“You sound ridiculous,” I say through tears.
I love him. I believe in that nebulous and profound force that compels my cells to reach out for his cells. If I can believe in something like that, I can believe that life and death are not a binary. We occupy the space between them, and you can look in both directions: life or death, gift or curse. Focusing on an impending and inevitable ending, or focusing on the beginnings that life offers us every single day. I can focus on what’s been taken from me, or I can focus on what I’ve been given.
It’s a choice.
“I don’t care if it sounds stupid.” Eitan laughs. “It’s true. I believe in you, and that’s stronger than any mutant cells.”
I believe in the power of how much I love you, too.
Randomness isn’t an abyss. It’s an ocean we’re all bobbing in. Conception, birth, first steps, first skinned knee, first cell that doesn’t die when it’s supposed to. Things don’t happen for reasons. Things happen because the world operates without reason. Sometimes damaged cells multiply and invade yourbody. Sometimes one chance encounter, a random moment when you think you locked a bathroom door to have a panic attack in peace, is actually beshert. Randomness delivers you a gift. A friend. A coach. The love of your life.
The fibers—or cells, or whatever you want to call them—that make up my being are shifting. Reforming. I understand what Lucy meant now, about being ready to leave the cocoon. It would have been impossible to imagine this the day I meant Eitan. Like trying to explain to a caterpillar what it means to fly.
“Okay,” I say. If I’m destined to live in this space between life and death, I have to take every scrap of life I can. Face it until it’s all I can see, all I can think about. Choose it, no matter what it brings.
“Okay?” Eitan asks, almost in disbelief.
“If you’re in, I am too.” I am at the mercy of the Universe. Stripped raw, made of pulp. But the sunlight warms my skin, and I know it’s worth it. “I believe in the power of how much I love you, too,” I tell him, every cell vibrating with the same message.
Eitan exhales, relief slackening his whole face. “I love you,” he rasps before he grabs my face and kisses me like we’re dying because, I suppose, we are. At any moment we’re approaching death, no matter which way you slice it. All we have is this time now, and this life that we have no choice but to live.
chapter
thirty-four
The radiologist squeezesmy shoulder once the hollow needle has been removed. “You’ll get a call tomorrow or Friday.” The corners of her lips draw into an attempt at a smile before she takes off her gloves, throws them in the trash, and leaves the room.
The nurse puts half her weight into compressing the incision site while I lay there, squeezing my lips together, putting some serious thought into what I will request Eitan to make for dinner. He gave me carte blanche, which was his mistake. I’m leaning toward truffle gnocchi (from scratch, of course).
I hate lymph node biopsies. So much worse than a breast biopsy. There’s all these nerves and blood vessels, and your arm feels weird for a good seven days after. Kind of like someone unscrewed it, fiddled around with it, and then screwed it back on, not expecting you to notice anything different.
“Doing anything fun this weekend?” the nurse asks.
I shrug as best I can while spread out topless on a medical bench. “My boyfriend and I talked about seeing a movie.” The label gives me a thrill every time I drop it in conversation. “Or maybe just contemplate my place in the Universe. Who’s to say?”
The nurse nods, not really sure what to do with the direction of the conversation. “I heard Blinklebob 3 is pretty good?”
I snort. “It’s a cinematic masterpiece.”
As I leave the clinic, the nurses and technicians I pass give me encouraging smiles. I grin back at them. When I get to the waiting room, a cute boy with fluffy hair and a lopsided smile is reading aCosmopolitan, waiting for me.
I insist on stopping at Mike’s on the way home.
Daniel is working this morning. I’ve already set up a double date for us, probably freaking Lucy out with how enthusiastically I’ve been texting her. She’s not the only one who’s been subject to my newfound mania. Calliope, Alma, and I have a group chat, and we’re going dancing next week. The chat’s name isLouise’s Biddies.
Before I even get to the counter, I spot someone near the door, watching a video on their phone that I’ve become all too familiar with. It’s a techno remix of Penelope’s meltdown, courtesy of the internet. I knew Calliope had taken a video that day in the bridal suite, but I assumed it was just for proof of what happened. The next day, the video was posted on an Influencers Exposed account, and Pen got what she wanted: over 500K likes. Close to one million, last time I checked. #Influenzilla has been trending on almost every social platform. By Monday, there was an edit of Pen screeching ‘You psycho!’ against a beat of the sound of the club sandwich hitting the bridal suite’s wall.
If public shaming wasn’t enough, her new book’s release has been postponed. Indefinitely.
We will see each other in a few days for Louise’s funeral, and I’ve decided that the internet has dogpiled enough. Calliope also hinted that Louise had made some, shall we say, last minute changes to her will. Something abouttough love. Either way, I plan to be infuriatingly civil. And also, Eitan has reminded me numerous times that we will have to learn to co-exist becauseJosh and Penelope are still, somehow, together. I think she is starting therapy. Who knows. It’s—above all—not my problem.
“Hi!” I drum my fingers on the counter. Daniel is turned around, their brown bandana bobbing to “Sweet Disposition” by The Temper Trap.
They turn around, and their eyes light up. “Hey, Ruby! Joya with cardamom, coming right up.” I smile at them. I can’t stop smiling. I’m one of those idiots who’s in requited love and it’s frankly embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as sobbing in The Sunny Island.
Eitan’s fingers pull my chin toward him, depositing a kiss that’s far too passionate for nine in the morning inside a semi-chain coffeehouse.
But hey. All or nothing, right?
