Page 156 of While I’m Still Here

Marcus's.

I still fucking hate being bald, but when I lift my head, there are three bald men around me, and one of them once promised himself he would never look like this again—He chose to anyway.

Eventually, I pull away from Marcus and look at the four of us properly.

There is hair everywhere. Mine mixed with Colin's, Danny's and Marcus's until I couldn't separate one from another if I tried, and the three men standing in front of me look so spectacularly strange without theirs that a laugh escapes before I can stop it. “You all look fucking awful.”

Danny puts a hand to his chest. “After what I've just sacrificed for you?”

“You look like a penis.”

“I looked like a penis ten minutes ago. We've established this.”

Colin runs a hand over his head and immediately seems to regret discovering its shape, while Marcus is still touching his own much more cautiously. My eyes linger on him. I don't think the enormity of what he's just done has fully left either of us yet. He once watched his hair disappear because of chemotherapy and spent months waiting for it to come back. He never thought he'd deliberately make himself bald again and now he is.

Because of me.

Before I can start crying for what feels like the nine-hundredth time today, Danny pulls his phone from his pocket. “We need a picture.”

“No.”

“Yes.” He grins.

“Absolutely fucking not.”

Danny ignores me. “We have to document this.”

“I look like an egg.”

“You're among eggs. It's a group shot.”

Colin is already reaching for his own phone. Traitor. Marcus, meanwhile, takes one step backwards. I point at him. “Don't you dare.”

“I don't like photographs.”

“Neither do I right now.”

That stops him, and for a second Marcus looks as though he might still refuse, but then he looks at me and comes back. Of course he does. We squeeze together in front of the kitchen counter while Colin holds his phone out. Danny presses himself against one side of me, Marcus stands on the other, and Colin leans in until all four of us fit on the screen.

I look at us. Four bald heads. Colin looks ridiculous. Danny looks far too pleased with himself. Marcus looks like someone has kidnapped him and demanded photographic proof of life. And me? My stomach drops.

I don't recognise her.

The woman on the screen has swollen eyes and a blotchy face. There are no breasts beneath her T-shirt and no hair framing her face. Nothing softens the shape of her head or gives me somewhere familiar to look.

For one awful second, I want Colin to put the phone away then Danny turns and kisses one side of my bare head. Before I can react, Colin kisses the other. I laugh, startled, and look towards Marcus. He hesitates for half a second. Then the man who never thought he would be bald again bends and presses his lips gently against the top of my newly shaved head.

Something inside me gives way.

I close my eyes and laugh, and Colin takes the picture.

Later, when I look through them, several show me staring uncertainly at the camera. One where Danny's eyes are closed. Another where Marcus looks deeply offended by the entire concept of photography.

But that one?

That's the one I keep.

My eyes are squeezed shut. My mouth is open with laughter. Danny is kissing one side of my head, Colin the other, and Marcus is bent over me, his lips against the top.