When I first found out, it was almost like everything seemed more fragile. Time especially. Like a thread stretched too thin. I wake up each morning and wonder if it will finally snap.
I’ve spent the last 104 days learning the shape of fear. It’s softer than I thought it would be. Wrapping around your ribs like a vine and squeezing so gently that you almost don’t notice it until you’re already at the brink of death. Spluttering and choking and hoping the thing you last looked at won’t be your last.
I’ve started looking at everything differently since that day, like it’s all glowing faintly at the edges. Ordinary things feel extraordinary now. And that’s the tragedy of it all, isn’t it? You don’t realize how beautiful something is until you’re scared it might disappear.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the word “forever”. It’s a cruel word, I’ve realized, and one that unfortunately, doesn’t apply to me. Everyone uses it so casually, like it’s a promise we can actually keep. “I’ll love you forever.” “We’ll be friends forever.” But forever is a lie we tell ourselves to feel safe. A kind of internal reassurance. I used to believe in it. Now I realize how absurd that was. How naïve I had been.
Some days, I’m angry. Because it’s easier than being sad all the time. It makes me feel alive in a way that’s almostcomforting. I get angry at the universe for giving me this broken body. I get angry at myself for the time I wasted when I didn’t know I was running out of it. I never thought I’d be jealous of strangers. People walking down the streets, sipping their coffee, checking their phones. They don’t know how lucky they are to feel bored, to feel like time is endless. I’d give anything for another day like that. I get angry at everyone else for living their lives so casually, so carelessly, like they have all the time in the world. They don’t. None of us do.
But most days, I’m just tired. Tired of thinking about what I can’t control. Tired of trying to find meaning in something so senseless. Tired of pretending I’m okay when I’m not. There’s a kind of exhaustion that lives in your bones, and it doesn’t go away, no matter how much you sleep. That’s the kind of tired I am.
The idea of death never affected me much. Dying is dying. Now it’s all I think about—obsessively almost. Will death be cold? Will it hurt to perish? Will I see anything, hear anything? And what really is death? The moment your heart stops beating? When your cells shut down? But not all cells die with the person, not immediately at least. So, are we really dead?
The moment your soul leaves? But where would it go?
It’s strange, isn’t it? How we accept the inevitability of something we hardly know about. We know the body dies, but is that all we are? Just a collection of cells, electrical impulses, blood and bone and breath? We’re scared of death, but we don’t even know what it is we’re afraid of.
I think the hardest part is that I don’t know how to say goodbye to a life I’m still living. How do you let go of something you’re not ready to leave? The people you aren’t prepared to let fade. My closest friends don’t even know, I haven’t told them. Because how can I even begin to explain something like this? How do you tell someone that you might be dying, and lookthem in the eye after that? I know I probably should, but I also don’t want them to look at me like I’m already half gone. Like I’ve seen others do already. With so much pity it makes me want to scream.
Don’t they know I’m still here? Don’t they know I still want to laugh, to argue, to feel alive, even if it’s just for a little while?
I keep wondering what people will remember about me. Will it be the good things? The bad? I don’t know which is worse—being remembered for my mistakes or not being remembered at all.
104 days ago, I found out I have a brain tumour. Today I’m still breathing, but it feels like I’m holding my breath.
Is it so bad to want to live, not just survive?
THIRTY
If I were a little kid seeing Kai for the first time, I’d be terrified too. Seriously. There’s just something about his… face. About his eyes.
Kai shoves his hands into his pockets and casts Lilia a look, all easy charm. “She’s all yours.”
And just like that, he turns, already heading for the door. He’s about to disappear through the doorway when a soft voice cuts through the air.
“You’reKai Steele?”
It’s Dawn.
And she’s not behind Lilia anymore. In fact, she’s stepped out of the shadowy corner she was lurking in. Now, she’s standing in the open, her head tilted just slightly, her wide eyes on Kai.
Kai pauses, one foot still hovering over the threshold. He turns, slow and smooth, his gaze sliding toward Dawn’s face.
“I am.”
Dawn takes a step toward him.
Just one.
But it’s enough to shift the air in the room, and even Lilia looks thrown—her eyebrows raising slightly, like—huh. That’s new.
Kai tilts his head, barely perceptible, but his fingers twitch where they rest at his side. Subtle. Almost nothing. But I catch it. “You’re a friend of his?” he asks.
Dawn freezes for a second, goes bright red, then nods a little too quickly.
Kai watches her reaction with mild amusement. “He speaks highly of you.”
Dawn turnseven redder, which I didn’t even think was possible. She suddenly looks like she wants to fold herself into a singularity and vanish into the floor. “H-he does?”
