c9

"Ha! Eat my dust, Rose!" Brian said loudly, watching his virtual car race down the virtual track.

Rose wrinkled her nose. "What is it with guys and racing games?" She asked, not really expecting Brian to answer, seeing as that his eyes were glued to the screen of the game, and he hadn't looked away yet. Still, it was quite a funny sight. Here was Brian, who had always seemed to cool, and calm about everything, yelling in triumph about a Nintendo victory. What made it even more comical, or depressing- take your pick, was that there were four other boys (all of whom were about twenty years younger) yelling in very similar fashions about other racing games that furnished the rumpus room.

"Yes!" Brian put down his controller, and turned to Rose with a boyish smile on his face. "I beat you! I beat you! I beat you!" She got the feeling that he would have completed his performance with a little dance, had it not been for the IV bag he was carting around.

A nurse sitting in the corner of the room gave him a look, then turned back to her romance novel. Rose smiled a little. She'd bet that the woman thought Brian must be from the phsyciatric ward of the hospital. "Play again?" Brian asked eagerly, bur Rose shook her head.

"God, no. You boys and your race cars. It's really a pathetic sight, if you want to know the truth."

Brian put on his defiant face. "I didn't."

"Didn't- what?" Rose asked, confused.

"What to know the truth." He crossed his arms over his chest, and stuck out his lower lip. "You hurted Bwian's feewlings."

Despite herself, Rose laughed. This was so unbelievable. She, Rose, outcasted cancer patient, was actaully having a normal conversation. Sure, it was more normal for a love sick high-school couple than it was for two medicated hospital patients, but it was normal, none the less. A week ago, she would have thought this impossable. If she ever thought about it. Which she probably wouldn't have. Rose's pre-Brian days were mostly filled with sleeping, thoughts of death, and the mind therepy that her counciller recomended, in which Rose spent an hour at a time imagining her cancer away. But now . . . well, things were different.

Rose shook her head. How sad was this? She'd only known the guy for three days, one of which he'd slept through, and already she was catagorizing her life in pre-Brian and Brian days. What was she turning into here? A mindless teenager? A smile crossed her face. Actaully, she wouldn't have minded being considered a mindless teen for a little while. After all, she was only eighteen. That's what she was supposed to be. Right?

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" Brian asked, apparently still in his young character.

Rose blushed. "None of your buisness."

Brian pouted for a second, then realized that it didn't have any effect on her, and became grown-up Brian again. "So what should we do now?"

Rose shrugged. "I dunno." As she spoke a group of about twenty bald little kids all waving lollypops and shouting to each other entered the room. "Let's go somewhere else to do it, though."

Brian looked disappointed for a minute, but agreed once Rose assured him that they'd come back. "Okay, fine." He muttered, glancing back at his beloved video games before he allowed Rose to pull him out into the hallway.

"Let's go back to my room." She suggested as the walked back down the hall. "Do you play cards?"

Brian nodded. He played once in a while, usually when Nick's younger brother and sisters were on tour with them. But he'd play with Rose. It seemed like a hospital activity anyway. And a nice, pleasant, relaxing one at that.

Rose led him back to her room, and then grabbed a deck of cards from the drawer in her bedside table. She pushed her notebook under her bed before she sat down. Brian sat on the other end of the bed from her, and she started dealing. "Do you know Egyptian Rat Trap?" She asked. Brian nodded, and they started laying out the first trick.

"I was sort of surprised at the way your room looked." Brian said, once the game had really started.

Rose looked up, stopping the fast pace they had going. "Why?" She asked.

"I don't know. No pictures or anything. I woulf have thought you'd been here long enough to hang something up or something." He said.

Rose started playing again. "I guess. But it's not like it's really that important. It's just a room. My room at home wasn't very decorated, either. I never really cared what my walls looked like, I guess."

Brian thought about that. He guessed she didn't really seem like the kind of person to hang pcitures of movie stars and puppy dogs on her wall, after all. Actually, she seemed more the type to sit in a white walled room and study. A lot. She was pretty, but somehow he couldn't imagine her ever being the partying type. "You were good in school, weren't you?"

Rose blushed. "I guess. I don't know."

"Aw, yes you do." Brian argued. "I bet you were top of your class."

Rose blushed and didn't answer, but she didn't really need to. That pretty much proved his point. Brian smiled at her bent head. Was there anything about this girl that wasn't perfect? Well, despite the deadly disease. But that could be over looked.