Fear of Missing Out

by Kate McGovern

  “You’re going to have to do better than this,” I told him when we got off the train at a random stop on the Orange Line.

  “Shush, shush. Just wait for it.”

  It was fall, still early enough that New England hadn’t packed it in yet for winter and the streets were buzzing with couples taking an evening stroll along the cobblestones, wearing light, expensive-looking leather jackets and fashionably draped scarves.

  I recognized the neighborhood, if mostly from movies directed by Ben Affleck. “I’ve been to the Bunker Hill Monument, if that’s where we’re going,” I said as we huffed up Breed’s Hill in the middle of Charlestown. “We went there in seventh grade. So if this is the thing I’ve supposedly never seen, you’re wrong.”

  “Shhh. Don’t ruin it.”

  “Fine, fine.” I watched him from behind as we ascended through this quiet corner of Boston, lit softly by gas lamps. His hair was just a little too long in the back, ready for a trim. I already knew the contours of his face well enough that even from behind, I could picture where he had a fine spritz of pimples on his forehead, where one hair curled defiantly away from his eyebrow.

  When we got to the top of the hill, the monument glistened in the fresh light of the moon, a huge sword rending the night sky in two. The wrought-iron gates around the park were locked.

  “Oops,” I said. “So much for that.”

  But Mohit shook his head. “You think I’d bring you all the way here at night only to show up at a locked gate?”

  “Are we going to break the law?” I asked, as Mo led me around to the other side of the park.

  He smiled at me. “Are you hoping the answer is yes, or no?” Then he stopped by a patch of shrubbery. “Here.”

  As Mo parted the shrubs, I saw that a section of the gate had been damaged, as though a car had careened into it years ago and no one had bothered to fix it. The damage left a gap barely wide enough for a small-to-average-size human to squeeze through. Mohit went first, then put a hand out to guide me through.

  It was just the right amount of illegal—kind of bad, but not go-to-jail bad—to make me like him even more than I already did.

  At the base of the monument, I caught my breath. My astrocytoma hadn’t made itself known yet, but it was probably already growing there, blossoming inside my skull and wearing me down in ways I couldn’t put my finger on. There were almost three hundred steps to the top of the monument.

  “We’re going all the way up?” I asked.

  “I told you you hadn’t seen this.”

  We put our cell phone flashlights on, lighting just enough to see two steps in front of us as we made our way up the obelisk. We climbed and climbed, not speaking. It was quiet enough that I could hear his breath a few steps ahead of me.

  When we emerged at the top, he reached his hand out to help me up the last few steps, and it felt so normal—our hands in each other’s. It sent the sparkliest shiver through me.

  “There,” he said, obviously proud. “See.”

  “Damn.”

  He took in the view and sighed happily. “If that doesn’t make you believe in God…” he said, almost to himself.

  I laughed, on impulse. I so rarely heard anyone talk about God and sound like they meant it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh.” I could feel my palms starting to sweat with nerves. Here I was, having a possibly romantic moment with a person I barely knew but very much wanted to know more, and I’d already managed to make a mockery of his apparent religious beliefs.

  But Mohit just shrugged it off. “It’s okay. I’m not offended.”

  “Okay, good.” When the relief passed, curiosity—and a hint of boldness—replaced it. “Then can I ask you something? So you, like, believe in that? You look at that view and think it’s all thanks to some higher omnipotent being?”

  “Yeah, I do. That and architects. I’m guessing you don’t?”

  “I believe in the architects part.”

  He nodded as a small smile stretched across his face. “So there is a possible Venn diagram of our belief systems, then.”

  I pictured it: two overlapping circles. Faith in his circle; in mine, I suppose, science. In the overlapping center, architects. Our Venn diagram.

  “This view is my favorite thing about the East Coast so far,” he said, going on. “Other than you, I mean.”

  Beneath us, the city unfolded in every direction. The brightly lit triangles of the Zakim Bridge stretched toward the sky, tucked between the skyscrapers. Tiny dots of headlights moved across the bridge, headed home and away.

  On the other side, the rest of Charlestown was all low row houses and dim streetlights and blocks of public housing, and then the harbor.

  We were standing just inches from each other, not touching, not speaking, but somehow it felt like our bodies were sending quiet bursts of energy back and forth.

  “Good, right?” he said finally. “God, architects, whoever. Good?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Good.”

  8.

  Ever since that night, the top of the Bunker Hill Monument has been kind of our spot. So on Saturday, because it’s unseasonably warm for October and you never know how long fall is going to last, we make a pilgrimage.

  I meet him at the entrance to the subway.

  “Morning,” he says, kissing me.

  “Morning.” I push my hood down, revealing my new hair, and I watch as he takes it in. “So? What do you think?”

  Cue uncomfortable pause.

  “What?” I ask finally, even though I’m pretty sure I know what he’s going to say.

  “Is that stuff permanent?”

  I roll my eyes. “It’s my hair. My life.” My heart pounds a little bit harder, the way it always does when I am aware that I’m picking a fight, don’t want to, and yet can’t help myself.

  “Why are you mad? All I asked was if it’s permanent. Is it?”

  “I mean, that’s your way of saying you don’t like it. And yes, it’s permanent in the sense that it’s not going to wash out in the shower, but it is impermanent in the sense that my hair is going to fall out again soon anyway. So then you won’t have to look at it anymore.”

  “Okay, okay. No need to get melodramatic on me.”

  “Well, you could say something nice.”

  “So I have to say something nice now, even if I don’t believe what I’m saying? Is that just a rule of having cancer—you earn the right to only ever have people agree with you and affirm your choices?”

  I feel like I have emotional whiplash from how quickly this conversation has gone downhill. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”

  Mohit hikes his backpack higher up on one shoulder. “I’m not being a jerk, I’m being honest. There’s a difference.”

  “You’re being a little bit of a jerk, though.”

  “And you’re being a little bit childish. Is it a crime to have a preference for how my girlfriend wears her hair? I like your hair long, okay?”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice for you if I weren’t about to go bald again, then.”

  He sighs deeply. “Can we go now, please?”

  I give him a side-eye as we start walking into the subway. “Come on, Astrid,” he continues. “You’re beautiful, okay? Do I think you’re more beautiful with hair that is not an absurd color that appears nowhere in nature? Yes. Sue me.”

  I chew my bottom lip. I want to be all, you know, empowered and whatnot, and not care what my boyfriend thinks about my style choices. But I also want him to think everything I do is awesome. Most of all I want to stay mad, wallow in it for a little longer.

  But when I turn to look at him, his curly black hair is sweeping across his forehead in a way that drives me crazy because whose hair does that with exactly zero effort and/or hair products? He half smiles at me hopefully, asking for permission for our fight to be finished. And just like that, I’m swallowed back in.

  “I would sue you, but I can’t afford a lawyer,” I say, trying not t
o crack a smile myself.

  “Your case doesn’t hold any water.”

  “Okay, now I’m going to smack you.”

  “Then I’d really have the advantage in court.”

  I roll my eyes one more time, just to feel like I got the last word, and stalk off ahead of him down the escalator. Mo follows me, like I know he will, and we get on the inbound subway, heading toward our spot.

  * * *

  On the way up Breed’s Hill, I have to pause to catch my breath.

  “Stop here, Mo.”

  He’s a few paces ahead of me on the path up to the base of the monument, but I’m completely spent from our walk. I bend toward the ground, hands propped on my knees.

  “You okay?” He watches me with concern.

  “I don’t know if I can go to the top.”

  Mohit nods. He probably already knew that would be the case and was just humoring me so I wouldn’t yell at him for underestimating what I could handle. He puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me over to a bench. I lean into his chest. The wind bites at my cheeks and reminds me of that very first night, when he brought me here and held my hand and I wanted everything to stay exactly the same forever. I didn’t know then, although I should’ve guessed, that the only certain thing in this life is that nothing ever stays the same.

  I slip my fingers through his. “Can I ask you something weird?”

  “Please do.”

  “What does your dad say about reincarnation?”

  He laughs. “I mean, are you under the impression that Indians just chitchat about reincarnation over breakfast?”

  “That’s not what I meant. Your dad sometimes counsels people in hospice, right?” Mo’s father’s religious duties mostly consist of officiating marriage ceremonies on the weekends, but I’m sure I’ve heard him mentioning also being occasionally on call to meet with Hindu patients who are at the end of their lives.

  Now Mohit’s face hardens as recognition sinks in. “Why are we talking about this?”

  “Because I want to know. What does it mean, reincarnation? It’s not really that you just get reborn in some other body. That’s just what white people think it means, right? What do practicing Hindus believe?”

  “You’d have to ask my dad, honestly. I don’t really know.”

  “What do you think, though?”

  He exhales, letting the breath vibrate through his lips. “Astrid, can we just enjoy a nice afternoon in the park without talking about mortality and the like?”

  “‘And the like,’ really? What are you, an elderly British man now?”

  “It sounded good in my head.”

  “Weirdo. Just tell me what you think.”

  Mohit settles back on the bench, his face locked in a pout. “I mean, it is about rebirth in another body. But it’s like your present life and your present actions—they affect your next one. Hey, look.” Some kind of large insect has alighted on his knee, a winged creature that looks practically medieval, with an armor of patterned gray on its back. It’s probably just a fancy moth. Mo leans forward to inspect it, careful not to scare it away. “Whoa. Check out his exoskeleton.”

  “His what-now?”

  “Exoskeleton. It’s cool, right?”

  “Mmm. Very,” I say, mostly trying to appease him so he’ll get back to reincarnation.

  “Anyway.” The creature flies off, and Mo watches it go. “What was I saying?”

  “Your present life affects your next one?”

  “Oh, right. Anyway, you don’t know how much or how little you’re going to suffer in the next life based on your current actions. Ideally, you’re supposed to mature in each life, so eventually you can achieve freedom from rebirth. Like, that’s the ultimate reward. That you stop being reborn.”

  “And then you die-die?”

  “I guess so. It’s more like you just leave the cycle of birth and rebirth. Like you’re not going to be reborn as a moth or something, but you’re also not going to be reborn as a better human being. You’re just, like, finished. But I don’t really know, Astrid, I told you.”

  I chew on that, the idea of freedom from rebirth as a reward. I’d assumed reincarnation was a comforting concept—you get to try again at life, woo-hoo!—not a burden that you’d want to work toward absolving yourself of.

  “You don’t believe in any of that stuff, anyway,” he says. “So why do you care?”

  Mohit and I have argued the merits of faith versus science since we first met. He knows that in my family, we tend to scoff at the invocation of any kind of higher power as an explanation for anything. Science explains most things. And for the things it doesn’t explain, I figure, it’s only a matter of time before it will.

  “I know,” I say. “I’m just curious what you might be thinking. About what’s going to happen to me, after.” I stop there.

  “After what?”

  “You know what.”

  He shifts his body so he can look me in the eye. “I don’t think about that. I think about how fast treatment options are changing. I think about the clinical trial you’re going to be part of. And how we’re going to shrink that tumor back to where it came from, just like the first time, and—”

  “Mmmkay, whatever you say.”

  “Come on. Dr. Klein did it once already; there’s no reason she can’t do it again.”

  “Fine, I know. You’re right.” I huddle into him and take a breath. “But there’s this thing I wanted to tell you about.”

  “Okay, so tell me. About the thing.”

  “It’s called cryopreservation.”

  “Cryo-what?”

  “Cryopreservation. It’s … it’s a new science, kind of. It’s, like, freezing a body to preserve it at the moment of death.”

  Mo looks at me, his face contorted in complete incredulity. “I’m sorry, O science-minded, highly intelligent girlfriend of mine, but did you say freezing a body?”

  “I know, I know. But it’s a thing. When you die, they take your body and put it in some exceptionally cold freezer in a warehouse somewhere and preserve the tissue.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “They don’t really … know. Yet. But maybe…” I pause, thinking about how weird and unbelievable this is about to sound coming out of my mouth. “Maybe, one day, they could wake you up. I mean, not you, me. Could wake me up.”

  Mohit looks out across the park in front of us. A man in a neon vest is picking up trash on the other side of the lawn as though it’s just another normal moment in another normal day. Which it is. A normal moment in a normal day. Except my astrocytoma is back, this time it’s going to be the end of me, and I’ve just voiced out loud the crazy, fever-dream possibility that I could die without death being the last thing I do.

  Neither Mo nor I say anything for a long time. I watch his face, the way his skin crinkles around the corners of his eyes, the way his Adam’s apple pulses just a little in his throat when he swallows. I can see from the minute movements of his facial muscles that his brain is working inside his skull. This is what it means to be alive.

  9.

  Later, alone in my room, I open the camera on my phone and flip the lens so it faces me. Hello, Astrid. My face looks gray and tired in the half-light, but the blue of my hair is still bright. I shift to video mode and hit record. I may as well start keeping track.

  Things I’ll miss when I’m dead (a partial list):

  The view from the top of the Bunker Hill Monument

  Lying next to Mo and talking

  Lying next to Mo and not talking

  Mo’s Adam’s apple

  Wondering what will happen next

  To be continued.

  10.

  Two weeks later, I make Mohit drive me to the extra appointment I made without my mother’s knowledge.

  “Why didn’t you just talk to Dr. Klein about this at your last appointment?” He meanders into the right lane without signaling, inviting a loud honk from the driver behind him. Driving isn’t one of
Mohit’s core strengths.

  I grip the door handle. “You are going to do your level best to get us there alive, right? I’m already at risk for an untimely death as is.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. Complain not to your personal chauffeur.”

  “Fine.” I check the right side mirror and over my shoulder for impending collisions. We’re clear. “And I didn’t talk to her about it last time because my mother was there, and I’m not quite ready to introduce her to the concept of freezing me, y’know?”

  He shrugs. “Whatever.”

  I can tell he’s still skeptical. Since I first brought up cryopreservation, Mohit has remained in heavy questioning mode, which is about right for him. What research has been conducted so far to indicate any chance of success with eventual reawakening? Would my whole body wake up and walk out of the lab one day, or would they map my brain signals to a computer? And, if so, does that mean the computer would behave like me? How much like me? What if the tissue is damaged in the process of preservation? If medicine doesn’t advance enough to cure my brain tumor, then what’s the point of waking up at all?

  I have none of those answers. I’m not even sure the answers exist.

  He pulls into the parking lot at the hospital. I lean on his arm on the way in the door. My pain’s under control, now that Dr. Klein has managed to find the right meds to make me feel pleasantly numbed yet not totally loopy, but the weakness on my right side isn’t getting any better, and I’m moving a little more gingerly than normal.

  “You all right?” he asks as we go through the revolving doors. I ignore him and push myself to walk a little faster, a little stronger.

  * * *

  “So what gives me the pleasure of extra time with you today, Dr. Ayeroff?” Dr. Klein sits in the plush leather chair behind her neatly organized desk. We’re in her office, not the exam room. We always sit in her office for “discussions.”