A doctor’s appointment to end my life.
Unable to stop myself, I break down against his chest. He holds me tight and kisses the top of my head. Though he’s trying to console me he’s making everything so much worse. I wish he hated me.
He will hate me after what I’m about to tell him.
In a minute.
I’ll tell him in a minute, I just want this last moment in his arms.
My final minutes as a normal person.
Xander kisses the top of my head and says, “You’re starting to freak me out. Is everything okay at work? What did Cynthia say?”
Work. Another problem I’ve been avoiding. Assuming I don’t get fired for my indiscretion, how long will the disease even allow me to work for?
My heart hammering against my ribs, I draw in a big gulp of air and say, “We need to sit down.”
I can’t bring myself to look him in the eye or gauge his reaction.
Without warning, Xander lifts me up and sits us down on the couch. He’s still holding me in his arms but I’ll never be able to get the words out like this so I shuffle as far away as the couch allows me to get.
I still can’t bring myself to look at him.
“Now you really are freaking me out. What’s going on? Were you fired? Did something else happen this morning?” Xander asks.
Unable to delay any longer, I pull my ostrich head out of the sand and say, “I was at the doctor’s, and I have bad news.”
“I thought you had a work meeting.”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Worry about what?”
“About what the doctor had to tell me.” I cling onto the arm of the couch with both hands and say, “Remember I had that test a couple of weeks ago? I got the results and they aren’t good.”
Xander slides across the couch and presses his body against mine. “What’s wrong? What did the doctor say?”
Closing my eyes, I swallow hard and say, “That I have multiple sclerosis.” It’s the first time I’ve said that out loud, an acknowledgement to myself as much as to him and I buckle over sobbing.
Xander pries my grip from the arm of the couch and pulls me into him. But now that I’ve said it out loud it’s become real and I can’t pretend. I can’t let him hold me like he can make everything or anything better.
I push myself away and force myself off the sofa. Managing to glance at his face my heart stops beating for a moment and then beats so fast that I struggle to breathe. I stumble back and end up sitting on the coffee table as if I meant to end up like this.
Xander flops against the back of the sofa, stretching each of his arms along the backrest. Stealing another glance at him, I catch him exhale sharply and throw his head back.
I’m not sure what to say, so I start rambling, “I started having problems over two years ago. My feet were clumsy when I tried to run down the stairs at work and then I started seeing spots. It took a while for my family doctor to take me seriously but a few months later my left hand curled in at the wrist and he sent me to a neurologist, by the time I got to the appointment my hand was fine again…”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before? I told you everything about me and then some and you didn’t think this was worth mentioning?” Xander says, leaning forward as he speaks.
“Sorry, you have every right to be angry,” I swallow hard and say, “and hate me, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know where to start and I was hoping for a different diagnosis.”
“You could have slipped it in at some point, ‘hey Xander, now that I’ve listened to all your problems here’s one of mine,’” he says, his voice full of frustration.
Fresh tears stream down my cheeks and I muster all my strength to meet his eyes. Even though they’re wide underneath his narrowed brow, they suck me in and I want to get lost in them. But I can’t.
Shaking my head I say, “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve loved every minute with you but we can’t continue.” My voice cracks and I bury my face in my hands.
Chapter 32
Xander
My lungs are empty, the air knocked out of them as if I’ve been hit by a Mack truck that fell from the sky. I lean back against the sofa again and try to refill them as I attempt to figure out what the hell is going on.
The last two weeks have been perfect. This morning was no different. Then Elsie went out and came back with this news. My brow furrows deeper, struggling to make sense of anything.
Nothing makes sense.
I don’t know whether to expose my anger at her not giving me any warning about this or to hold her in my arms and console her.
I barely know anything about multiple sclerosis other than that it sounds scary. All I know is I thought she was my new future and now she’s telling me we are through.
“What do you mean we can’t continue?” I say, running my fingers through my hair.
Through her sobs Elsie says, “Exactly what it sounds like. I can’t do relationships anymore.”
“Why not? Is it contagious?”
“No, but I have no future,” she says and wipes her nose along her arm.
Does this mean she’s going to die, I wonder, my heart dropping. How do I ask her that? “What does that mean? Are you going to, you know, live?”
“Unfortunately. I’m going to live a long and joyless life that’s only about suffering through each day.” Her voice is raw with emotion and I struggle to understand the words. “I’d be better off dead.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why? It’s true. This isn’t just about being in a wheelchair, this is about getting worse and worse – bedridden, my eyesight messed up, no control of my bladder or bowel, pain, god knows what else and through it all sheer and utter exhaustion. How is that living?”
“Look, I’ve got more than enough money to get you the best medical care.”
Elsie shakes her head and says, “There isn’t any. A few things here and there that barely work better than placebos. Money can’t save me. Nothing can. You deserve better, a normal life that’s full of happiness instead of suffering. I can’t bring you down with me.”
It feels like my body is encased in lead and I’m powerless to move. I still can’t comprehend what’s happening.
Without thinking I mutter, “But you were more than happy to lead me on these past couple of weeks and then hit me with this? I’d say that’s bringing me down.”
“You are Xander Whitman. I thought this would just be a fling. There was no way I thought I’d fall in love.”
“But we did. You could have at least told me this morning before you went to the doctor’s. Hell, I would’ve gone to the doctor with you. You should’ve told me last night. Or the day before. A little hint would have been nice.”
“You’re right, I should’ve, but I couldn’t face thinking about it at all. I’ve only been able to cope by pretending my symptoms were all in my head, like my family doctor first insisted. If only the news from the doctor was different, like I was hoping.”
Anger rises from the pit of my stomach and I say, “Hope and denial do sweet fuck all.”
Elsie draws her knees tight against her chest, her feet resting on the coffee table and she curls into herself, sobbing uncontrollably. I hate to see her hurting like this. I want to make it better.
At least I want to pull her against me and hold her. But my body won’t move. It’s too heavy and won’t respond to my wants. Instead I sink deeper into the sofa and watch Elsie fall apart.
Every night with her laying beside me in bed I’ve been picturing my future. Always with her. I’ve walked away from my family and friends and everything I have ever known to start a new life with her only to have her say it isn’t possible.
Now what?
With her I could picture that life but now I have no idea what my future looks like.
Rocking, Elsie says, “I’m sorry, I’m really really sorry. I can’t do this to you.�
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“You are doing this to me.”
“I’m saving you from me. Trust me, you need to run while you can.”
I don’t have a way to respond to that and remain silent. My eyes trace over her for some sort of understanding.
She stands and walks on shaky legs to the front door. “I have to go to my mom’s.”
“What? You’re just walking out of here?”
Gripping the door handle, Elsie closes her eyes and says, “You have every right to be angry and I know I hit you out of nowhere with this and it wasn’t fair. I’m sorry, but I hope one day you will look back at our time together and remember me with love and fondness, because that’s how I will remember you. You let me experience what it’s like to love and be loved, something I never thought I would ever know. Thank you, for everything.”
My breath is heavy and my pulse throbs in my ears but I’m still unable to move. “Don’t open that door.”
Maybe I’m unwilling to move.
“I have to go before this gets even harder.” Elsie opens the door. As she steps through it she says, “I’ll always love you.” In an instant the door shuts behind her and I’m alone in Isabel’s apartment.
I sit motionless on the sofa for a long time, my mind replaying our conversation and when I can’t make any sense of it, my mind replays our time together. Our perfect time. Who knows if she had told me everything at the start things wouldn’t have gone the way they did between us. We both would’ve held back.
There’s no way she could have coaxed everything I told her out of me. I doubt I would’ve decided to walk away from Luna and Lunatics.
Elsie’s last words ring through my head, you let me experience what it’s like to love and be loved, something I never thought I would ever know. Before her, I never thought I would know what love is either.
Now that I do, I also know what it feels like to have your heart ripped out of your chest and rammed down your throat. And for some stupid reason like a hideous disease.
I’m used to money fixing everything and for the first time in my life I understand what it’s like to not be able to make a problem go away by throwing money at it.
I laugh to myself, realizing I finally knowing what it’s like to be normal. And it sucks. Maybe it’s not for me after all.
Standing, I find the Jack Daniels in the little kitchen and take a massive swig straight from the bottle. What the fuck is my next move? Wandering aimlessly around the country until I figure something out? Head back to New York City and find a new life there? Something else?
I chew the options over as I gulp down more whiskey until my throat burns.
If nothing else, she’s left me as raw as the whiskey’s made my throat.
One thing’s for sure, I can’t stay here in this random chick’s apartment. The sooner I get out of here, the better. I don’t even have a car here, for fuck’s sake. Turning on my phone, I order an Uber to take me back to my apartment in New York.
With the bottle in my hand, I sit back down on the sofa and wait for the Uber to arrive.
Chapter 33
Elsie
“Here, eat this chicken soup,” my mom says, placing a bowl on the table in front of me. It’s the same oak table that’s been in this kitchen longer than I have been alive, and I’m sitting in the same spot I used to sit in when I was too sick to go to school. She’d give me chicken soup then too, but this time there was no chance of it making me better. Not even my soul.
“Thanks, Mom,” I say and pick up the spoon. My stomach rumbles at the aroma. I’ve been at my childhood home for a day and a half and have barely eaten anything since I got here.
Mostly I’ve been curled up in bed, scared shitless about the future.
But more than any of that, I’ve been beating myself up for the way I treated Xander. I will never forgive myself for what I did to him.
I can’t stop thinking about the look on his face as I walked out the door. It tore me into a million pieces, but it was my only option.
With a spoonful of soup in my mouth I start crying again, swallowing down the soup before I choke.
My mom places her arm across my shoulders and says, “Oh honey, I know you’ve been dealt a bad hand and it’s not fair, but you can’t give up on everything.”
Resting my head against her I say, “It’s pointless not to.”
“But the disease is unpredictable. You don’t know how it will turn out. You might be okay for a long time.”
“A long time and then what?”
“And then you deal with it at that point but in the meantime you don’t stop living.”
“There’s no point in trying to set up a life when it’s going to be taken from me later,” I say, pushing away from her and turn back to my soup.
“You don’t know what the future holds. None of us do.” Her thoughtless words fill me with anger. I know for a fact my future is bleak, unlike most people.
“I know it holds nothing good for me.” I take another mouthful and my mother sighs.
She moves across the kitchen and loads the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Tears silently roll down my cheeks as I imagine what a life with Xander would have been.
Every day together, in my dreams, is filled with happiness. We never fight, we only ever have fun simply because we are with each other.
We get married in a small service and spend our honeymoon naked in bed. I picture our house and dog and being pregnant. He beams his megawatt smile when each of our babies is born, holding them gingerly in his strong hands. Xander dotes on me and our children and my heart is filled with happiness. Life is good.
The soup pot crashes on the floor and my fantasy dissolves into the steam of the soup.
“Damn,” my mother says, picking up the pot and cramming it into the dishwasher.
I have to stop thinking about Xander. Or anything. It’s better if I become a zombie. An empty shell of a human. The thought makes me break down again and I push the bowl away and bury my head in my arms on the table.
The doorbell rings, startling me. My mom rushes out of the room, her slippers flicking against her heels as she walks.
I still can’t stop thinking about Xander. What I wouldn’t do to be back in that swimming pool with him now.
“Hey,” Isabel says and folds her body over mine.
“What are you doing here?” I ask without moving.
“I hope you don’t mind, I told Isabel. I’ll leave you alone now,” my mom says and I hear her slippers flip across the floor and out of the room.
“Don’t forget me,” Nathan says. “I don’t need you to stand or anything, but I want in on this hug,” he continues, wrenching us both off the table. Both of their arms are around me and I smile.
“We heard about your diagnosis and we came straight from work to give you a hug,” Isabel says.
“Work. I wonder if I still have a job,” I say, thinking of Cynthia and my suspension.
Nathan stands tall and flicks his hand. “You don’t have to worry about that, Cynthia is falling apart without you. If anything I’d say it’s time to ask for a raise.”
I laugh for the first time since my diagnosis. Nathan always makes me laugh.
“I can picture that conversation. Now that I have a disease that’s going to prevent me from working as much in the near future, you need to give me more money,” I say and the three of us laugh.
If only. I guess I’ll find out at my meeting with her tomorrow.
Isabel takes both my hands in hers and says, “Why didn’t you say anything about it to us? We had no idea you’ve been going through this.”
Unable to give her any better an answer than I gave to Xander, I shrug.
“Yeah, don’t make yourself a martyr, you don’t have to go through this alone because we’ll always be here for you,” Nathan says, poking my shoulder.
“I didn’t want to burden anyone,” I say.
“Honey, would you think I was a burden if the situation had been reversed?”
Isabel asks.
“Of course not, I just wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening.” Just like I want to pretend Xander is here with me now.
“What did Xander say?” Isabel asks.
Shifting my gaze to the floor, there is a stabbing in my heart — a sharp twisting that hurts more than any pain I’ve ever known.
“OMG, did he leave you because of this? What an…” Nathan says, rubbing my back.
“No,” I snap. “I ended things because how can I ever be in a relationship now?”
“You ended things? Why would you do that?” Isabel asks.
“Because I have no future, and therefore we have no future. I’m not going to waste his time.”
“Isn’t that his decision to make?” Nathan asks, tilting his head at me and raising his eyebrows.
I fall silent. It’s true, I didn’t even give him the chance to do or say anything. My mind was made up. I had to save him from my misery. I did it because I love him and I want him to have a better life than the one he would have with me.
“Anyway, get this, Becca keeps phoning me and trying to get me to buy some photos,” Isabel says and I welcome the lightness of her voice.
“No way, the nerve of her,” I say.
“I know. Right? So, I pretended to be buddy-buddy with her and I asked her how much money she got for your photograph,” Isabel says.
“You are one crazy lady,” I say, smiling.
“Oh you know she is,” Nathan says and laughs.
“Did she tell you?” I ask.
“Only after I assured her I was not trying to get part of the fee for setting up the photo shoot,” Isabel says.
“Well, tell us already. How much?” Nathan says clapping his hands quickly.
“Get this, fifty grand,” Isabel says, raising her eyebrows.
“Holy cow, that’s insane. I can’t believe someone paid that much for my picture.”
“I think they were paying for Xander, not you,” Nathan says, chuckling.
“What did you say when she told you?” I ask.
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