Page 95 of While I’m Still Here

A wet laugh escapes me as I blow my nose. “That's going to haunt me, isn't it?”

“I hadn't planned on mentioning it again.”

“You absolutely were.”

There is a quiet sound down the phone that I've started recognising as Marcus trying not to laugh, and something about hearing it steadies me. Maybe because it makes this feel less like an emergency call and more like a conversation.

“Tell me what it was actually like when you woke up.”

The humour disappears. Marcus doesn't answer immediately, and this time I don't rush to fill the silence. I can hear him breathe on the other end of the phone, followed by the faint movement of fabric, as though he's shifting wherever he's sitting. “Do you want the version they tell you before surgery or mine?”

“Yours.”

“All right.”

I pull my knees closer beneath the duvet and wait.

“When I woke up properly, I was confused first. The anaesthetic took a while to clear, so I knew something important had happened before I could properly remember what it was. Then I remembered.”

My stomach tightens. “Did it hurt?”

“Yes, but not in the way you're probably imagining right now. They were managing the pain. I was sore and uncomfortable, everything felt tight, and I was much more exhausted than I expected. There were dressings across my chest, and I had the drain, which I became aware of fairly quickly.”

“Nigel.”

There's the tiniest pause. “Yes. Nigel.”

Despite the dried tears tightening my face, I smile. “Poor Nigel.”

Marcus makes that quiet almost-laugh again, but it disappears when I don't say anything else right away. My hand has drifted beneath the open cardigan without me noticing, settling over my left breast. It has been doing that constantly lately. Checking the lump. Checking the breast. Checking that both are still there, as though I might somehow wake up twelve days early and discover surgery has happened without me.

“Could you tell?” I ask eventually.

“That the breast was gone?”

I swallow. “Yes.”

“When I was properly awake, yes. Even with the dressings.”

My fingers spread over myself. “How?”

“I could feel the difference.”

That's all he needs to say.

I look down at my hand and try to imagine what difference means when it isn't something you can temporarily cover with your palm. Marcus woke up with one side of his body changed. I'm going to wake up with both changed at once, and suddenly every photograph I've looked at and every conversation I've had about surgery feels hopelessly two-dimensional compared with the simple reality of opening my eyes inside a body that will not feel the way it did when I went to sleep. “I'm going to have twice that.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

“I know.”

Something hot rises in me before I can stop it. “You don't, though.”

Silence. Regret follows almost immediately. “Marcus, I didn't mean...”

“No.” His voice remains completely calm. “You're right.”