“Hey.” Michael’s voice was soft. “You okay?”
I didn’t answer right away. I was thinking about the plane ride, telling him I wanted to write stories. All the somedays I’d stored up like pennies in a jar, waiting for a future I wasn’t sure I’d get.
But I was here. I’d gotten the future, or at least a piece of it.
“I’m going to write,” I said, a faint smile curving on my lips.
Michael returned my smile, but there was something evil about it. “Yeah? Then I guess I’d better sharpen up my critic skills.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Excuse me? Didn’t you say on the plane that nothing I wrote would ever need criticism? That you’d be my most devoted reader?”
“I said I’d be your most devoted critic. There’s nuance.”
“There’s no nuance. You said I couldn’t write anything bad. Those were your exact words.”
“I don’t recall.”
“Convenient.”
He laughed and leaned down, pressing his forehead to mine. His hand came up to cup my cheek, thumb brushing gently across my skin.
“You’re going to write something beautiful,” he said quietly. “And I’m going to read every word and tell you it’s the best thing I’ve ever read. And I won’t even be lying.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You love it.”
I did. A whole lot.
Three months post-surgery, Dr. Matthews called us in for comprehensive scans.
I sat in the waiting room trying not to throw up from nerves. Michael held my good hand and didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. Either the tumor was gone or it wasn’t. I didn’t want to go back to counting days.
They called us back. Did the scans and made us wait another excruciating hour while they processed the imaging.
Then Dr. Matthews appeared and the look on her face made my heart stop.
“The tumor’s gone,” she said. “Completely. No signs of regrowth. Brain tissue is healing beautifully.”
“Gone?” My voice came out thin. “Like… actually gone?”
“Actually gone. The deficits you’re experiencing will likely continue to improve with therapy. You have a long recovery ahead. But the prognosis is good.”
I started crying before she finished talking.
Michael pulled me into his arms and I felt him shaking. Realized he was crying too. We held each other in Dr. Matthews’s office and sobbed like children while she tactfully stepped out to give us privacy.
“We get a future,” I said into his shirt.
“We get a future.” His voice was shaky, he was laughing and crying all at once. “Holy shit. We actually get a future.”
“It’s not guaranteed?—”
“I don’t care. Right now you’re cancer-free, and that’s everything.”
We stayed like that until the crying eased, our breathing steadied, and reality finally began to settle in.
I was going to live.
