Page 56 of While I’m Still Here

Marcus is quiet for a few seconds, and I expect one of his short answers. Instead, he looks across the room at the women settling back into their chairs. “When I was diagnosed, I didn't know another man who'd had breast cancer. I didn't know anyone who knew a man who'd had it. Everything I was given showed women, every support space I found was mostly women, and every time I told someone what I had, I had to watch them have the exact same reaction you just did.”

I wince. “Sorry.”

“I'm not criticising you. You didn't know. Most people don't.” He takes another drink before continuing, his tone matter-of-fact rather than bitter. “I came here once during treatment. Sat exactly where you're sitting now and hated every second of it. I didn't come back for months.”

I look at him. “What changed?”

“A man walked in.” He takes a sip of his coffee before continuing. “He was sixty-three. Newly diagnosed. His wife came with him, but she went to get tea, and he sat down next to me. I wasn't even supposed to be here that week. One of the nurses had talked me into trying again.” Marcus looks down into his coffee. “He asked if I'd had breast cancer too. I said yes, and he looked relieved.”

“Relieved?”

“He'd never met another man with it.”

Oh.

“He asked me questions for nearly an hour. Surgery. Scarring. Treatment. What to tell people. Whether everyone would look at him strangely when he said he had breast cancer.” Marcus pauses. “A lot of the questions weren't actually about cancer. They were about whether what he was feeling was normal.”

“What happened to him?”

“He finished treatment. Doesn't come anymore.”

“But you do.”

“Yes.”

I frown. “Even though you hate it?”

“I don't hate the people.”

“The pink?”

“Deeply.”

I smile. Marcus does too, barely. “I come because there was nobody here for me.” The sentence is so simple I almost miss how much pain is in his voice. Marcus glances around the room again. “I hope another man never walks through that door because he's been diagnosed with breast cancer. Statistically, though, eventually one will. And when he does, I don't want him to walk into a room full of women, look around and wonder whether he's somehow got the wrong cancer.”

My throat tightens. “So you sit here every week just in case?”

“Most weeks.”

“That's...” I stop.

Kind… Lovely… Possibly one of the most quietly decent things I've ever heard. Marcus seems to sense where I'm heading because his expression immediately becomes wary. “Don't.”

“What?”

“Make it noble.”

“I wasn't.”

“You were about to.”

“I was going to say weird.”

“Good.”

“Very weird.”

“Thank you.”