John came out of the bathroom wearing a pair of blue basketball shorts with a towel draped around his shoulders. Wearing shorts immediately after a shower was a new habit because Skylar had taken up part time residence in his bedroom.
"Hey." Skylar looked up from his laptop.
"Hey." John used the towel to dry his hair as he walked over to Skylar. “What are you looking up now?”
"It started with freckles which led to moles, and skin cancer." John cringed, but Skylar continued, waving their hands around as their speech became faster and louder. "And then I started clicking on links to other cancers, but I only read through a few before I decided not to read through hundreds of entries." Skylar paused for a couple breaths while John leaned forward to try to read what page they were actually on. "But I saw some common symptoms and started looking those up, and-" Skylar gasped and poked a spot on John's arm. "Is that a pimple or a cyst?"
John pulled back and rubbed the spot where Skylar had poked. As his finger moved around, feeling a small bump, he pulled his arm in front of him, twisting it to take a look. There was a bit of raised skin, slightly pink. Placing his pointer finger and thumb around it, he squeezed.
When John felt the pressure release some white stuff oozed over his fingers. “Pimple I think.” He wiped the pad of his thumb across the small hole, then across the towel before squeezing a bit more of the opaque goop out from under his skin.
“Good.” Skylar placed a hand over their chest. “Because while most cysts are benign they are a pretty common symptom across cancers. Skin cancer certainly doesn’t sound fun, well, no cancer sounds fun, and you’re so young it would be a shame to be diagnosed now, well it’s a shame whenever anyone gets diagnosed, and how would you feel loosing all your hair-”
“Skylar.” John snapped his fingers and Skylar took a big breath. “You should really lay off the WebMD searches.”
“Then how am I supposed to know if my body is doing what it is supposed to?”
“You’ve been a healthy human for nearly two weeks, just remember how it feels now, and if something doesn’t feel right later, then ask Emily or me to clarify.”
Skylar drummed their fingers on the bottom edge of the keyboard. “All right. I’ll keep my internet searches about food from now on.” They pointed to the spot on John’s arm again. “You should cover it up to prevent infection.” John cocked an eyebrow. “Er, too much?” He nodded. “Right, I’ll try not to sound like an a doctor or an encyclopedia.”
Word count: 459
