––––––––

“All done,” the doctor says, leaning back. “You may put your T-shirt back on now, Mr. Lambert.”

I nod automatically, my thoughts far away—back at the apartment and Sophie, memories from this week flashing through my mind like the stitched-together frames of an old movie.

Holding her in my arms.

Talking to her.

Listening to her retell some of the dark moments we had only to wash them clean, turn a spotlight on them and make me understand why I did what I did, why she reacted the way she did. Why we fought.

Why we need to tell each other things, and why it’s okay.

I want to believe it, believe in tomorrow, but...

“It’s looking good,” the doctor says, moving away from the examination table. “You pulled the staples a little, but nothing to worry about. No infection. I think you’re ready to start radiation again.”

And boom, there goes my bubble, letting all those doubts free to feed on the pieces. “Right.”

“We talked about this before the surgery, as you recall. Radiation will kill any remaining cancerous cells, giving you better chances of remission.”

Yeah, I knew this, but I’d managed to push it to the back of my mind. Between the surgery and Sophie, I’ve been busy.

Now heaviness settles on my chest. It’s a reminder that this isn’t over, that the sickness isn’t gone. That the odds of surviving are still not in my favor. That understanding the past is all very well, but the problem is the future.

Or the lack thereof.

“Mr. Lambert.” The doctor is giving me an expectant look from behind his desk, and I’m still holding my T-shirt and hoodie in my hands, sitting on the examination table. “Is everything okay?”

Is he fucking with me?

“Yeah,” I rasp, making myself move, pull on my clothes, wincing when the movement pulls on the wound. “Okay.”

“I asked if you’re visiting the psychologist, as I recommended the previous times.”

I shrug, angry without really knowing why. “I used to.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

Sliding off the table, I grab my walking stick and wait for the pain in my leg to settle. “I haven’t been back there.”

“I suggest you do it, Mr. Lambert.”

“I’m fine—”

“No matter what you think, cancer treatment and the kind of extensive surgery you’ve had is traumatic. Talking about it can help.”

I gather my new prescription and instructions for the radiation therapy without answering. What the hell is there to say? All I want is to get well, to be with Sophie—and talking to a stranger won’t help with any of that.

***

And so it begins again, the fuckery of radiation and the meds to control the symptoms. Fucking meds, they don’t do shit. Fucking therapy is killing me.

It feels like it’s killing me. The docs say it’s what may keep me alive. I don’t know what to believe, lost in a haze of black depression and fatigue. My chest feels heavy, like I can’t breathe, and my stomach keeps churning, sending bile up my throat, day after day, night after night.

It doesn’t help that my experience with radiation and chemo has been bad, with bad reactions that landed me in the ICU more than once over the past year, so yeah, I dread it. I’m fucking terrified.

And the nausea, fuck. It gets so bad, and my body doesn’t deal well with it, too thin already, too battered.

My mind, either.

Sophie goes with me to the hospital whenever she can, but she needs to work. I’m not making any money, and since she made the mistake of stopping me from leaving her apartment, I’m still a burden, needing help to the bathroom sometimes, needing help after the hospital, while all the while wallowing in this black mud hole I’ve fallen back into.

I’m such a bundle of fucking joy.

The sun rises and sets every day, I bet. I never see it, and not just because of the Winter clouds fleeing over the sky. The days blur. The nights stretch, endless and dry, like the desert that haunts my memories.

Rolling on my side on my narrow bed to face the wall, I throw an arm over my eyes. Sometimes... sometimes I wish it would all end here and now, today, that I won’t have to hope and fear anymore.

And then I think of Sophie and it all crumples in on itself, because she asked me not to leave her.

I don’t want to leave her. I want to be here, with her. I can’t just check out. Not if there’s any chance of holding her in my arms again, even if it’s the worst idea in the world.

Fucking conundrum. A catch-22. Damned if I live, damned if I die.

Holding on to hope when it hurts even more than the damage left behind by surgery and radiation, bombs and explosions. I want to hope.

I remember the feel of her body against mine, the way she shuddered and arched as she came, then her lips around my cock... how good it had been.

The shape of her mouth under mine, the taste of her mouth, the sound of her moans.

Fuck. I curl in tighter, then uncurl, fighting a fresh wave of nausea. Beside me lies Rilke’s poetry book, the one I’ve reread every day since she told me about it, the copy battered, its pages dog-eared.

“Do you remember still the falling stars

that like swift horses through the heavens raced...”

Even that can’t distract me from my misery today.

A sound reverberates through the walls. The doorbell, I think, sinking deeper into my misery.

Fuck that.

I close my eyes and count to twenty, willing my stomach to settle. Then I rewind my memories of Sophie, like I always do when the world is fucking me dry.

Memories since I first saw her at her parents’ house what feels like a million years ago, stealing glimpses of her in her light summer dress as she read or wrote in a notebook or diary in the shade of a tree. Of her swinging on the swing in the garden, watching her more adventurous sister run about and dig up things in the dirt.

Then later, when I came back to town and she found me. When she sat across from me, hands around her cup of coffee, her eyes dancing, her mouth hypnotizing. Mesmerizing.

When she asked me to hold her and the world had stopped spinning so fast for the first time ever. That epiphany.

That I love her.

The bell rings again, a long screeching wail, as if someone has leaned on the button. Groaning, I roll away from the wall and gather my scattered thoughts.

Is it Sophie? Maybe she forgot her key?

But Sophie is at work—or is it in classes? I’ve lost track of time. My phone is on the nightstand, and I reach for it, checking the hour.

Too early. Was she supposed to be back early?

Worry breaks through the malaise, pierces the heavy brain fog that’s blanketing my mind, gets me moving. Swinging my legs off the bed, I shove to my feet too fast and have to wait for my head to clear before I make my limping way through the living room.

My hands shake as I unlock and throw the door open, my tired, overactive brain already projecting previews of a bloody Sophie in my mind’s eye. Sophie bleeding from a stab wound, from a missing limb, Sophie in pieces on the floor—

And there she is.

Only, it’s not her.

I reel, grab the doorframe for support as my mind rolls this way and that, the imagined images merging with the young woman standing at the door, glaring at me, a mirror of my Sophie, and yet not her.

“Soph,” I whisper, and realize a man is standing behind her, tall and blond and stern.

“Actually, I’m her sister Cosima,” Sophie’s double says. “Are you saying you can’t tell us apart? Don’t you remember me?”

Right. Her twin. But I thought I saw... blood and...

“Of course you don’t,” she huffs, still looking put out, as if I’m doing it on purpose. “You never once talked to me, at the hospital, or when Sophie brought you here. Chose to ignore me, ignore her, be an asshole. Why?”

I don’t know what to say to that. My heartbeat echoes strangely in my ears.

“Is Sophie in?” the guy behind her says, his voice calm. “We rang a few times. We thought she’d be in.”

“She’s at work,” I rasp, wincing at the gravel in my voice. “I think. Or in classes. She didn’t say you were coming.”

“Of course not, dumbnut.”

“You wanted to surprise her?” I ask.

Dumbnut. I don’t think she’s using the term affectionately. I wonder dimly why she’s so pissed at me, but... of course. Her sister is saddled with me. How annoying.

“Cosie, let me talk to him,” the guy says, wrapping one arm around her waist, and stepping forward. “Hi, I’m Merc. We came by because it’s Sophie’s birthday. Well, their birthday.” He winks at Cosima. “Twins and all.”

“Is this a joke?” I mutter.

Not a good day for a joke, goddammit. Not a good year, or decade. I wish they’d go away. My stomach is roiling and bile is rising in my throat. It’s mortifying.

But it’s Sophie’s sister. I can’t kick her out.

“You can wait for her.” I step back, wave at the living room. “Until she comes back.”

Reality is still out of whack, but that’s because my body isn’t happy with being upright right now, or with the worry that sent me rushing out of bed.

But Cosima won’t let this go, won’t let me off the hook. Why should she, anyway?

“You don’t even know when her birthday is? That’s sad,” she says, and the hard glint returns to her eyes. “You never really cared so much about her, did you? Never paid her much attention, and she’d do anything for you. Anything. She’s the best person in the world, the kindest, and you just don’t give a damn—”

“Cos...” The guy, Merc, whispers something in her ear, and she sighs.

“Whatever,” she says. “We’ll wait for her.”

I step to the side to let them pass, curling an arm over my middle. She’s right. I fucked up, hurt Sophie.

Again.

Merc nods at me as they enter, and I look down at my bare feet, my thin legs, knees trying to punch through my thin sweats. The fabric is stained. I must reek.

“Tell me you at least treat her right,” Cosima whispers glancing at me as she follows her boyfriend inside, and her eyes now look sad. “That you’re not doing this on purpose.”

“Doing... what?” My heart is knocking about inside my chest. Sourness rises in my throat, filling my mouth. “Forgetting her birthday?”

She shrugs. “Yeah. Not caring.”

Shit, I’m going to throw up right the hell now. Turning away, I stagger toward the bathroom, barely making it in time to crash to my knees and lose my breakfast. Thank fuck I didn’t manage lunch.

Hate this shit.

By the time I’m done, my throat is scraped raw with acid, and my cheeks are embarrassingly wet. It’s so fucked-up, to be so weak, not to be in control of my body, to be shaken about like a puppet, made to puke my guts out.

Goddammit, I hurt too much to move, so I slide down to the cold tiles of the bathroom. I wipe at my cheeks with the back of my hand. The room is spinning, so I close my eyes.

“Griffin?” The voice is soft, and sounds so much like Sophie’s I want to believe it’s her kneeling down beside me.

Fuck this weak body for betraying me so many times.

Fuck this weak mind for plunging me into black spirals of depression.

I cling on to the anger, like every time, to save myself from drowning. I cling to it and struggle to break the surface, and to move. I need... electrolytes. Water. If I don’t, I’ll end up in hospital again, Sophie in danger of losing her job and failing her classes to play nurse to me again.

I struggle to sit up.

“Griffin,” the voice insists. “What can I do? What do you need?”

“Sophie,” I breathe.

That’s who I need, all I need, but this isn’t Sophie, it’s her pissed-off sister, dammit.

Pushing against the floor, I manage to lean my back against the wall. Sophie’s sister is staring at me like I’ve grown a second head, and I know I look like shit, but don’t stare and get in my personal space, okay?

“What?” I snap.

Hey, a guy’s got the right to be snappy after puking his guts out. I’m sure there’s a law engraved in stone about it somewhere.

“I was just worried.” Cosima swallows, gaze flicking to the door of the bathroom, and god fuck, I hope her boyfriend isn’t there, gawking at me, too.

Not much of my dignity left, but I’ll fight for scraps. “About?”

“Sophie. She’s been so miserable.”

My turn to stare at this copy of my girl’s face, noting differences in the dim light, through the blur of tears in my eyes. I wipe at them once more, angrily.

How can I embrace my anger when she’s telling me shit like this?

“She’s been miserable?” I breathe.

Of course she has. Stuck with a bastard like me. Not living her life.

“Not that,” Cosima hisses, and that’s when I realize I spoke the words out loud. “Though you are a bastard, I’ll give you that. Silent, and distant, and never showing that you give a damn about her.”

“It’s not like that,” I close my eyes briefly, the hammering behind them getting too much to bear. “You’re right. Sophie is the best. The kindest. Too kind for the likes of me.”

“But do you love her? She doesn’t give her heart away easily.”

I blink at her, wondering if I could get away with interrogating her about Sophie’s feelings. If she’s saying what I think she’s saying.

“I don’t either,” I say harshly, and see her eyes widen. “Don’t give my heart away easily. But it’s hers, if she wants it.”

It sounds like a question, the way my goddamn voice rises uncertainly on the last word.

But strangely, this makes Cosima nod and say, “You just keep fighting, Griffin, and ask her yourself.”