Love Me Broken

by Lily Jenkins

  “I’m really proud of you,” I start, and she turns to me. Her hair is tied back, with two loose strands over each ear. Her eyes are red, and she wipes them dry. She tries to smile. Her face tenses, and she has to look away to not cry.

  “Why?” she asks.

  “Because I know you’re going to be fine.”

  She shakes her head, puts a hand to her eyes as she cringes with tears.

  Then I wonder, “Has it been worth it?” She looks at me. “I mean, to you. Now that we know, now that it turned out the same.”

  She takes my hand. “I love you, Adam.”

  Fuck. She’s going to make me cry too. But I resist. I need to know some things first. This is important. “That’s not what I asked. And I’d understand if you said no. These last few months haven’t exactly been fun.”

  “Adam,” she starts as if I’m being ridiculous. “Of course it was worth it. How can you even ask that?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I think it would have been easier on everyone if it was quick. Or…”

  She looks at me sharply. “Or what?”

  I can’t meet her eyes. “That you would have been better off if you never met me at all.” She starts to object, and I talk over her. “I’m serious. I keep thinking that if you had just met someone else, someone healthy, you could be living a completely different life right now.”

  She shakes her head. “The only life I want is one with you.”

  “But you’re not going to get that.” She cringes a little, and I feel guilty being so blunt, but fuck, she’s got to face the facts and there isn’t much time. “I need to know you’ll be happy,” I say. “That was one of our conditions, remember?”

  She looks guilty herself. “I’ve been taking the classes.”

  I wave her off. The motion makes me cough, and my body doubles over as I cough into my hand. Erica rubs my back, which doesn’t help at all but does make me feel a little better. When I can breathe again, I say, “I’m not talking about classes. I’m talking about you being happy. After Conner—” I glance at her eyes “—you were broken. But I was there to help you be strong again.”

  Erica looks away, staring at the window without looking through it. “I don’t like talking about this,” she whispers.

  “I want to talk about this, Erica. It’s important.” She looks over at me. “Do you remember that game we played? That first night together, on the pier?”

  She turns to me. She nods.

  I have to stop to breathe, to calm myself down so that I can continue. “I’d like to play that again.”

  Her face becomes very rigid. Her eyes are filled with fear.

  “Please, Erica,” I say. “For me.”

  She doesn’t want to, but she agrees. It’s hard to say no to someone on his deathbed.

  “So I’ll ask you questions,” I say, “and you have to answer not as things are, but how they’d be in an ideal world.” She’s quiet. A tear falls from her face as she looks down at my hand. “Only this time we’re going to add another rule. This time we have to imagine it as an ideal world that I’m not a part of.”

  She looks up at me sharply. “No!”

  “Erica,” I say. “I want to know you can at least imagine being happy in a world without me. I know it sucks but I really need to know you’ll be okay.”

  She keeps her eyes on mine. “That’s not fair,” she says. “You don’t have to imagine a world without me.”

  My heart lurches. “You’re right,” I say. “It’s not fair.”

  Erica thinks about this for a moment. Then she says, “I want to be closer to you.” She looks at the bed.

  “Get in,” I say, scooting over, careful to keep all my wires and tubes out of the way. She gets up and tries to climb into the hospital bed without shaking it too much. I put my arm around her shoulder, and she leans back. It’s an electronic bed, the kind you can adjust with a remote. I was sitting up before, and I use the remote to recline us slightly, so that we’re looking at the ceiling. Erica puts her head close, lets an arm drape around my waist.

  “Okay,” I say softly. “Let’s try to do this, all right? In a perfect world, what is your life like?”

  She closes her eyes, trying but failing to stop her tears. “I can’t,” she says. “It hurts too much.”

  “Maybe we’re going about this wrong. Maybe if you can’t answer, we’ll try to answer together.”

  She’s quiet.

  “Please, Erica. We can start practical. Like, in an ideal world, where do you live?”

  She opens her eyes, and it’s obvious that she hasn’t even considered this.

  “I know my mom won’t kick out you or anything,” I say, “but even if she let you, you can’t live with her forever. Where do you live?” I can feel her thinking. “San Diego?” She shakes her head. “Or go back to Astoria?”

  “Maybe somewhere near the water,” she says. I hold her tighter and nod.

  “That’s good. What else? You go to school, obviously. You get good grades. You—”

  On the bedside table, my phone vibrates. It’s my mom. I send her call to voicemail and continue with Erica.

  “You graduate with honors. You look beautiful at your graduation. Your mom and dad are there.” I pause. “You’re smiling for photographs.”

  I picture this a little too clearly and have trouble continuing. I don’t want to cry. The phone starts to vibrate again and I turn it off in annoyance. I don’t want this last time with Erica to be interrupted. This is important.

  I have to push her further. “In a perfect world,” I ask, “do you have kids?”

  Her body shudders at the question, and she buries her face into my side. I can feel the warmth of her tears through my nightgown.

  “I think you do,” I say. “You’d be a good mom. You’d… you’d be a good wife. Any guy would crazy not to see that. Don’t let anyone treat you like less than you’re worth. Don’t let anyone treat you less than amazing.” At this she breaks down. I put my arm around her, and say, “Shhhh, it’s okay.” And I try to picture Erica older, older than I’ll ever see her. I try to picture her at twenty. At twenty-five. Thirty. With kids. As an old woman. How she’ll be the day she dies. That’s too long to miss me. That’s too long to live alone.

  “You have a lot of love to give, Erica. You can’t lock that away inside. You can’t let that part of you die.”

  She tries to say something, but it’s mumbled. She pulls her head up and says, “I love you.”

  “I’m not saying you’ll ever be able to replace me,” I say, and give her a sly grin. “I mean, come on. I’m Adam.” She shakes her head and tries to bury it again. I pull her up, put a finger on her chin to make her look at me. “But you have to live a life that’s big enough for the both of us, okay?”

  She stares back at me, her eyes wide and green. I can’t help it. I raise both hands to the sides of her face, just to touch her, just to bring her close. “You’re so beautiful,” I whisper. “How did I get so lucky?”

  Her face trembles with a sob, and I bring my mouth to hers. Our lips touch, and she brings her hands up to my face, holding me close. Her mouth opens, and we kiss hard because we both know we may never kiss again. This kiss has the intensity of a last kiss. I’m crying now. I can’t help it. It’s all too much for me. But still I kiss her.

  Without pulling away, only taking her lips from mine so she can say it, Erica whispers, “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I say back, and I mean it. I mean it with every cell of my body. And I immediately kiss her again. I kiss her lips, her face, her forehead, her neck. My chest heaves, and I can’t tell if it’s because I’m crying or having difficulty breathing. I don’t care. If this is my last breath, I want to die in her arms.

  She is the one for me. I may not be able to be the one for her, but she is the one for me.

  We fall asleep like that, in each other’s arms. Well, Adam seems to fall asleep. I can’t. I just lie there, holding him, feeling him ho
ld me, and try to savor the feeling. I listen to the sounds of the hospital: the day nurse rolling her cart through the hallway, the steady shuffling of feet in the waiting area, the sound of seagulls outside and the occasional car horn.

  It’s peaceful, quiet and miserable.

  I don’t want this moment to end. I don’t want to ever stop listening to Adam’s heartbeat. I don’t want to be in a world without him. It’s too painful, too—

  There’s a knock on the door.

  Adam’s eyes open so quickly that I’m sure he wasn’t really sleeping either. His eyebrows descend in annoyance, but he doesn’t say anything. Then there’s another knock, louder, more insistent.

  “What?” Adam calls out.

  The door opens and his mother enters.

  “Can’t you give us a minute?” Adam snaps.

  She shakes her head. A female doctor appears behind her in the doorway. “Why didn’t you pick up your phone?” his mom asks. “I’ve been trying to call.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  She glances over at me and then back at Adam. She smiles.

  “We might have a hope after all.”

  Adam and I both sit up, and Rachel motions for the doctor. She’s an older woman who nonetheless takes good care of herself. She has a trim figure and neat, professional makeup. Her dark hair is tied back, and she introduces herself as Dr. Karen Yates.

  “I’ve been reviewing Adam’s case file,” she says, “and based on his history, he would be a prime candidate for a pneumonectomy.”

  Adam blinks. “A what?”

  “A full removal of your left lung,” Dr. Yakes explains.

  We’re silent.

  “Is that possible?” I ask.

  “Yes. It is a last resort when less radical surgeries have been ineffective.”

  “What’s the cost?” Adam asks.

  His mother takes his hand. “Nothing to us. It’s covered, and we’re well past our deductible.” The doctor nods.

  Hope blooms in my chest. But I still can’t believe it. “What are the risks? What’s the survival rate?”

  Dr. Yates turns to me. “The surgery has an excellent survival rate, over ninety-eight percent. I have performed three myself, all successful.”

  “And are those patients fine now?” Adam asks.

  The doctor looks away, and my stomach sinks. Then she looks back at Adam. “The surgery itself is safe, but it is not a cure for cancer. It is still possible that new growths have metastasized elsewhere, and we’re simply not aware of them at the moment. If this is the case, a pneumonectomy will only buy a short amount of time, if that.”

  “If the cancer doesn’t come back,” I ask, “what will Adam’s life be like then? Can you really live with one lung?”

  “Oh, absolutely. But it will be an adjustment.” She turns to Adam. “You may not have your previous levels of stamina. A lot of patients report shortness of breath, occasional dizziness. You might have to rest more often.”

  Adam considers this. Then he turns to me. “Would you be okay with that?” he asks. “You’d be stuck with half a man. Are you sure you’d still love me broken?”

  I start to cry, and turn to hug him.

  Will I still love him? Does he even have to ask?

  We barely absorb the news before I am being prepared for surgery. There’s no time for delay. I might be dead by tomorrow, after all.

  A nurse goes over the familiar surgery spiel: questions about how much I’ve been eating and drinking (almost nothing, thankfully), a review of my history, an overview of the surgery itself. Only she’s not using the word surgery. She’s using the word pneumonectomy.

  Then I’m told some not-so-familiar items. A separate, older nurse comes in and makes me sign a waiver saying that I understand the risks of this surgery. “A pneumonectomy is not a simple operation,” she explains. “In your condition, we wouldn’t ordinarily even advise a surgery this intensive. But we don’t really have any other options.”

  She looks me square in the eye.

  “Adam. It is only fair for us to tell you that this is by no means a sure thing. It is merely a chance, a gamble that we’re getting all the cancer cells. And in your weakened condition, there is a real chance your body will give out under the stress. You may never wake up again.”

  I have to turn away from her gaze. I look down at my hands.

  Erica puts her hand into my palm.

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

  *

  It’s all very fast. I am prepped and ready to go by the evening. We don’t have much time for anything, we are so busy keeping up with standard procedure.

  But before I am wheeled into the operating room, they give me one last moment to say good-bye to Erica and my mom.

  My mom goes first. She throws her arms around me and grips me so tight that I’m worried she’ll squeeze me to death before I have a chance to go in. She kisses my face, and then looks me in the eye to tell me I’m the best son she could have ever hoped for, and that she loves me more than anything. “I’ll see you after,” she says, and I nod, even though it still feels like we’re kidding ourselves.

  Then it is Erica’s turn. She is quiet, looking at me, knowing more than my mother that this might be our last good-bye. I take her hand.

  “No matter what happens,” I tell her, “I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Thank you for keeping me alive.”

  She bends down and hugs me, and I can feel her body shake with uncontrolled sobs. “I love you,” she says, and repeats it again. “I love you.”

  I kiss her cheek. “I love you too.”

  I can’t bring myself to say good-bye. That’s too sad somehow. So we simply lock eyes as the nurse turns my wheelchair away, and I’m pushed through the double doors of the operating room.

  And then it’s just me. I may never see them again.

  Two men wearing surgeon’s masks help me onto the operating table. I’ve had two major surgeries before, but the tension in the room feels much higher this time. This is a much more complicated surgery, I realize. There’s more equipment in the room, more people. Everyone knows the risks.

  I see Dr. Yates. She smiles at me. “We are going to do our best,” she tells me, and somehow that makes me feel like I’m going to die for sure. Then the anesthesiologist pokes my arm with a needle, and the IV sedation begins. I know from my past surgeries that I’ve only got about sixty seconds left before I’m out. My heart beats, and I hear it on the monitor.

  What if I never wake up again? What if these are my last moments? It feels surreal, like it can’t be happening. Even with all these months expecting to die, I feel unprepared. It’s a very strange feeling, knowing you might be experiencing your last few seconds of life on earth. It’s a mixture of panic, of acute observation, of surprising clarity.

  Then I start to feel the drug take effect. My limbs feel heavy. But my mind is still sharp, and I suddenly don’t want to go under. I don’t want it to end. This can’t be the last thing I ever think. That’s too unfair. I was healthy; I didn’t smoke; I exercised. I’ve lived so little. Everyone else gets decades more.

  And what about Erica? I miss her so fucking much. I wish she were here.

  I concentrate on this idea. My eyes are closed, and I know I only have moments. I picture her. I picture us together by the water, her body wrapped in mine. I remember our first kiss. Her laugh. Her smile.

  And I am not scared anymore. I am not bitter at my poor luck. If these memories are all that life allows, maybe that’s okay. Because they’re memories of her. And I’m grateful for that.

  I am—

  We return to Astoria for the funeral.

  It’s summer, and I have the window down as we drive. Pete is in his carrier in the back seat, belted in and secure. As we turn onto Commercial Street, it doesn’t feel like I’ve been away for nearly a year. It feels like I’m coming home after a really long day.

  I let out a long sigh.

  “Hey, where’d you g
o?”

  I blink, woken from my thoughts. Adam is in the passenger seat. The pneumonectomy was a success. Adam had one more round of radiation, just to be safe, and his latest reports came back clean. His cancer is officially in remission, with no new cells.

  He’s healthier now, and starting to look more like he did when I first met him. He’s put on some weight and grown out his hair. He’s older around the eyes though. Facing death changes you. It’s changed us.

  He’s waiting for me to respond.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say. “It’s just kind of weird going back.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “It sucks that it’s not under better circumstances, but at least we’ll get to see everyone again.”

  “These are better circumstances than I could have hoped for.”

  I think of Eliza Burnside. She died last week, peacefully in her sleep. We’re back in town for her service. If things had gone differently, I might be attending Adam’s funeral instead.

  A lump forms in my throat, and I have to take Adam’s hand and hold it for a moment, just to reassure myself that he’s there. Then I feel nervous without both hands on the wheel, and go back to driving. We reach a stoplight and wait for it to turn green. I look at the summer tourists, a mother tugging her daughter’s hand as they cross in front of us. I look at the bright blue sky, the high fluffy clouds. It looks so warm and sunny that it feels almost inappropriate for why we’re here.

  “Did you know her?” Adam asks.

  “No,” I say. “Not really. I mean, I had seen her around town on her motorcycle. She was kind of hard to miss.”

  Adam chuckles. “Yeah. I only met her twice.” He grins. “I think she was hitting on me.”

  I laugh. “She was eighty-seven!”

  “Hey. The heart wants what it wants.”

  The light turns green, and we continue along the familiar road, past Nicole’s coffee shop. She will be at the service already, but I look through the window on instinct. I’m amazed that it all looks the same. Then I realize it’s only been about ten months since I left. It feels like a decade.