Page 111 of While I’m Still Here

None of them were supposed to become important… Cancer made them important. Eventually the pile beside us disappears, and the fire settles into a steady crackle. Bea stands between Colin and Danny, watching lace and elastic curl into blackened shapes while the wind carries smoke above the garden.

For a while, nobody says anything, then Bea goes very still. “Oh.”

I've known her for a relatively short amount of time, but I've already learned to distrust that particular tone. Colin looks at her. “What?”

“There's one more.”

He glances towards the empty laundry basket. “No, there isn't. I counted forty-three.”

“Forty-four.”

“Where?”

Bea looks at him, then down at herself. I understand approximately one second before Colin does. Danny understands immediately. His eyebrows rise. “Bea.”

“What?” she asks, with an innocence nobody believes.

Colin closes his eyes. “No.”

“Yes.”

“You don't have to burn the one you're wearing.”

“I know.”

Something changes in her expression when she says it. The joke is still there, but underneath it is the same thing I saw in the department store when she held that black lace strap and admitted she couldn't bear the thought of opening her wardrobe after surgery.

She looks down at herself. “This is the last one.”

It isn't technically the last bra she'll ever own. There may be post-surgical garments, things she chooses later, clothes for a body she hasn't met yet. But that isn't what she means.

This is the last bra this body will ever own. The one with two breasts… The one she recognises. Bea takes a breath and reaches for the bottom of her jumper. Colin's voice softens immediately. “You don't have to.”

“I know.”

“You can take it off inside.”

“I know that too.”

But she doesn't move towards the house. Instead, she pulls the jumper over her head. I stop functioning for a moment. Not because I've never seen a woman in a bra before, and certainly not because I don't want to look at Bea. After kissing her earlier today, pretending there is no physical attraction between us would require a level of dishonesty even I'm incapable of.

But this feels different.

She's standing in front of three men in jeans and a plain black lace bra, and there is nothing seductive about the way she looks down at her own chest.

These are the breasts she has six days left with.

The left contains the tumour.

The right doesn't.

Both will be gone.

Her confidence falters. Only slightly, but all three of us notice. Colin moves first, taking half a step towards her without touching. “You can change your mind.”

“I know.”

Danny's usual grin has disappeared too. His eyes stay firmly on her face. Bea looks at each of us in turn. “I want to do it.”