Page 92 of While I’m Still Here

Actual death.

The possibility that there might be a version of this where surgery isn't enough. Where treatment isn't enough. Where everybody does everything right, and my body still betrays me. I stagger backwards until the backs of my legs hit the mattress, then sit because I can't seem to work out what else people do with bodies when they become too heavy to carry.

“I don't want to die.”

It comes out tiny.

“I don't want to die.”

My hands are still cupped around my breasts. I hadn't even realised.

“I don't want to die, but I don't want to do this either.”

And that is the cruelty of it.

Everyone keeps talking about choices.

Surgical choices. Treatment choices. Reconstruction choices. Decisions and options and plans. But there is no option on any of the paperwork that says , actually, I'd like my old life back, please.

I'm choosing between things I never wanted. A laugh breaks through the crying, sharp and ugly and completely humourless. “What kind of fucking choice is that?”

My phone is on the bed beside me.

I look at it.

Colin.

His name isn't even on the screen. I'm just thinking it because he is the person I've called for almost everything for twenty-two years.

My hand reaches towards the phone.

Stops.

If I call Colin, he'll come back. He won't complain, and he'll probably already have his shoes on before I've finished saying his name, and then he'll see me like this. He'll see me holding my breasts and crying because I don't want them cut off, and I'll see his face, and then I'll remember that he's frightened too.

I'll start looking after him.

I know I will.

I'll tell him I'm okay because he'll look devastated. I'll make a joke because he'll cry. I'll put my clothes back on because I won't want him seeing me naked while I'm mourning a body he's loved for years.

My hand falls away from the phone, and somehow that makes everything worse.

Because I want Colin.

I want him so badly that my entire body aches with it, but right now I don't want to be loved by someone who is losing something too.

I need somebody who already lost it.

Marcus.

I stare at my phone.

No.

Absolutely not.

I've known the man for approximately five minutes. Eight days. Whatever. Certainly not long enough to ring him half naked from my bedroom floor because I've started having a nervous breakdown over my tits.