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“I think you should speak to Gus again about Vita-12b,” Lydia said in a low voice. When he started to shake his head, she cut in, “If you can smoke, you can be more open-minded about it.”
Her eyes, those beautiful whiskey-colored eyes, stared across at him so intensely, he felt like she’d taken his shoulders in strong grips and was shaking him.
“It’s our last option, Daniel.”
“No, it isn’t.” He made an attempt at sitting up again, but his torso, wasted though it was, somehow weighed seven thousand pounds. “The last option is to let go.”
She gasped a little, and tried to hide the inhale with the back of her hand. When she recovered, she whispered, “Don’t say that.”
“The truth is what it is.” He eased even farther back into the cubbyhole he’d fallen into. The position twisted his spine and torqued his hips, but relieving the discomfort wasn’t worth the effort it would take to straighten himself out. “Whether we talk about it or not, I’m dying, and we need to face that.”
“But you could just try Vita—”
“You remember how much fun we had last night?” He glanced out the open doorway of the walk-in to the bed that had been made—no doubt by her, even though C.P. Phalen had all kinds of staff. “God, it was so fucking romantic, you holding me over a toilet as I threw up bile. Really great. Was it good for you? I know I saw tears in your eyes, and yeah, sure, they were from joy. On my end, I was tempted to quit in the middle, I really was, but I persevered for your pleasure because that’s the kind of man I am—”
“Daniel.”
He closed his eyes and cursed. “You know, I remember when you used to say my name in different ways. Now, it’s just that one way.”
“Will youpleasejust talk to Gus one last time?”
Daniel looked down his body. He was wearing an old pair of his cargo pants, not that he neededall those pockets for anything. The waistband was very loose, a requirement given how much his stomach bothered him—and something his weight loss conveniently provided—and beneath the cinch of his belt around the bones of his hips, his thighs and calves no longer filled out anything of the legs. It was like he was wearing someone else’s bottoms, and really, wasn’t that the truth?
“You know—” He coughed a little, and then stayed quiet for a couple of seconds afterward just in case the spasms bloomed into another round of respiratory Pilates. “I can’t remember the last time I had a meal that didn’t taste like metal. Or slept through the night. Or wasn’t consciously aware of my body’s every twitch and jerk.”
“I know it’s been hard—”
“I’ve been stuck with needles, cut open, and stitched up. Filled with dyes and put in machines. Stared at and prodded by strangers. I’ve been wired thanks to steroids before the chemo and up for days, and then so tired that blinking was like sprinting a marathon. I’ve had more antibiotics than a Walgreens stocks during flu season and I’ve worshipped toilet bowls like it’s a new religion.” He lifted one of his hands and let it speak for itself when it came to the shaking. “You want to know why I smoke out in the woods? It’s like wandering through a museum of my old life, and I like the exhibits even if I no longer own the paintings. I’mjust trying to reconnect with myself before I fucking die.”
Lydia seemed to collapse into herself. But then she rallied with a refrain that made him want to scream: “C.P. Phalen said it might cure you.”
“She’s not a doctor.” He tried to mediate the harshness in his voice. “Gus, who is one, tells me they don’t know what it’s going to do to me.”
“You could just try it—”
“Lydia,” he cut in. “You havenoidea what this has been like. I don’t doubt being on the sidelines sucks, but you haven’t lost your faculties—”
“Oh, no, you’re right. I’m just losing the man I love by inches. It’s a goddamn cakewalk for me.”
He looked away. Looked back. “How much time did Gus give me? Six months? Nine?”
When she didn’t meet his eyes, he swallowed a sickening feeling. “Less?” he choked out. “How much? Jesus Christ, Lydia, of all the things to keep from me—”
“A month. Two, tops.”
Daniel closed his eyes again. He’d had a feeling they’d get to this point eventually, their roads going left and right, hers toward more intervention, his solidly tono mas.
“I’m done with the treatments,” he said. “I’ve rolled plenty of dice and only managed to waste what good quality of life I might have had.” He pointed to himself—and pointed out what seemed like theironly thing in common. “On my end, I’m losing the woman I love by inches, and I just want a chance to reconnect withyou. Vita-12b is a novel agent, unproven outside of lab slides and computer models, and I am not willing to squander what little well-being I have on a hypothetical. I’m just not going to do it—and this choice feels like the only thing I have control over.”
There was a long silence. Then she exhaled and all-four’d her way over to him. When she took hold of him and eased him into her lap, he mostly kept the groaning to himself, and as he stretched out on the black carpeting, he did what he could to get comfortable, dragging his arms and legs into a position that ached less.
This was just so absurd, he thought. There was a bed probably fifteen feet away. But that was too far for him.
His eyes watered, but he refused to let things devolve further with the misty shit. “I would do anything to change this. For you. For us. Anything.”
“Then talk to Gus,” she said hoarsely. “One last time. If you get weaker, you may not even be a candidate anymore and then there’s no going back. Please—and afterward, I promise, I’ll never bring it up again.”
As a wave of exhaustion crashed into the shores of what little energy he had, Daniel kept the cursingto himself—but then looked over at her blue suitcase.
