Page 72 of While I’m Still Here

Age: Thirty.

Tumours: 1.

Boyfriends: 1.

Men I have spent an unreasonable amount of time thinking about: Unfortunately, more than 1.

Things I have been saving for later: Apparently my entire fucking life.

Sensible decisions made this week: Let's not embarrass ourselves by counting.

Times I've wondered whether cancer has actually changed me or simply removed my patience for my own bullshit: Increasing daily.

I have spent thirty years treating later like something I was guaranteed.

Later, when I've lost weight, I'll wear the red dress. Later, when I've saved a little more money, I'll take Mum away for the weekend we've been talking about for approximately four years. Later, when work settles down, I'll book the trip. Later, when I feel braver, I'll get the tattoo.

Later, when the timing is right, I'll tell people what I actually want instead of saying I don't mind so frequently; it may as well be engraved on my headstone.

HERE LIES BEATRICE JAMES. SHE DIDN'T MIND. WHATEVER EVERYONE ELSE WANTED WAS FINE.

Cancer has made later considerably less convincing.

Not because I've suddenly decided I'm dying. I'm not. Nobody has told me I'm dying, and every time my brain tries to sprint down that particular corridor at three in the morning, I remind myself of that. But there is something uniquely effective about sitting opposite a doctor while they explain how they're going to remove part of your body to make you realise you've been extraordinarily arrogant about time.

That is why this list feels different.

The first one began because I'd come home from the hospital, discovered there was a tumour in my breast and apparently decided buy milk belonged directly underneath don't die. This one has been forming more slowly, particularly since Marcus asked questions about the things I was frightened of without once trying to convince me I shouldn't be frightened of them.

At the top of a fresh page I've written THINGS I KEEP SAYING I'LL DO LATER, and beneath it is a steadily growing collection of evidence suggesting I've spent most of my adult life waiting for permission nobody was ever going to give me.

1. Wear the red dress I’ve been saving for when I lose weight.

2. Get the tattoo I’ve wanted for three years.

3. Take Mum away for a weekend instead of discussing it every six months and then never booking anything.

4. Go somewhere alone.

5. Learn to make pasta from scratch.

6. Tell people when they’ve hurt my feelings instead of saying it’s fine and then winning an imaginary argument with them in the shower four days later.

7. Stop buying clothes for a hypothetical body while the current one spend it’s life in leggings.

8. Dance somewhere that isn’t my kitchen.

9. Have sex somewhere that isn’t a bed.

The last one is when Colin finds me. He comes into the kitchen with damp hair, wearing the T-shirt he left here months ago when we were still supposedly just friends, and pauses when he sees me on the floor. He’s been staying over more often since the diagnosis, although we’ve somehow managed it without any official conversation about whether he’s staying because he’s my boyfriend, because I’m frightened, or because twenty-two years of friendship means he knows I sleep better when he’s there.

With Colin, I’ve discovered that the answer can be all three without needing clarification.

“Why on earth are you sitting on the floor, Bea?” he asks me, tilting his head to the side.

“Reassessing my entire existence,” I say, tapping the notebook with my pen.

He looks to the kettle. “Tea?”