Chapter 24
Lo
Aidan pulls on his suit trousers from last night. “Are we still playing it cool around your mom? Because after last night, she probably suspects something.”
“We can sit together. Maybe we’ll head to breakfast separately, though?”
He’s not leaving town immediately, but he hasn’t committed to living in Galway full-time again, either.
Maybe there’s a way forward for us, if he wasn’t just humoring me earlier when I asked.
The idea of him being away for months at a time touring still puts me on edge, but now I know what it feels like to have none of him for years, and I’m willing to try if he is.
Still, I’d rather not give this a label or make it “Mom official” until there’s concrete evidence of him relocating back to Galway.
A signed lease, a moving date, something.
Before Aidan leaves to change his clothes, I pull him into one last, lingering kiss, knowing they’re the final moments before we each go back to our everyday lives.
This fragile, unnamed thing between us has to survive in the real world.
The conviction and honesty in his kiss tell me that it has a fighting chance.
Alone for now, I take a quick look at my email while the shower water heats up.
There’s a message from my doctor’s office saying new paperwork has been added to my patient portal.
Nice. My mom wanted the full update from my latest annual checkup, and I’ll be able to relay the all clear in person over a couple omelets.
I follow the link and sniff at the body wash as the page loads.
It’s the bloodwork panel.
Elevated lymph levels. Elevated white blood cell count. What? This can’t be right.
It’s my name and date of birth at the top, but this has to be a mistake.
If anything is amiss, the patient’s records are not supposed to be updated in the portal.
A human being from the office is supposed to break the news; you’re not meant to find out that you probably have cancer from a cold set of numbers on a website.
When I toggle back to my email, I find it was timestamped for midnight.
It must have automatically updated and sent to me by mistake. Right when I’d been dancing with Aidan.
Three treatment cycles of chemo were needed to go into remission before.
Hours a day tethered to an IV full of powerful drugs for six weeks at a time.
Constant nausea, brain fog, crushing fatigue.
Steroids gave me mood swings and a puffy face.
Could I endure months of that while vying for a top spot in my class to impress the attending physician, and with the uncertainty of whatever is between me and Aidan?
I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge, but last time, chemo gave me the energy of a slug.
The stress of being a third-year has already been taking its toll.
I’m constantly tired, my appetite has dwindled, and I’ll realize at the end of a frantic day that I’ve barely eaten.
Medical school is designed to be grueling, so I’d written off those symptoms as typical stress from being challenged every day in the hospital.
But now, I can’t ignore that they look like evidence the leukemia is back.
My breathing becomes shallow as fear threatens to overtake me.
This was not the plan. This cannot be happening.
I take a deep breath and then another. I force myself to focus on what I know.
Results like these mean following up with a bone marrow aspiration and biopsy.
It will be straightforward enough: local anesthetic, a special needle that twists into the hip to remove a small section of the solid bone and marrow, dressing the wound.
The whole procedure will take around twenty-five minutes and then I can go about my day.
Condensation collects on the phone screen, making me aware of the steam now filling the bathroom.
How long have I been staring at these results?
Shit. Now I only have a few minutes to meet my mom downstairs before she comes up here looking for me again.
Instead of the shower I need, I turn off the water and put up my hair to hide the singed ends.
I’m not ready to face either of my parents on any terms but my own right now.
At this rate, I’ll start losing my hair from stress before I even start chemo.
Another round of treatment would derail my academic career, right when I’m finally spending time in clinical rotations with real patients; when I can finally start making a difference.
I’ve carried the weight of my parents’ impossible expectations and the responsibility to advocate for my own community since I was a kid.
Everything I’ve worked for: striving for salutatorian in my graduating class, earning a bachelor’s in biology from University of Texas at Austin, scoring a 514 on my MCAT…
could be for nothing if I withdraw from the program.
And Aidan…
Deep breaths. I need to compartmentalize this new information and get through breakfast. Then the rest of the day.
Then the next couple weeks. Just take it one hour at a time.
Then I can brace myself for the biopsy. Until then, it’s Schrodinger’s test results: both false alarm and utterly life-changing.
My phone buzzes and I expect it to be Aidan, but it’s my mom demanding to know why I’m not downstairs.
The buffet hasn’t even officially opened yet.
It’s like she can sense the bad news. She already hates that I decided to study abroad, and I don’t want to give her any reason to insist I return stateside.
Gathering myself, I head to the banquet hall. Aidan is sat with my mom and dad, who are on opposite ends of the table with a spot for me in the middle. Their eyes all snap to me at the same time.
“Good morning,” I greet the table as cheerfully as I can manage.
An attending once told me that physicians also need to be actors.
Hold neutral poker faces when patients present in the A&E with various objects lodged in their colons.
Mustering patience when a combative patient is on your last nerve.
A pleasant demeanor for the next case, after you’ve just given a family horrible news about their loved one.
I’ve never been one to hide my feelings—about anything but Aidan, I guess—but bedside manner is an important part of the job.
I try to take that approach now: This is for their sake, not mine.
“Why are you late?” my mom asks before I even have a chance to sit. A few of the other guests at the table swing their necks toward me at the question.
“The burnt ends of my hair aren’t easy to style.” I pat my brunette bob self-consciously. It’s in desperate need of a trim to even out the patch that singed.
At the end of the table, my dad’s face brightens in a smile. “Morning.”
“Hey, Dad.” We have to talk soon, but right now, I’m just trying to get through this meal without breaking down.
Concern shades Aidan’s face when I take the chair beside him. My mom pushes a plate with a veggie omelet my way. “Here, you need something nutritious after drinking last night.”
“She’s allowed to have some fun at a wedding, Tracy,” my dad says lightly.
I clench my jaw and Aidan pats my leg reassuringly under the table. The small touch offers me so much strength. “Thanks, Mom.”
Aidan nods, eager to keep things smooth. “I’m so glad you could all be here to celebrate the happy couple. The reception was gas.”
“Cielo really shouldn’t be drinking.” No matter what I do, my mom will see a cancer recurrence as my fault.
I didn’t eat clean enough. Didn’t get enough sleep.
Used a microwave too often. Burned the wrong candle.
She wanted so desperately to know why I got sick to begin with, but the truth is that sometimes it just happens.
I still don’t think she’s accepted that.
Anxiety has zapped my appetite, but I dig in anyway because if I don’t eat, the whole table will get an earful about overindulgence.
Aidan makes small talk with my mom and a few other guests who have joined us, chatting about the history of the castle, but periodically his gaze lands on me. When the others split off into a side conversation, he whispers, “Are you all right?”
Of course he’s sensed the energy shift since he left to take a shower.
“It’s just been a long weekend.”
“Too bad we couldn’t sleep in.”
I can’t help but think back to my first serious boyfriend.
I convinced my mom to let me return to public high school for senior year using a PowerPoint presentation explaining the advantages of in-person advanced placement courses and extra curriculars on my college transcript.
After being kept on a short leash while homeschooled, I immediately fell for a boy at school.
We dated for a few months before prom and I wanted that night to be my first time.
Seventeen-year-old me was determined to finally get some pleasure out of a body that knew the insides of MRI machines before it knew intimacy.
Then I got a cold that developed into pneumonia and spent prom night in the hospital as a precautionary measure. My first love ended up going with someone else and publicly cheated on me in front of the whole school. I was devastated, but I learned a lesson: Guys don’t want to be with someone sick.
One of the many depressing facts I learned in class about cancer is that it nearly doubles the divorce rate—but only when the patient is a woman in a relationship with a healthy man.
When the roles are reversed and the man is the one diagnosed, it plummets to a fraction of the typical separation rate.
It didn’t surprise me that it sent guys packing: It happened to me.
Aidan isn’t the dirtbag seventeen-year-old who cheated on me while I was hospitalized. Not by a long shot. But his life does resemble my dad’s. Work takes him away, and his work is what gives him purpose.