La Vie en Rose {Life in Pink} (35 page)

Life seemed to be rotting within her, which was exactly why she hadn’t been outside of her home or the hospital in weeks. She wanted to die with dignity, not where others could watch the inexplicable horror of what she’d become. Again, she wondered why this disease was painted pink—her once favorite color.

Deep ruby stains marked the tissue in her fist as her nose ran. Red, not pink. Red because when she bled it was real, not some delicate act of femininity. She didn’t feel very pretty right now and she certainly didn’t feel like pretending.

I’m going to die like this.

There was nothing soft and rosy about her thoughts. Cancer was so deep and so personal, the actuality was murky, no way to explain such ugliness, but never would she define it as pink.

Bubblegum and taffy shades of punch wrapped around billboards and people. From pink ballet slippers to magenta wigs, it just seemed too bright for the last forty-eight hours. It was a brilliant distraction, but one that made her sad, because putting on pink in a show of solidarity wasn’t enough to save her. It was only a color and she needed a cure.

That party happening around the world with marches, runs, and parades...it was something Emma felt painfully excluded from. Disconnected, an outsider looking in from the ugly side of a pretty picture. She could barely walk, let alone dance or run. The pink had become so commonplace and so powerful it distracted people from the reality. She wanted the distraction too.

Sometimes she hated not being able to smile through the fear. Her inability to put on a happy face and act as though everything would come up roses left her with a sense of inadequacy on top of everything else she was trying not to feel.

I don’t want to smile anyway. I’m dying. I want to be fucking sad.

The anger was getting to her today.

Word was getting around that she was sick. She didn’t care. She wasn’t ashamed to have cancer. The text messages—yes,
text
messages—were very sympathetic—at first.

“
This is terrible.”

“I’m so sorry to hear...”

But after a while, they stopped, not even a cricket chirp from her phone. And then, they gradually started again, people calling, feeling terrible they waited so long. It was all very considerate and overwhelming, but she didn’t want their apologies. She just wanted her life back.

She hadn’t known so many people cared about her. However, the longer her health remained unpredictable, the more people’s condolences changed. There became an almost universal tone to every call she received. She was the patient so,
clearly
, she’d done something wrong, knew a little less than everyone else who still had their health and therefore thought they possessed a magic cure.

“
I have this book...”

“Blueberries! Blueberries! And more blueberries!”

“Pray.”

“Try not to worry. Stress makes a breeding ground for cancer.”
That one was a fucking joke. Like she could just turn off her emotions. Sure. Her life wasn’t anything to fret over.

They were very kind suggestions, however, she was too exhausted to hold a book and lacked the vision to read. The thought of food, even the almighty blueberry, turned her stomach. And pray? She laughed. Every thought she had was a prayer. Didn’t they know that?

All she had the strength to do was think, and even that she did inadequately, her mind sloshing around in a steady stew of confusion. But when she laid still, her loved ones moving quietly around her so she could rest, her mind always returned to the question that started everything. Why? What caused this to happen to her?

She’d never done so little and known so much. Every waking second, there were thoughts, feelings, emotions, and fears about heavy things like life, relationships, and, above all, death. Maybe it was just her time.

But what about Riley? Who would look out for him? And what about her parents and Rarity? It was infuriating, knowing she might die and her death did nothing to bring them closer to any answers. Tomorrow it could be them. Why did this happen to people? Maybe they didn’t need a cure as much as they needed to understand the cause.

She didn’t blame people for not knowing how to act or what to say. She didn’t know either. Cancer overhauled lives, the lives of the patients and those closest to them. Most people didn’t want to spend an abundance of time worrying or being reminded how meaningless their new sunglasses were. It didn’t make them bad. It made them human. If Emma had a place to run and hide, she’d go.

I wish, for just one day, the word cancer didn’t exist.

Maybe the pink ribbons were all some people could manage. She glanced at her mother, working tediously to fold and pin the pastel bows as her basket gradually filled.

Making ribbons had become her mother’s latest hobby. She sold them at work and sent a check in Emma’s name each month to a cancer research center. And while her dad didn’t visit often, every time she saw him he wore his pink proudly. So perhaps the ribbons were healing in a different way—healing those trying to cope with cancer by proxy.

When she saw a stranger wearing a ribbon a slow awareness took hold...
hey, that’s for me.
And then her mind would travel the same path of questions.
Do they know someone with cancer? Did she have it? Is she a survivor? Did the person they know live?

The ribbons were the softest edge of awareness, but maybe the pin itself was the better symbol. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Perhaps she was just looking for something to blame, a place to direct her anger while she waited to see if she’d live or die.

There was no room to hide—even on the days she wanted nothing more. She’d surrendered her strength, her vanity, and a great deal of dignity in order to accept that she actually
needed
help, needed all the pink because this was what her life had become. Once she let go of her ego and let others in, the battle became a bit more manageable.

Damn she was thirsty. Tired of waiting for her strength to return, she, again, let out a frustrated breath. “Mom?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

She nudged the bottle of water. “Can you please open this?”

“Of course.”

Her thirst, for the moment, was quenched. A small but notable win.

****

S
he sat on the plastic bench Riley had put in the shower. How pathetic was it that she didn’t even have the strength to take a five-minute shower, which actually turned out to take over twenty-five minutes?

This would be the highlight of her day. After waking less than an hour ago, she’d gone and exhausted herself already.

As she deliberately dried her body she stared at the girl in the mirror, no longer recognizing the woman as herself. She’d lost so much weight. Her cheeks were so gaunt her eyes looked enormous, making the purple circles all the more prominent against her sharp, protruding bones. How had that happened so fast?

No hair, no eyelashes left to wish on. It was a new naked.

The trouble with not recognizing her physical self was that she’d also lost sight of her inner self. The thoughts filling her head were no longer her own. What happened to Emma? Where did she go? Would she ever be back? She was too tired to miss her, but eventually she might—if she made it that far.

It had been seven weeks and she could barely remember the woman she was, the girl she’d always been. Vaguely, she recalled a girl that was careless and free, but also burdened by stupid worries, like if the cabinets were organized or if last year’s jeans were still in style. How strange to concern oneself with such trivial nonsense.

She looked again at the reflection in the mirror. If that wasn’t her and the thoughts in her head didn’t seem her own did she even exist anymore? Was she dead? Dying?

Maybe she was being reborn.

The longer this went on the more she was certain she knew nothing at all.

****

C
ancer was stealth, sneaking in like a phantom breeze, setting down roots like a weed, and rapidly overtaking what was once a beautiful place of life. Chemo was a gamble. They were poisoning the weed, but it was so strong it became a guessing game if they’d kill the weed without taking the flowers or destroying the garden.

Her breast hurt. Maybe it wasn’t working. Maybe it was spreading. So many unanswered questions.

Shoving such unknowns away, she reminded herself of the facts. She
trusted
her doctors—
literally
with her life. If they could cure her they would. She respected their advice and truly believed the chemo would do its job and kill the cancer cells.

Those were the promises she repeated every day, because every day she lost her faith and had to find it again. They’d kill the cancer cells. They would. She just hoped the process didn’t kill her too.

“Cakes, you didn’t take your pills.”

She glanced at Riley. “What? Oh.” She was so grateful he and Rarity were always there to remind her when to do things like take her medicine. The doctors were constantly prescribing new medications and she’d given up trying to keep track.

Struggling to sit up, she accepted the water he handed her and swallowed the pills he’d slid into her palm. “Thank you.”

He settled onto the couch and she nestled into his side. Happiness.

She’d been cooped up in the loft for weeks, only leaving when she had an appointment and then coming right back. It was cold outside and flu season, so everyone was adamant that she remained in a warm, clean environment.

Her mother hadn’t been by in over a week because her dad was sick and she was afraid she was a carrier of whatever bug he had. But she called several times a day. It was like living in a petri dish where every microscopic variable counted and needed to be analyzed.

“When’s the last time you ate?” Riley asked.

She tried to recall her last meal. It had been a while, but she didn’t have an appetite. He needed to get out of the house. “You should go out with Jake for a while, Riley.”

“Knock it off. When did you eat?”

She sighed, wishing her life hadn’t derailed his. He loved her too much. She worried what he’d have left to love after she was gone. “Not too long ago.”

“Emma,” he warned.

“I had half a banana this morning.”

“I saw the banana. That wasn’t half. You took a bite and left it on the counter.”

“I wasn’t finished,” she teased, but he didn’t laugh. They used to laugh all the time.

“How about soup?”

Her belly revolted. “No, thank you.”

“Rarity made fruit pops. Want one of them?”

That would make her mouth feel better for a while, but she didn’t want that either.

“How about a smoothie?” he offered.

That was where they usually came to an agreement. Riley would leave her be about eating for a while if she drank one of his magic smoothies. “Okay.”

Food no longer had much taste, so she didn’t mind. He stuffed them full of leafy greens and all kinds of healing fruits and vegetables. She wasn’t sure what they did for her, but they gave him peace of mind, so she always said yes.

He stood and went to the kitchen. This new routine, already familiar and old, was all they ever did.  As she watched him something came over her, a moment of insight, a dark, reoccurring epiphany that could knock her down if she weren’t already sitting.
I have cancer.

Staggering.

Nauseating awareness pinched a nerve, yet she remained calm. Every few days when the epiphany came it had the same unpleasant effect. It didn’t matter that every thought had to do with cancer. There was no preparing for those chilling moments of awareness when
cancer
was actually happening to her.

But she didn’t cry. Maybe this uncharacteristic, unruffled acceptance was a new side of her. She was getting stronger, unshakable. She was still terrified, but there was a new layer of peace blanketing the ongoing shock. Was this numb surrender a good thing or a bad thing? All things to think about—and think she did.

The blender brashly buzzed then silenced. Riley returned with a dark green shake disguised in a pink cup. “Here you go.”

She took the drink like a good little soldier and sipped it so he’d relax. He was so good—good to her, good to his sister, good to her parents, good to Marla. She’d never believed such an incredible man could exist.

It seemed a shame to waste all that goodness. Hopefully by winters end this nightmare would be over, but that seemed unlikely. Losing a winter to play nursemaid was fine, but he couldn’t sacrifice more than that, not when he was perfectly healthy and capable of doing all the things she was not.

He was too good to waste another second on this disease. And what if there weren’t any more winters? What if this one was it? He was too invested, losing himself in her decline. He couldn’t forget who he was like she’d forgotten who she used to be. He had to live, because he still had the privilege. Placing her hand in his, he turned and smiled.

“Don’t wait too long, Riley.”

His mouth curved down and he scowled. “What?”

“If I go, don’t wait too long to fall in love again. You’re too good at it to put it aside for grief. Promise me you won’t wait too long.”

His eyes scorched with dark rage. He’d never looked at her with such anger. “Shut. Up.”

She couldn’t shut up. This was important. Who knew if the treatment was working or how much time they actually had left? “I want you to know I’d be okay if you found someone else—”

“Knock it off!” Ripping his hand from hers, he stood. Snatching up the empty cup, he marched it to the kitchen where he angrily threw it in the sink.

She flinched, but waited for him to collect himself, knowing this was a difficult but inevitable conversation. The water shut off and he braced his hands on the lip of the counter, his back toward her.

“I have cancer, Riley.”

He turned, a look of confusion on his face. Maybe it was more obvious to him. He’d been watching it happen. She, on the other hand, had been riding along, staring perplexedly at the stranger now controlling her body. She was that stranger and she’d never felt more detached from herself.