Page 36 of Better as It

“You’re not losing me. Not yet. Not if I can help it.”

I nod against him, even though I don’t believe it.

Not yet.

Not tonight.

Later, after he falls asleep on the couch, I sit at the kitchen table with a glass of water and stare out at the night.

The photo from the ultrasound is stuck to the fridge with a magnet that says“Home is where your people are.”

I don’t know what home means right now.

But I know this man, lying on my couch with his body fighting for time, is already part of it.

ELEVEN

TOON

"Like a bear emerging from hibernation, awaken to new possibilities." — Unknown

Most people don’t knowwhat it’s like to feel your body working against you.

Not in a bruised-ribs, busted-knuckles kind of way. That is a kind of pain I can deal with. The kind of pain’s honest.

But this?

This creeping, invisible weight inside me?

It’s the kind of pain that turns your blood to static. That makes you wonder if today’s the day you stop looking like yourself in the mirror.

Every Tuesday morning, I sit in a beige room with a plastic recliner, an IV line in my arm, and a nurse named Marcy who talks too much about her cats. It’s not her fault. I haven’t engaged her in enough conversation that she knows what to talk about. I don’t mind her. She doesn’t ask questions about my scars or my patches. She occasionally comments on my tattoos and trying not to mess of the comic book style by poking me in aspot where she wouldn’t even leave a bruise to my ink. It’s kind of funny, the way each week she decides to pick out a different tattoo to talk about. Her favorite is my Garfield one, go figure. Outside of the casual comments on my tattoos, though, she just hooks me up, checks the machines, and lets me be.

The chemo burns going in. Not always, but enough times that I brace for it now. I distract myself with the same lies every time.

It’s temporary.

I’m strong enough.

This doesn’t change who I am.

But it does. Cancer changes people, even me.

The side effects of the chemo are harsh. They don’t hit all at once either. It’s like being on a rollercoaster blind. I can’t tell what is coming until boom, the drop hits. I feel it in my bones, in the way food tastes off and my skin itches for no reason. The weight I’ve lost is subtle but there. And every time I pull on my cut, I wonder how long I can keep this up before the club starts noticing. I know my skin has paled, and yellowed even a little. I gave up drinking to try to protect my liver as my body fights to both get rid of the cancer cells, but also combat the damage the chemo does inside me.

Dia knows. But very few others. Outside of a handful of people in Catawba though it’s my secret. Not even BW knows, and he sees through me better than most.

And definitely not Tripp. I don’t want him looking at me like I’m a broken spoke in the machine. Loyalty goes deep, but this life? You bleed for your patch, or you step back. And I don’t want to be sidelined.

Not unless I have to be.

It’s Friday,a few days after my latest round.

I’m moving slower, pretending like I’m just working on the truck, when my phone buzzes in the garage.

Unknown number.

That usually means trouble or someone I forgot to block.

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