Page 54 of While I’m Still Here

Janet nods approvingly. “That's the spirit.”

I decide I like her.

The session begins before I can reconsider my escape plan. The woman leading it explains that nobody has to speak if they don't want to, that everything said here stays here and that people attending are at very different stages. Some are newly diagnosed. Some are undergoing treatment. Others finished treatment months or years ago but continue to come because, apparently, cancer doesn't politely vacate your brain once someone tells you there is no evidence of disease.

That particular revelation can fuck off, because I plan to forget all about my cancer the moment I’m told I’m all clear, or that I’m dying and it’s terminal, because then I’ll be living in fuck it mode, run away abroad, fuck my way through a whole country and die happily blissed out from all the cock I got.

I listen as people introduce themselves. Janet is halfway through chemotherapy. A younger woman called Ellie had surgery six weeks ago. Another woman is waiting for reconstruction. Then it reaches the man by the window.

“Marcus?”

He looks up from his mug. “Marcus Bennett.”

The woman smiles at him. “Two years now?”

He nods his head in agreement. “Two years and three months.”

I glance around, waiting for someone to explain who he's here with. Nobody does and the conversation simply moves on. Perhaps his wife died. The thought makes me feel immediately terrible for spending the last ten minutes judging his jumper. During the break, I head directly for the tea table because standing beside a kettle gives me something to do with my hands. I'm stirring milk into my tea when the man from the window steps beside me and reaches for the coffee.

I look at him. He looks at the coffee. I look behind him. No woman appears to be following.

Curiosity has always been one of my more dangerous personality traits. “Are you here with your wife?”

His hand stops halfway towards the coffee jar. He turns his head. Up close, he's even more annoyingly attractive, although his expression suggests I have just asked him to explain compound interest.

“No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Sister?”

“No.”

I frown. “Mum?”

His eyebrow rises. “No.”

This is becoming awkward. I should stop. Instead, I gesture vaguely towards the room. “Sorry. I just assumed you were here with someone.”

“Why?”

Because you have a penis seems unnecessarily confrontational. I settle for, “Because you're a man.”

“Yes. I've noticed, thank you.”

Fuck me. “Right. Obviously. I just meant...” I glance around at the room full of women. “You're the only one.”

“I usually am.”

“Then why are you here?” I ask, tilting my head.

Marcus spoons coffee into his mug before answering. “I had breast cancer.”

My brain simply refuses the sentence. Not because I think he's lying. Because somewhere in thirty years of accumulating mostly useless information, nobody has ever bothered to tell me this was possible.

I stare at him. “You had breast cancer?”