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Post by milly on Sept 25, 2011 23:43:01 GMT 10
 Milly Honeycutt had a secret. Well, she had many secrets, like the crush she had on her friend Trevor, and the fact that she forgot to take her vitamins for the past two nights in a row (because they were just awful, no matter what the doctor said). But this secret was probably her biggest one. Like big as in the fact that her mother would freak out if she knew, and everybody else would be downright worried. If her family knew this secret, Milly would be placed in a hospital bed again, and she'd have to suffer from chemo treatment again, which just made the cancer worse, and was more of a killer than a treatment. She'd never get to experience life as a normal teenager. She'd never get to go to school dances, hang out with friends, get her first kiss, or experience all that other teenager stuff, because she'd be too busy trying to fight cancer on a hospital bed, getting weaker by something that would supposedly help her. No, no, no. Milly wasn't going to let that happen. So she was keeping the fact that she had some symptoms for leukemia again as her biggest secret. It was the only way for her not to end up on a hospital bed.
She was having some swollen lymph nodes on her armpit, but she could hide it with her shirts. True, it was April, but it wasn't very warm yet. So for now she could hide those lymph nodes with long-sleeved t-shirts and jeans. It hadn't gotten to her groin or her neck, which was good. It would have been just plain old weird and uncomfortable if the lymph nodes had been at her groin, and if the lymph nodes had been on her neck, it would have been easier to hide. Sure, her bones and joints hurt, but whenever that happened Milly always got taller the next morning. Surely that was just a part of puberty. She was feeling tired, but that could be because of the fact that she had stayed up late the past few nights watching her favorite television shows. The belly pains could be just because... well, that could be an actual symptom. And the fact that Milly was losing weight. She could blame it on gym class, but instinct told her that wasn't true. And she wasn't very hungry... Mom and Dad had always told Milly of how her siblings were always eating when they were Milly's age.
So Milly wore baggy clothes lately. Right now, in the evening, Milly was creating a sign that said, Please Knock Before Entering the Room of Milly Honeycutt. What if Milly got more lymph nodes, or one of her family members noticed the fact that she was losing more weight recently? Milly couldn't bare the thought of what would happen if her family found out. But right now, everybody was busy with something or another. Milly could let her guard down. She was wearing pajamas right now, which were just a tank top and smooth, silky pants with dogs on them. Her paints were out, and Milly decided to do a rainbow pattern with the letters, to make her sign look pretty. Who said signs couldn't be pretty after all? She sat on her bed as she painted the letters, occasionally looking up at her walls, which had a Harry Potter poster and pictures. Right above her bed were three pictures. One of her family, one of her friends from camp, and one of her friends from school. They were Milly's favorite things that she owned, her precious treasures. Milly carefully finished painting the word Knock, making sure that it came out perfectly.
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Post by ruby on Sept 29, 2011 15:35:30 GMT 10
Ruby couldn’t find her set of drawing pencils. And it was really frustrating. She hadn’t actually used them in a while- photography being her medium of choice, however the blonde did occasionally like to sketch. Also her art teacher encouraged Ruby to step out of her comfort zone and try new things, because she actually had a good eye and a lot of creative talent and she might find that she is good at other things besides photography. Ruby always shrugged comments like that off. She was an alright drawer, and painter, but she was sure there were people out there worlds better than her. She did like sketching though. And she had to admit, the fact that she was observant and paid careful attention to detail only helped her results. The rhythmic strokes of a pencil were soothing at least. Sometimes when taking photos wasn’t really an option Ruby found it a rather good alternative.
However what was not soothing was the fact that her pencils were not where she could have sworn she had put them. There was a large chest at the end of Ruby’s bed that was filled with all sorts of artistic supplies. Her parents had it made especially for one of her birthdays. There was a compartment made to measure for all the add-ons to her cameras, like spare film, extra lenses and that sort of thing. Places for pencils and paints and sketch pads, places to store drawings and photo prints, and even a locked compartment for the supplies Ruby needed to develop photos. Not that her house hard a dark room. Still though. The point was though, Ruby was normally a highly organized person. She kept her room neat and everything had a place. Which was why it completely baffled her that her pencils were not in their place.
Where else could she have left them? Ruby searched her mind for any sort of a hint but she was drawing a blank. There just wasn’t any logical place she would have put them. Closing the lid of the chest, Ruby stood up and let out a sigh. Trying to keep herself from getting frustrated so she could continue to think rationally. Hey, maybe her sister had borrowed them? Ruby had always been pretty generous with her things when it came to Milly. The younger blonde always seemed to take care of the things Ruby lent her, so it was never much of an issue for them. Though, it did bother Ruby just a little that Milly hadn’t mentioned it (if she borrowed the pencils at all, that was). While Ruby didn’t mind if Milly just helped herself if Ruby wasn’t around, it would have been nice if the younger girl would at least mention it so Ruby could keep track of her belongings. At the very least it would avoid frantic searches.
The only sure fire way to know for sure what had happened to her pencils- or well, to know if Milly had them, was to just go and ask the younger girl. Ruby made her way out of her bedroom and into the hall, flipping the light to her room off as she went. Making her way across the hall, she stopped outside Milly’s door. Before she had been looking for her pencils, Ruby had been downstairs and she hadn’t seen Ruby down there, so she was guessing the youngest Honeycutt was in her bedroom. “Milly?” Ruby called, as she knocked once before turning the knob and letting herself in. They’d never really had an issue about just walking into each other’s rooms in the past. “Have you borrowed my sketching pencils? I can’t seem to find them-“ Ruby cut herself off, looking her sister over. Something... didn’t seem right.. But.. Surely Milly would have said something, right? Ruby bit her lip, eying her sisters arms and torso, trying to be sure of what she was seeing.
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Post by milly on Oct 2, 2011 8:55:00 GMT 10
Almost immediately her plan of keeping her secret, well, a secret, failed. Milly had forgotten one little detail. She hadn't thought that it would bring down her plan that much. But as the adults always said, it was the little mistakes in the construction process that brought down the entire building. In Milly's case, though, it was the little details overlooked that brought down her entire plan. Milly had forgotten her sister's organization skills and general neatness. And that instead of using her sketching pencils to outline her "Please Knock Before Entering the Room of Milly Honeycutt" sign, which she couldn't find, she had decided to use Ruby's. It would have been fine, except she had forgotten to tell Ruby, and instead of delivering the sketching pencils immediately back to her older sister once she was done, she had eagerly went right to painting the letters of her sign. And once Ruby found that her sketching pencils were missing, she would be searching the house frantically. Then, once she couldn't find it, she would have assumed that Milly would take them. In the past, Ruby had always been generous when it came to letting Milly borrowing her supplies, but if Milly didn't tell her beforehand, she would search the house... and her frantic search would lead to Milly's room. With Milly in her pajama tank top and silky pants with dogs on them, showing off her skinny arms and torso, showing at the very least one of her symptoms. Why did life hate her so much?
Well, she could dwell on the matter and create a list about why later. Right now, she had to preserve the rest of her secret. Maybe Ruby would keep her secret. It wasn't likely, though. Ruby would probably think she was doing the right thing by telling Mom and Dad about Milly's reappearing symptoms. She would probably refuse to keep Milly's secret and tell Mom and Dad right away, or say she would keep the secret and then tell them while Milly was asleep. She hated to think so lowly of her sister, but it was probably what anybody would do... everybody except someone who understood Milly. Or Milly herself. Memories of the terrible treatment, a.k.a. killer, chemo and all the other types of horrible treatments she had to go through replayed in her head, and they sealed her choice. Ruby might not listen to Milly and tell their parents, but Milly would have to try and convince her to do otherwise anyway. The question was, how should Milly go around it? Then again, should Milly bring the problem immediately front and center in the first place? It would only confirm what Ruby saw. And her sister hadn't completely processed the fact that Milly was losing more weight than most girls in her gym class ever did.
In the end, Milly decided to pretend that everything was normal. She had been pretending that everything was normal, and that she didn't have any symptoms at all, for the past couple of weeks, without anybody getting suspicious, so why should she do anything differently? Using all the wits and acting skills she had, Milly decided to answer her sister's question. The one she had said out loud, anyway. "Oh, you want to use your sketching pencils?" Milly asked nonchalantly. Maybe a little too nonchalantly. "I borrowed them an hour and a half ago to outline the words to this sign." Milly used her slightly less bonier hand, her right hand, to gesture to the sign. "They're right at your feet," Milly said, using her right hand to point to the neat box of sketching pencils that were right in front of Ruby's feet. Each pencil was put neatly into its place like it had before Milly had take it. "You can have them now," Milly said with a slight smile on her face. "I don't need them any more." Milly went back to working on her sign, carefully painting the B of the word Before so it wouldn't be smudged and unpretty. Had she done well? A part of Milly told her that her sister probably wasn't convinced. Her arms and torso were solid proof of that notion.
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