Hope—sharp and terrifying—flickered in my chest.
“You’re a candidate for surgery,” she said. “The tumor is still aggressive, and the odds are terrible—less than six percent. It could end on that table or you could survive and we could remove enough of the tumor to give you years instead of days.”
My heart forgot how to beat properly, a less than six percent chance? It was too big of a risk.
“What happens if I don’t do surgery?”
“Days,” she said. “Maybe weeks. The tumor will regrow and eventually it’ll cause hemorrhaging or more severe seizures.”
“And with surgery?”
“You either die on the table or you potentially gain years. There’s no middle ground. I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to say this…”
The room went quiet except for the hum of fluorescent lights overhead.
I looked at Michael, he was watching me with the same mix of fear and hope. “What do you think?” I whispered.
“It’s your choice.” His hand tightened around mine, like he was afraid I’d disappear if he let go. “I can’t handle losing you at all. But surgery gives us a chance. Doesn’t it?” He smiled but it was sad.
I wanted more mornings on the sand. More letters. More time to memorize him.
I needed more time the way a drowning person needs air. But dying on that table was a real possibility—one that would take me from him sooner. Permanently.
CHAPTER 18
Claudette
I made lists.
Pros and cons. Risk versus reward. What happens if I do nothing versus what happens if I try.
The surgical option Dr. Matthews had presented sat in my mind like a weight I couldn’t move. Less than a six-percent success rate.
But also—a chance.
The first real chance anyone had offered me since this nightmare began.
I sat at Michael’s desk with a legal pad covered in my handwriting. Two columns. Surgical intervention on the left. Palliative care on the right.
Surgery meant: possible survival, a chance at a future, fighting instead of waiting, giving Michael something to hold onto.
It also meant: probably dying on the table, potentially worse quality of life if I survived with complications, putting Michael through watching me try and fail, stealing peaceful time for a gamble that wouldn’t pay off.
I’d been staring at these lists for two days straight.
Michael found me there on the second afternoon, still sitting at his desk, pen in hand, no closer to a decision than I’d been forty-eight hours ago.
“You’re overthinking it,” Michael said from the doorway.
“I’m deciding whether to risk dying in surgery or accept dying slowly. There’s no such thing as overthinking that.”
He crossed to me. Looked at my lists. “What does your gut say?”
“My gut says I’m terrified either way.”
“Then what does your heart say?”
I set down the pen and looked up at him. “My heart says I want more time with you. I just don’t know which option gives us that.”
