Page 94 of While I’m Still Here

Marcus doesn't ask whether I'm okay.

Thank God.

He doesn't say calm down. He doesn't tell me to breathe. He doesn't tell me everything is going to be fine. He just says my name. “Bea.”

I fold forward again, phone pressed against my ear, and the sob that comes out of me is so violent I have to brace my free hand against the carpet. “I don't want to do it.”

“I know.”

“I don't.” The words tumble out between breaths now that somebody is listening. “I know why I'm doing it. I know. I know all of it. They explained everything, and I said yes, and I know I need the surgery, but I don't want it, Marcus. I don't want to wake up without them. I don't want to look different. I don't want scars. I don't want fucking drains. I don't want people telling me I'm brave. I don't want any of this.”

Marcus stays quiet while I empty myself into the phone. “I want my body back.” My voice breaks completely. “The one from before.”

Silence answers at the other end, but it’s not empty. Marcus is there. I can hear the faint sound of him breathing. Finally, he says, “Of course you do.”

I cover my face with my hand. “I feel ungrateful.”

“For what?”

“For getting treatment. For having options. For being able to have surgery. There are people who would probably give anything to be told they can just cut it out, and I'm sitting here crying because I don't want them to.”

“You can be grateful treatment exists and still hate needing it.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “You can want to live,” Marcus continues, his voice quiet and steady through the phone, “and still grieve what staying alive is asking from you. Those things don't cancel each other out.”

I cry harder.

Not because he's made it worse, but because he hasn't tried to make it better. For weeks, everyone has been desperately trying to find the sentence that will make cancer hurt less. Marcus is the first person who seems to understand that maybe tonight it just fucking hurts.

“I told my breast I was sorry,” I whisper eventually.

There is the smallest pause. Then, very seriously, Marcus says, “I've had stranger conversations with body parts.”

A wet laugh escapes me. It hurts, but it also feels good.

“I apologised to both of them.”

“Reasonable.”

“That's not reasonable.”

“You have cancer. I think the threshold for reasonable behaviour has moved.”

I wipe my face with the heel of my hand. “I think I'm having a breakdown.”

“Yes.”

I blink. “You're supposed to disagree.”

“You're sitting on your bedroom floor crying to a man you've known for less than a month about apologising to your breasts. I'm not going to insult either of us by pretending this is your best evening.”

Another laugh escapes, and for the first time since I looked in the mirror, I manage to take a full breath. My breasts are still here. The surgery is still twelve days away. I'm still terrified, and nothing has been fixed, but Marcus stays on the phone.

For a while, neither of us says anything. I remain folded against the side of my bed in nothing but my knickers, my bra somewhere on the carpet where I threw it before apparently deciding to have the worst evening of my life, and Marcus simply lets the silence exist without trying to fill it. My breathing gradually stops catching in my throat. The tears don't stop completely, but they slow enough that I can wipe my face with the sleeve of the cardigan I eventually drag from the bed and pull around myself, covering my chest without fastening it.

The mirror is still there… I don't look at it.

Instead, I pull myself onto the bed, drag the duvet around my legs and tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder while I reach for the tissues on the bedside table. “Can I ask you something?”

“You've already apologised to your breasts while on the phone with a man you've known for eight days. I think we've moved beyond formalities.”