Page 145 of While I’m Still Here

“Especially then.”

Bea considers that before nodding.

I watch the exchange without interrupting because this is the thing Marcus can give her that Colin and I can't. He doesn't have to imagine what it's like to sit in this chair for the first time. He remembers and that doesn't make me jealous because I can’t do it for her. It makes me grateful he's here.

The nurse returns, and the appointment moves forward. The nurse explains what she's doing, checks that Bea is comfortable and tells her again to speak up if she feels unwell or notices anything concerning.

Bea reaches for my hand. She doesn't look at me while she does it. Her fingers find mine and close around them so tightly that my knuckles grind together. I don't make a joke.

I don't think I've ever wanted to make one less.

I turn my hand beneath hers and hold on. Colin is sitting on her other side, close enough that his knee touches the chair. He's watching Bea rather than what's happening with the treatment, which I suspect is deliberate. Marcus is slightly farther back, giving her space while remaining near enough that she can look at him whenever she needs to.

And then it starts.

After months of appointments and scans and surgery and waiting for results, after Bea losing both breasts and waking up in a hospital bed asking for them back, after all the conversations about what came next, chemotherapy begins so quietly that the rest of the room carries on around us.

Someone turns a page, and a nurse laughs softly at something another patient says. A phone vibrates… and my girlfriend is having chemotherapy.

Bea's grip tightens. “This is fucking weird.”

“Yeah,” I say.

She finally looks at me. Her face is pale, but she isn't crying. “They're actually doing it.”

“I know.”

“I thought I'd feel different.”

“What did you think you'd feel?”

“I don't know.” She glances at her arm, then away again. “Cancer-y.”

I almost laugh, but there isn't enough humour in her face yet. “Pretty sure that's not a recognised medical symptom.”

“You know what I mean.”

I do.

I think I understand it better than she realises. There should be some sensation marking the moment. Something separating Bea-before-chemotherapy from Bea-having-chemotherapy, because the importance of what's happening feels far too enormous for the room to remain this ordinary.

Instead, she's still Bea.

Her trainers are still slightly scuffed. Her hoodie sleeve is pushed aside. A tiny spot on her thumbnail shows where she picked off the nail varnish Colin put on her last week. Her hair is pulled back badly because she couldn't be bothered doing it properly this morning, and there's a faint crease beside her mouth from where she fell asleep against the car window. Cancer has already changed her body. Chemotherapy hasn't turned her into somebody else the second it starts. She's just sitting in a chair and holding my hand.

“I feel like I should be doing something,” Bea says after a while.

Colin looks over. “You're having chemotherapy.”

“Yes, but I'm not doing anything.”

“That's generally how sitting works.”

She gives him a look. “Thank you, Colin.”

“Any time.”

“I mean it. I'm just sitting here while everyone else does things to me again. Surgery was the same. I went to sleep, and everyone else did the important bit.”