Page 130 of While I’m Still Here

That makes his breathing hitch. Last night. All four of us tangled together. My breasts still part of my body. Three men touching me and wanting me and laughing with me. Photographs afterwards because suddenly I needed evidence. Saying goodbye.

I would give anything for one more yesterday.

Colin pulls back just enough to look at me. “You're coming back to me.”

“You can't promise that.”

“No.” His eyes fill. “But I'm going to sit out there believing it until you do.”

I kiss him, then I force myself to let go. I look at all three men. Danny has stopped pretending he's fine. Marcus has his hands shoved into his pockets, and Colin is crying openly now. “Right,” I whisper. “See you on the other side.”

Danny wipes beneath one eye and says, “No-Tittie Bea.”

“Don't fucking start.”

“She's coming.”

Despite everything, I laugh.

Then I go.

* * *

The anaesthetist leans over me while someone adjusts something near my arm, and I decide that if these are potentially my final conscious moments with tits, I should probably say something profound.

Something about courage, perhaps. Love. The precious fragility of life.

Instead, when he tells me I'm about to start feeling sleepy, I look up at him and say, “Just so we're clear, I'm here for a double mastectomy. If I wake up with bigger tits, I'm putting in a formal complaint.”

His professional expression lasts approximately half a second before he smiles. “That's unfortunate. I've already requested the upgrade.”

I gasp, although it comes out slightly delayed because everything is beginning to feel pleasantly floaty. “Cancel it. I've spent thirty years carrying these bastards around. I'm retiring.”

He laughs and tells me to take a few slow breaths, but apparently the anaesthetic makes me think I am a stand-up comedian, because I grab his attention again. “Wait. I've got a joke.”

The anaesthetist glances down at me, visibly amused now. “All right, let's hear it.”

I fight against eyelids that suddenly weigh approximately twelve stone each. “Knock, knock.”

He dutifully asks, “Who's there?”

I grin sleepily. “Not my fucking titties, anyway.”

A burst of laughter comes from somewhere beside me, and the anaesthetist shakes his head. “Technically, they're still there.”

I frown at him through the rapidly thickening fog. “Give it an hour.”

His laugh is the last thing I hear before everything goes black.

* * *

There are pieces afterwards that I don't remember.

Voices, mostly. Bright lights moving above me. Somebody saying my name from what feels like the other end of a very long tunnel, followed by the strange sensation of being dragged upwards from somewhere deep and warm where absolutely nothing hurts and I don't have to know anything. For a while, I fight it. Or maybe I only think I do. Time doesn't seem to work properly here. Everything happens in disconnected flashes until eventually the room stays still around me long enough for me to understand that my mouth is horribly dry, my throat hurts, and my entire body feels as though somebody has filled it with wet sand.

I don't know where I am.

Then my hand moves.