No. They need to go. Dean has a game tomorrow.”

*****