I haven’t walked far before exhaustion hits, so then I sit and wrap my arms around my knees, staring out to sea. It is getting harder and harder for me to breathe with the effort of any exertion. My lungs feel as if they are stuffed full of cotton wool and only a small amount of oxygen is filtering through, leaving me weak, pale, and breathless.

I am scared.

I have been to the brink and back a few times since my initial diagnosis. Or I thought I had. To be told that you are dying, while you sit there still healthy enough to carry out the basic duties of life and even experience adventure on top, is incomprehensible. It’s impossible to believe that death is so close, just around the corner, rapidly approaching on the wrong side of the road with headlights on full. You, dead in its sights.

And now that I am close enough to sense the end, I am still no closer to any answers. If I thought death might bring clarity, I was wrong. It only brings more confusion.

“Ava.”

I turn at my name being called. It is my father. He walks along the beach until he is at my side and then he sits down heavily beside me with an oof sound as his weight hits the ground.

“You should try and lose some belly weight, Dad,” I say idly. “It’s not good for your heart.”

“Don’t you start worrying about my heart. Nothing wrong with it.”

“You’re working it too hard. Lose some weight. Go for a run once in a while.”

He snorts. “Run? Have you ever known me to run?”

“Only after an ice-cream truck,” I tease, to show that I come from a place of love. “Promise me. Now. Here. That you’ll take better care of your health.”

“What’s brought this on?”

“Nothing. Everything. I’m not going to be around to look after you and Mum in your old age. You’ve only got each other. She’s going to need you.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me in until our heads are together. “Don’t worry about us.”

“I can’t help it.”

“I know.” He sighs. “Listen, your mother sent me to get you. Nadia has gone. She wants you to come back and have a final dress fitting.”

“It can wait.”

“You’ll get me in trouble if I go back alone.”

“I’ve lost another two kilos,” I blurt out. I feel him stiffen. “Without trying. I think the end is getting close, Dad.”

“Oh, love.”

I cry, and he holds me while I do, my shoulders heaving with sobs that shake my body with such force that I honestly feel I might break all the bones in my body.

“I’m scared,” I tell him.

“Me too. Terrified. But you’re not facing this alone. I’m here; we’re all here.”

“I know.” I stare out to sea, where a sailing ship is moving slowly across the horizon, its white sails billowing against a brilliant blue sky. I’d give anything, in that moment, to be on that ship, sailing off into destinations unknown. “But at some point it’s going to be just me, isn’t it,” I say softly, through lips wearied by words of death. “Me. Taking that final step into the unknown. Leaving you all behind.”