“But all of that was supposed to be with you, Soph,” he murmured against my neck. “All of that belonged to you. That future you’re talking about was supposed to happen with you.”
“I know. But who’s to say that even if this didn’t happen, one of us wouldn’t get hit by a car and die? Life is unpredictable, and it can be extremely difficult, but it’s also the most beautiful thing. We get to wake up in the morning to the chirping of the birds. We get to breathe fresh morning air. We get to do all these amazing things. And who knows, maybe in another life I will survive.”
“Sophie,” he protested. “Please.”
“I promise I will stop talking about this if you do one thing for me.”
“What’s that?”
I turned my head to the side and pressed my lips against his neck, inhaling the scent of soap mixed with spicy cologne.
“I want you to go to one of the practices. I know you don’t have any on Saturdays, but tomorrow’s Sunday, and I know for a fact that they’re gonna be having one.”
A minute passed, seconds ticked away, both of us breathing slowly, waiting for the other one to start talking. I couldn’t exactly tell him that most days I woke up with a panic attack waiting for me at my doorstep. I couldn’t tell him that dying terrified me more than living, and that the mere thought of not being here in four months scared the crap out of me.
I didn’t want him to know that I spent hours during these days trying to memorize their faces—his, my mom’s, my dad’s, and Andrew’s. I didn’t want him to know that my headaches started getting stronger and stronger since I came back from the hospital, and that the pills they gave me weren’t doing anything for me anymore.
I cleared my browsing history every time before he came over, because I didn’t want him to see all these websites I visited.
Stage four of glioblastoma was not something I ever expected to have. I didn’t expect to be browsing through forums where people who had the same disease as me discussed how they wanted to be cremated, or buried at their local cemetery.
I was supposed to be thinking about the dress I would wear on our prom. Instead, I was writing down all the things I wanted to do in this short period of time, afraid that I wouldn’t be able to finish it all.
Most days, waking up felt like a chore more than a regular thing, and I just didn’t have enough power in my body to keep on moving. But then I would remember all of their faces, their tears, their fear, and I would get the fuck up.
The internet wasn’t helping. Reading comments from people who lost someone that had the same thing I did, or the ones that were on palliative care terrified me. Cold like nothing I felt before slowly crept into my bones, and no matter how much I tried to push it away, how much I tried to let the blood roar through my veins, it just kept going deeper and deeper.
Some days it was in my lungs; others it was in my throat, cutting off my ability to speak, to express these feelings that were driving me mad. And with each day, it was getting closer to my heart.
“Okay,” Noah finally murmured as he placed a hand to the back of my head. “I’ll go, but I need you with me, at least one day. I need to see your face behind that Plexiglas around the rink.”
“I’ll go. You know I’ll go. I would go to the end of the world with you if you’d have asked.”
“I should’ve.” He smiled, but it looked anything but happy. “I should’ve taken you away a long time ago.”
“Yeah, but even taking me away wouldn’t have prevented this from happening.”
“I have to imagine that it would’ve, Soph. I think that part of human nature is imagining the scenarios of things that would have or should’ve happened. I like to imagine that we never fought. I also like to imagine that we told each other how we felt years ago.”
“I like to imagine that too, you know? And before… Before you finally got your head out of your ass—”
“Hey!”
“Shhh. I used to imagine what it would feel like having you with me.”
“But you always had me with you.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t the same. I had you as my friend. I had you as a person I could call at three in the morning if I needed help, but I never had you as my lover, Noah. And those dreams are dangerous if they never become real. Those dreams eat you alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just… I need you to know, okay? I used to lay right here,” I patted the spot behind me. “With tears streaming down my cheeks, staring at the ceiling, wishing for things to be different. I used to drive myself crazy with all these scenarios, all these possibilities. Then I would start thinking about what it was the other girls had that I didn’t.”
“It wasn’t like that,” he argued. “It was never about those things.”
“I know it wasn’t, but it still hurt like a bitch seeing you with them.”
“But it’ll never hurt again.”
