The night was — as assumed — peaceful and quiet. Dawn slept well through the night and didn't wake me up, so I assumed nothing was bad.
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes in the morning was her sleeping face, looking so peaceful that I placed a finger underneath her nose. She was — of course — breathing just fine and alive, just like expected.
She woke up quickly and smiled, her eyes in the shape of a crescent. Meeting eyes with me, she asked, "Did you sleep well?"
I smiled and nodded, enveloping her in a warm hug. Her face squashed, she said, "I can't see your answer if you hug me at the same time."
I laughed at that and said, "I slept well since you did."
"Yeah, I can tell," Dawn said and I could feel her smiling on my chest. It was probably obvious because it had been a while since I had laughed out loud. Come to think of it, I don't think I have laughed since I found out about Dawn's cancer. If I stretch it out a bit, it could have been said that I wasn't laughing as much as I used to since Dawn stopped coming to school.
"I don't think I've ever heard you laugh since I've seen you here. Is that just me?" Of course, Dawn noticed: she noticed it as quickly as I had noticed it was the same with her.
"Isn't that the same case for you as well? I haven't seen you laugh since the last time I saw you at school." I questioned her as well and Dawn seemed to be at a loss of words. "And I've never seen you so panicked like before."
"For your information, I do laugh when I talk with Catherine. Don't think I never do just because you haven't seen me. Also, that panicking…" Dawn trailed off, probably in the search for a good reason.
"Dawn…" I softly spoke to her, "You can tell me you were scared. The reason doesn't matter, really, so just let me help you. I don't want to see you suffer this much."
Dawn let out a long breath and began talking. "I didn't tell anyone, but I… remember what I felt that day. I know the painkillers work and I won't be feeling that much pain again, but the memory of it is just making me scared."
Dawn wrapped her arms around her legs, and I'd never seen her this scared about anything. She was always as cool as a cucumber even when everyone else was falling in pieces.
The example I always give when people don't, believe me, was the incident with our first-ever final scores in high school. Everyone was in a panic mood, mainly because their scores were not the scores they had expected: the school had made an error with putting in the scores, so no one's scores were correct. Everyone was in a panicking mood, and so were the teachers. For about two weeks straight, we couldn't take any classes because the teachers were so busy fixing the issue and finding out who was behind all of it.
Apparently, it was because the 2nd-place kid from the midterm was so jealous of the 1st-place kid that to flip their scores, they flipped everyone else's to avoid suspicion. This has been conducted together with other parents who don't like him/her. In the end, the 2nd-place kid was kicked out and the other kids got detention for about two weeks.
There were a lot of rumours about who the first-place kid was, and Dawn was on the list as well. It also ended up truly being her, which surprised everyone, since she didn't even care much and just did her things like this was normal.
I slipped into her bed and back-hugged her, letting her feel my warmth in an attempt to comfort her. I tried to think of a way to help her, but psychiatry wasn't my strongest suit, not that I even learnt it. I was trying to make my mind up about a possible solution, but it just didn't seem to work.
Then Catherine randomly entered with Dr Jones, holding a syringe with a fake tip that would be obvious even to Dawn.
However, I could feel her tensing up just at the sight of it so far away from her. I faced Dr Jones and said, "I don't think exposure therapy is the answer for her, Dr Jones."
"Who said I'm doing that? These are just some nutrition meds. Dawn, your nutrition level is poor, and I've heard you haven't been eating much. So we need this in our body so that things wouldn't get over-complicate shortly. Please excuse us for shoving this in your face, but we have to do it for your own sake."
Dr Jones looked shocked at the "exposure therapy" coming out of my mouth. I guess she hadn't considered that Dawn was in the state that I was considering this.
It seems like she had somehow read my eyes saying "Help me, give me some psychiatrist's number" and she sent me a message with the number and name of her close friend and psychiatrist at this hospital — Dr Shaun Smith — as soon as she left.
The injection was a struggle, just like the two before, which further stressed the need for treatments to solve this issue. Dawn would be getting many shots in the future, and her this stressed-out every time would help no one.
So when Dawn got her dinner, I decided to give a call to Dr Smith to find a good solution.