Page 100 of While I’m Still Here

Not going to keep asking if you're okay.

I'm here when you want me.

My throat tightens.

For a moment, instinct takes over. I want to give him the manageable version. I'm okay. Feeling better. Sorry about earlier. Love you. Something neat enough that he can go to sleep without lying awake imagining me crying alone.

Instead, I type:

BEA

I love you too.

I stare at the screen.

Then, before I can tidy myself into something easier to love:

BEA

I'm fucking terrified.

His reply comes almost immediately.

COLIN

I know.

Me too.

Normally, this is the point where I would rush in and rescue him from his own fear. I'd tell him not to worry, promise I'm going to be fine despite having absolutely no authority to make that promise, then make some joke about the money I'll save on bras once I no longer require cup sizes.

Tonight I don't.

I let Colin be frightened because he is frightened, and I let myself be frightened because I am too. Nothing terrible happens because we admit it at the same time.

Eventually, I put the phone aside and reach for the notebook on my bedside table. My hand automatically finds the pen tucked into its spine, but when I open to a blank page, I don't make another list. I don't count the days until surgery or the number of breasts currently attached to me. I don't calculate the frankly offensive amount of money I've spent putting them into expensive bras only to discover neither will be accompanying me much further into my thirties.

I just write:

I don't want to lose my breasts.

The sentence sits there in my handwriting, horribly simple.

My eyes fill again, but I leave it alone.

Underneath, I add:

Even the one that tried to kill me.

Then I look down at myself, at the cardigan still hanging open enough for me to see the curve of both breasts, and think about everything I said to Marcus tonight. So I write one more sentence.

I still want to live.

For once, there is no joke waiting underneath it.

I don't need one.

I don't cross out the first sentence because the third one exists, and I don't try to decide which feeling is more sensible or more deserving of space on the page. I can desperately want to keep my breasts and desperately want the life that requires me to lose them.