Chapter 30 Pretty bad
There was a moment, brief and humiliating, where I was aware of how it must have looked. Sixteen. Folded in on myself, too weak to stay upright.
And because it was high school, because cruelty comes easily when it’s disguised as humor, I heard booing. Laughing. Someone yelling something about me being fragile, about how the other team had “broken” me already. And for some reason, I felt like I was a prop, like I existed for the spectacle of falling apart.
It sank into me, deep and ugly. Not just the sound of it, but the confirmation, that whatever was wrong with me was visible now. Public. That my body had betrayed me loudly, and everyone got to watch. People were acknowledging it. So I had to learn to acknowledge it as well.
I remember thinking, distantly, that this must be what it looks like when you don’t belong in your own skin anymore.
They eventually stopped the game and took me to the nurse’s office. I said I was just extremely nervous because that sounded manageable.
No one came to check on me.
I lay there on that vinyl bed, staring at ceiling tiles, waiting. It hurt that no one came. And it didn’t. At the same time, I felt relieved. I didn’t want anyone to see me like that. I wanted .....needed someone, and I hated myself for it.
I left before the event ended, went home. Slept. Dragged myself back to school the next day. When my parents came back, I tried to tell them. But every time, the words stuck. So I smiled instead, swallowed it down and told myself I was being strong.
I went back to the hospital alone that weekend. Appointments got slotted after classes. The doctors talked about support, about how important it was, but they couldn’t force me. Nothing was confirmed yet and I clung to that. As long as it wasn’t official, it wasn’t real. I could pretend it didn’t own me.
And for two weeks, I did.
Then a vicious fever came one night. Sweat soaking through me, skin itching like it wanted to crawl away from my body. I went to the kitchen for water and had to stop on the stairs. I must've sat there longer than I remember. My dad found me eventually and asked what I was doing sitting there.
“Sorry, I’m okay,” I'd said. Which was not what he'd asked. Just what I thought I was supposed to say.
He eventually realized something was wrong and they rushed me to the hospital. I don’t linger on what came after. I end it there, like closing a door that still rattles in its frame. I try to read Michael’s face for some sign of what all of this has landed as, but I can’t.
I think about my parents, the moment they realized I’d known. That I’d carried it alone. That almost hurt them more than the word ‘cancer’ itself ever could have. I remember the way my mum’s face folded in on itself, the way my dad went quiet in that specific way of his. Fear was there, of course. Shock too. But underneath it was something rawer. Something like betrayal softened only by worry.
The confirmation that it was indeed ‘cancer’ came the next morning. Devastating in a way no careful phrasing could cushion.
They were good parents. In all the expected ways. They showed up, they cared. Sometimes they were distracted by work, by bills, by the weight of keeping everything running....but I had never doubted their love. And seeing the news break them like that, seeing how helpless they suddenly were....
I think part of me decided then that this was my fault too.
Most people ask ‘why me’ and aim it outward. They blame the cancer. Or God. Or fate. Or the universe....those invisible forces people like to imagine as either cruel or careless, depending on the day.
I didn’t do that.
I turned it inward and blamed myself, just like I am now. I blamed my body for betraying me so thoroughly. Like it had looked at me and found me lacking.
I told myself maybe this was what happened when you didn’t live loudly enough. When you watched from the edges while everyone else seemed to be running headfirst into their lives....laughing too hard, kissing too freely, breaking rules like they were meant to be broken. I told myself I hadn’t been brave enough, reckless enough, alive enough. That I’d treated life like something fragile I was afraid to touch, and maybe it had noticed.
Maybe it had decided I wouldn’t miss it much.
That I was the safest place for something like this to land.
Michael’s expression has changed by the time I look at him again. He's quiet for a moment before he speaks, like he’s choosing his words with care.
“Hodgkin’s,” he says gently, “is one of the cancers medicine actually knows how to fight. The odds, statistically, are on the patient’s side more often than not.” He pauses, then asks, “Did your treatment work?”
I manage a small, relieved smile. “It did, complete remission.”
It’s the truth, in the simplest sense. His eyes stay on me, though. Too alert, like he’s learned when smiles arrive too smoothly. I watch him lean back slightly, studying me now. “Did it ever come back?”
I don’t look away. I hold his gaze and shake my head once.
“No. The cancer never came back.”
Technically, that's the truth.
I watch him stand and tilt my head up when he takes the two steps to where I'm seated. He stops just short of me, one hand settling on the back of my chair, the other resting on the edge of the table. He leans down, close enough I can feel the heat of him.
“So....” His voice is intimate, threading through the space between us. “...you’re fine now?”
I nod, hesitating. “Yeah, I just told you. The cancer —”
He shakes his head, cutting me off. “No. That’s not what I asked.”
I blink up at him, caught off guard by the sternness behind his words. His voice turns firmer, carrying something deeper than curiosity. “Something’s bothering you,” he states. “I can see it. There’s something eating at you. If it’s not physical, then maybe it’s in your mind...or your heart. I’ve noticed. And I won’t ask you what it is. But tell me one thing....” His gaze sharpens, folding around me like there’s nowhere to hide. “...how bad is it? Whatever it is.”
I swallow hard, caught in the gravity of him, the closeness, the way he doesn’t let me slip away. My throat feels tight. My voice barely escapes when I confess....
“It’s pretty bad.”
He leans slightly closer, voice soft but insistent. “How bad’s ‘pretty bad’?”
I force a sad smile, searching for something clever, something that might lighten the weight, and come up empty. The words stick somewhere behind my ribs. I try again, barely louder this time. “...pretty bad.”
And that’s all I can give him. The silence after that is somehow intimate. He’s still there, too close to let me hide, and in this moment, I don’t want to.