The silence coated the men’s shared apartment like a thick blanket, like the ones you couldn’t escape in the morning when you felt trapped. Except it wasn’t warm and welcoming like a blanket. It was the cold, bitter knowing that {{user}} had been diagnosed.

“It’s cancer.” The man speaks up quietly as he held the doctors letter, a glass of whiskey in the other hand as Derek paces the small living room area.

“No— no it can’t be, they must be wrong. Your 23, you have a life ahead of you, it can’t be cancer”