chapter 1
1292 Words
I guess I knew it even when he told me.
It was something in the manner in which Dr. Reeves had not met my eye, and fidgeted with the papers so that they might re-order the truth. The clock of his back yard was too loud as though counting.
Then he finally looked up.
“Isabel…” he began gently. “The latest scan confirms what we were afraid of. The tumor’s growing faster than we expected.”
He hesitated. “You have… maybe three months.”
Three.
Just three.
Three months to breathe, to pretend, to finish everything I hadn’t even started.
Three months to live.
I didn’t cry. Not in front of him. My fingers tightened around the fabric of my bag as I stared at the floor.
“The medication?” I asked, though I already knew.
He sighed. “It’s not working anymore. We could try another round—more aggressive, maybe buy you some time—but it won’t change the outcome.”
A silence came in the room, thick, still. I just looked at a crumpling corner of a poster behind him; one that called hope to fight cancer, and I wondered who that line had really helped.
He leaned down on his elbows, speaking softly, “I know that you have dealt with all this by being strong Isabel, but you do not have to do it alone. Your mother—”
“She doesn’t know,” I said quickly. “I didn’t tell her it came back.”
His brow furrowed. “She has a right to know, doesn’t she?”
I stood up slowly. “Maybe. But I have to work. The shelter needs me.”
“You need rest.”
“I need routine,” I replied flatly. “Thank you, Dr. Reeves.”
I turned before he could say another word.
---
The shelter was within two bus stops if not more hidden on the outskirts of town like an abandoned postcard. It had an aroma of old wood and hot soup and most days it introduced me to a feeling like home than the apartment I stayed in.
“Isabel!” Janice’s voice greeted me before I even stepped fully inside. “Didn’t expect you till noon.”
I smiled faintly. “I wanted to see my people.”
She snorted. “You say that like this place is a royal court.”
I shrugged. “Maybe it is.”
“Then Helen’s the queen,” Janice said with a wink. “Speaking of, she’s been pacing like she knew you were coming.”
I reached the dayroom in time to see her at once,--Helen at her window, in her old dusty pink sweater, slender fingers beating against her lap in the rhythm of waiting.
“There’s my sunshine,” she said, grinning as I approached.
I sat beside her and gently placed a hand over hers. “And here I thought I was the moon today.”
“You’re both. A whole galaxy when you smile,” she said, squinting up at me.
I laughed, and she swatted my arm playfully. “Don’t laugh at old women. We’ve got stories that’ll make you blush.”
“Try me,” I challenged, raising an eyebrow.
Helen smirked. “There was a time when I was twenty two that I danced in the rain barefooted with a boy I wasn t to love. he kissed me, as though I were a fire.”
“That sounds so romantic”, I said to myself as my smile dropped by just a little.
“My special heart-break is like that”, she added lightly, “but I am grateful to him every day. Otherwise, I would not have had the courage to love my husband.”
I smiled. “Still putting up with him?”
Helen looked toward the hallway with mock affection. “That man talks in his sleep. About soup.”
“Sounds romantic.”
“Only if you're a vegetable.”
We both laughed, and I relaxed for the first time all day.
Helen leaned closer. “What’s bothering you, Isa?”
I blinked. “What makes you think something’s bothering me?”
“You’re not making fun of my sweater yet.”
I glanced down at the fuzzy pink mess and chuckled. “It’s growing on me.”
She gave me a knowing look. “You’ve got that faraway stare again.”
I glancing down to our hands where hers shook brutally just a little in mine. “Have you ever seen something you could not have?”
Helen smirked. “Like tight jeans and tequila?”
I laughed shouted, and she smiled all the more. “We all want what is not good, Honey. However, stopping the desire to have them is not an option.”
Like clockwork the door creaked open and in walked a tall silver-haired man using a cane and wearing a teasing grin.
James.
“Are you gossiping again, Helen?” he asked, his voice warm and full of amusement.
She smirked. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
James walked over and bent with effort to kiss her cheek. “I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re already charming the prettiest girl in the building.”
I flushed. “I think she means you.”
“Too late. The damage is done,” he said dramatically, and Helen rolled her eyes.
“You see what I live with?” she muttered, squeezing my hand.
“Tragic,” I played along, smiling.
“You could save me, Isabel,” James added with mock-seriousness, “just say the word.”
Helen leaned in and whispered, “He used to be handsome. Now he just has jokes.”
“And she used to be sweet,” James muttered, placing a hand over his chest like he was wounded. “Now she throws me to the wolves.”
Helen chuckled. “That’s because I know you’d survive.”
So they shot wit back and forth a few minutes--jeering, ripping tales, gazing at one another in quiet glances, as though there were nobody in the world except the two of them.
I was laughing with them, yet held some constriction in my chest. I watched them and experienced a sensation I had not been allowed to entertain for years.
I wanted that.
Not forever. Not love that lasts decades. Not anniversaries and wedding bands.
Just a glimpse of it. A touch.
Someone to sit beside me.
Someone to make the end a little less lonely.
But I couldn’t let anyone fall for me.
That wasn’t part of the deal.
I wanted to belong to someone—but I needed them not to love me.
Because love was weight, and I was already sinking.
“Isa,” Helen said softly, breaking me out of my thoughts. “You’re quiet.”
I gave her a small smile. “Just thinking.”
“Thinking’s dangerous,” she replied, patting my hand. “Especially when it starts with the heart.”
She looked at me with a gaze too knowing, like she saw something I hadn’t meant to show.
Then she added, “But I hope, whatever it is… you let yourself feel it.”
My throat closed up. I forced a nod.
James stood, stretching slightly. “Well, I’ll leave you two rebels alone before you plan my downfall.”
“Already done,” Helen quipped.
he kissed her and shuffled out.
and with that we were once again alone.
Helen looked back at me, a glimmer in her tired eyes. “Don’t wait until it’s too late, Isabel.”
I couldn’t answer.
Because for me… it already was.
- Writer
