Page 149 of While I’m Still Here

It grows back.

I know.

It's temporary.

I fucking know.

But my breasts were mine. My hair is mine, and cancer seems to have developed a very liberal interpretation of what belongs to it.

I grip the edge of the sink and cry. I cry with my mouth open and my shoulders shaking while loose strands cling to my wet cheeks. I cry because I've already stood in this bathroom and apologised to two breasts I knew I was going to lose. I cry because I've already looked in a mirror and failed to recognise the shape looking back at me. I cry because I have only just begun getting used to seeing a flat chest beneath my clothes, and now cancer has apparently returned with a clipboard to ask whether there are any other parts of my appearance I'd like it to fuck with while it's here.

I hate that I care.

That's almost as painful as losing it. There are people dying from cancer, and I am standing in a bathroom sobbing because my hair is falling out.

The thought arrives viciously.

Ungrateful.

Vain.

Pathetic.

I stare at myself. I can want to live and hate what living currently costs… Both can be true. I gather the hair from my fingers. For some reason, I can't put it in the bin, so I leave it beside the sink, then I go back to bed and call Colin.

* * *

Colin doesn't knock.

I gave him a key years ago, long before cancer and boyfriends and the night when our relationship exploded into something neither of us had expected. Back then it was because I had a habit of locking myself out and Colin got sick of travelling across London to rescue me. Now he uses it because sometimes I can't get to the door quickly.

I hear the lock turn, then his footsteps through the flat. “Bea?”

“Bedroom.”

His footsteps get faster. Colin appears in the doorway wearing jeans, a navy jumper and an expression that tells me I scared the shit out of him when I called.

His eyes scan me—Face. Body. Bed. No blood. No obvious emergency. His shoulders drop slightly, then he notices the pillow.

The hair is still there because I couldn't touch it. Colin looks at it, then at me, and I see his face change into the understanding, sympathetic look he’s begun to give me when chemo fucks with my life.

“It's happening.” My voice cracks.

Colin doesn't say I know. I think I’d hit him if he did, and he doesn't say it'll grow back. He crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. I look down at my hands. “I thought because I knew, I'd be ready.”

Colin reaches for my hand. “That's not how it works.”

“I feel stupid.”

“Why?”

“Because it's fucking hair.”

His fingers close around mine. “It isn't just hair.”

I start crying again. Colin pulls me towards him carefully, one arm around my shoulders, and I bury my face against his chest. “I've already lost my tits.”

“I know.”