Page 71 of Falling for Grace

Right, I’m going to start at the beginning. About three months ago I started getting these awful migraines. You remember what it was like when that fucking bitch of a migraine fairy paid a visit. Dark room, flannel and no one talk to me please. But these were different, they were debilitating and would knock me out for days. At one point I had forgotten my own name, they were that bad.

Shit, it was scary.

I went to the Doctor, and in true doctor fashion, they gave me pills and sent me on my way. But the headaches continued. I’d pop the pills (which you will be pleased to know randomly made my arms numb so I couldn’t move them. It always made me think of that time when you fell asleep and got a dead arm, and as you couldn’t feel your arm on your chest you freaked out and picked your own arm up and threw it at the wall—only you, Grace. Hah!) but they didn’t even scratch the surface.

I had a seizure at work one day. They gave me a CT scan and they found something.

A Giloma, or as ordinary people call it, a brain tumor. I have cancer of the sodding brain. Can you believe that? I wanted to stick my middle finger up at cancer, I’d become a statistic, but I was adamant that it would be a good kind of statistic.

I’d beat the fucking thing. I told the Doctor that, I was strong, I love a challenge, but the look on his face, Grace. This cancer wasn’t beatable.

I’d be a bad statistic.

Grade 4, the doctor told me. Like it’s an exam to take or something. I had a Grade 4 astrocytomas (GBM or some other acronym that means absolutely nothing to anyone). It was the quickest growing, most aggressive type of cancer. There would be no fuck you cancer from me. More of a fuck you Danny from cancer type of relationship, in fact. They said I had anything up to a year. They offered me chemotherapy, to try to “prolong” my life, but why would I put myself and my family through that when the end result would be the same?

I thought about what my last year would be like. My last birthday, the last Christmas—shit, it would all be lasts, and as much as we would all enjoy the time together, we would know it was my ‘last’ and that would just put a big old black cloud of doom over everything we did.

I made my choice as I was driving home. Cancer wouldn’t beat me, cancer wouldn’t be the one to end it. So that’s why I did it, Grace. I killed myself before the bastard brain tumour could do it.

I am at peace with my decision, and I want everyone else to be too. I didn’t call you back because you would know something was wrong.

Iunderstoodthree years ago why you pushed me away and I forgive you.

Not that there is even anything to forgive, but Iknew that when you were ready you would call me. And you did… I just wasn’t strong enough to call you.

The timing of the call was almost funny. I had written all my letters and you were my last one. I was sitting at my desk with a blank piece of paper and then your name flashed up at me like the Christmas lights at Harrods. It was like the universe telling me that you were okay, that you would be okay.

I hope you don’t hate me for it, but I told Brandon in his letter. Not everything, but enough to start the conversation. You probably want to kick me in the balls, so I’m glad that you got this letter late. This is the last step, Gracie, this one final step and that chapter of your life will be closed, along with the section in your life where I was in it.

Don’t be sad about that. You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.

Love you to the fucking moon and back, Gracie Le Free Bush. Every fucking moment of my life with you in it was the best. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Love always in this life and in the next

Your partner in crime,

Danny xxxxx

I lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

I feel like a piece of the puzzle has been put in correctly. That a part of my jumbled heart has been put together again by my eldest and bestest friend.

If I had known, I would have tried to talk Danny round, but it would have been wrong of me. Just like I had done, he had pushed me away. Well, not let me back in really, because it was what he needed to do, and I one hundred percent understand that. I thought I’d feel angry, as I was reading it, a part of me had, but the more I read it, the more I took in his words and began to understand why he did it the anger disappeared.

Danny was strong, what he did took courage.

Suicide was the last resort. I tried to take my life. If I had succeeded there would have been no letters to my loved ones. I can say that it would have been wrong.

But for Danny, Danny did it to keep control of a situation where he had none. Cancer took the power from him. No one knows how they’re going to die. It could happen tomorrow, but not knowing is what makes it easier. To be told you have a year…

I can’t say that I would have made the same decision if I was in Danny’s position, but it was the decision he chose to make.

Along with the peace that Danny’s words have brought me there is also a feeling deep in my gut that belongs to fear. I felt sick thinking about what he put in Brandon’s letter.

He thinks he helped by doing that.

I know this is it—It’s time to tell Brandon.

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