Page 17 of While I’m Still Here

“I’m not.”

“You might think you’re not.”

“Bea,” I snap. “I have been in love with you for seven years.” Her eyes flick away from mine. “I loved you yesterday, when neither of us knew you had cancer. I loved you last Christmas, when you got drunk and sobbed into my shoulder because the dog died in that fucking film you just insisted we had to watch. I loved you when you dated fucking Nathan of all people, despite him having all the personality of a damp tea towel. I loved you through the fringe.”

Her head snaps around. “You leave the fringe out of this.”

“The fringe was a difficult time for everyone.” Despite everything, I smile.

She doesn’t.

The little flash of humour disappears so quickly it gives me whiplash, and she pulls her knees closer to her chest. “I don’t want to be someone’s tragedy, Colin,” she whispers.

I don’t even have to think about my answer. “You will be.”

Her face looks stricken. “What?”

“You’ll be someone’s tragedy.”

“Jesus Christ,” she gives a startled little laugh. “Excellent pep talk. Really uplifting, thank you. I’m beginning to understand why you don’t work for the Samaritans.”

I reach over and take her wineglass from her before she can try to hide behind it, setting it beside mine. “You’re already someone’s tragedy, Bea.” Her forehead creases. “Mine.”

She goes very still.

“If something happens to you, it will destroy me. Cancer doesn’t get to decide that, and you don’t get to decide it either. That’s what happens when people love you.”

Her eyes shine.

Fuck. I didn’t mean to make her cry. Actually, that’s a lie. I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to consider what any of this would do. “You can’t love people and somehow protect them from losing you at the same time,” I say to her. “That’s not how life works.”

“I—” she clears her throat. “I don’t want someone looking at me and seeing cancer.”

“I don’t.”

“You came running over the second I told you.”

“I’ve come running over here because you had a spider in the bath. I’d come for a bad hair day⁠—”

“That spider was the size of my hand,” she interrupts me.

“A five-pence piece, if that. I’m here because you’re Bea. You being sick doesn’t suddenly erase the other thirty years.”

Her mouth trembles. “I don’t want everyone treating me differently.”

“Then tell them not to, and if they do. Hit them.”

She laughs wetly. “With what?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “One of the tits while you’ve still got them?”

Her mouth drops open, and for a second, I think I’ve fucked it. Then she makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. “Colin!”

“What?”

“You can’t say that!”

“You called one of them a murderous bastard less than an hour ago.”