I am sick of needles. My skin is marked with the faint scars of all the needles that came before. I worry I look like a junkie. A cashier in the supermarket once looked at me with disgust, and it wasn’t until I got home and looked in the mirror that I realized my pale skin, shadowed eyes, and bruised arms could be taken either way.

I watch my favorite movie, Love Actually, six times in one day even though it is not Christmas, because I worry that I won’t still be around at Christmas to see it when it comes on TV. There are one hundred and forty-two days, nine hours, fifty-six minutes, and twenty-three seconds until Christmas. I find a website that gives me a countdown and make it my new screensaver. Morbid, for sure. But it gives me something to aim for.

Reluctantly, I put any more thoughts about the wedding on hold. My mother is convinced the treatment will buy me more time, and I allow some of her optimism to rub off on me.

Chapter Eight

Spring insinuates itself upon the land quietly and unassumingly. New growth splits the soil. Animals prepare to birth. The circle of life continues.

I go to my appointment filled with hope, while telling myself I am a fool for doing so.

The scan reveals the last-ditch treatment has had no effect on the cancer. In fact, like a tenacious weed, it has spread, sending offshoots to find new strangleholds. Better prepared this time, the doctor refuses to be drawn by my mother into giving out any time frames.

“I’m sorry, Ava,” he says. “Please don’t think we’re leaving you to deal with this alone. There are still treatments we can offer.”

I don’t say anything. I just get up and walk out. Although shuffle is more appropriate, given I am wearing the plastic slip-on shoes I reserve solely for scan days because of the ease with which they can be taken off and put on. I shuffle past signs that I have read a hundred times: BIRTHING UNIT, RADIOLOGY, SURGICAL DAY UNIT, CAFETERIA.

“Ava?” My mother catches up and falls into pace beside me. “Darling?”

I shuffle past men, women, and children. Of all ages and in varying states of disarray.

“You don’t want to talk, I get it,” my mother says, her breath catching in her throat. “Let’s go and get a coffee somewhere, eh?”

When I see the big glass automatic doors that lead outside I shuffle faster, as if I have sniffed out freedom on the other side.

Outside, I blink. The sun is brighter than I remember it being when we arrived, and I have no idea how much time has passed while I was inside. How many minutes I have just wasted.

“Ava?”

But one thing I do know: now that I am out, I don’t intend to ever go back in.

Chapter Nine

The French door leading out to the deck sticks, like it always does, until I throw all my body weight into it, and then it opens with a reluctant pop. I nearly drop my green tea but manage to hang on to it. The morning sky is the color of apricot and lemon, like a pretty Italian sorbet. There’s a perfect stillness in this moment, right before the world wakes and the pace becomes frantic and harassed and people forget to stop and just breathe. I know because I was like that once.