When I finally got my laughter under control, I had automatically reached for my phone to text Paul. My thumb hovered over his contact as my mind caught up to my body.
Because that's what I used to send him—snapped photos of paragraphs that made me laugh, or little notes about charactersthat reminded me of him.
Then I remembered that he's gone.
The memories are cruel and unyielding. I remember the way he told me he's been sleeping with his beautiful coworker since my biopsy.
The way he said Elise waseasyandthere—that's why he had sex with her.
He confided in her about my cancer, and she helped himbreathe.
As if I were the one suffocating him.
The implication in his words was clear as day.
Elise is beautiful, easy, and comforting.
I'm difficult, sick, and inconvenient.
And the worst part—the part that knocks the air out of my lungs if I think about it too hard—is that I have to get my breasts cut off because they're literally killing me, and that's aproblemfor him.
Apparently, over the last six years, he didn't actually fall for me—the person with thoughts and hopes and feelings—just the package. The soft curves and the comforting routine I could provide for him.
But Sophie, the person? She's not enough without her tits and health.
"I love you,"he told me as he was grinding my heart into the ground. It felt like mocking, like cruelty. And for the first time since he told me he loved me all those years ago, I didn't believe him.
Because how do you treat someone youlovelike that?
Paul could tell me anything—he has told me everything—that embarrassing story from college when he got locked outside his frat house in just a towel and the sorority across the street got a nice look at his pale ass, his past relationships and the cause of their collapse, his fears of not measuring up to his dad'sexpectations even though all I've ever seen from his parents is just a hope for him to be happy.
I listened, and I gave him reassurance. I reminded him he didn't have to prove anything to be worthy of my love. I comforted him, kissed him, and told him I loved him.
Because I did.
Still do, I guess.
My love for him hasn't just disappeared in the aftermath of his betrayal—unfortunately—but the love I have for him feels different now. It’s curdled like milk that you don’t realize has gone sour until you take a sip.
The betrayal of him having sex with Elise cuts me like knives, but the emotional aspect of it hurts just as bad. He confided in her about his feelings. He felt comfortable enough with hiscoworkerto tell her things he couldn't tell me. He trusted her in ways that he didn't trust me.
Why?What was it about her that made it so easy to talk, to share, to feel? Why is she his safe place?
What did she give him that I didn't?
Well, he told me—sex.
Our sex life before the diagnosis was great—frequent, passionate, and adventurous. But, I'll admit, I haven't really felt up to having sex for the last couple of months while living in a near-constant state of anxiety.
My days have been filled with waiting rooms, intake forms, and examination tables. My body has been poked, pricked, scanned, and talked about like a science project.
Then finally, the words came—breast cancer—and everything in me shattered.
And, I still tried.
I apologized to Paul for the lack of sex and, to my great embarrassment now, offered totake careof him—my mouth or hands, whatever he wanted.
He would refuse and kiss me sweetly and tell me not to worry about it.
