They all knew it was useless to lie to me. I knew it before anyone else, I felt it growing inside of me, twirling inside my veins. I felt it squeeze my heart and empty my lungs long before they noticed what was indeed wrong. But having heard them spelling out… it left me breathless, shocked, in complete denial. But there I was and nothing could have changed what was about to happen: I was twenty and dying in the arms of cancer.

“Well, I’m not going to get any more beautiful than this,” I tried to joke as mom worked her scissors through my hair. I wasn’t going to regret the long strands of dark hair. I wasn’t. That’s what I promised myself, but at night – oh,t he night, how terrible the darkness embraced my mind, making me toss and turn on the narrow hospital bed, making me stare into space as if all the answers were written in the oxygen particles all around.

They were talking, still talking, about how to proceed. Mom told she wasn’t giving up and almost moved with me in the hospital. But I knew and the doctors knew – there wasn’t much hope left for me. Somehow, silently and deathly, the cancer had reached the tiniest places inside of me, intoxicating my flesh and blood, eating me alive. Chemo wasn’t an option, neither was surgery, so they were pumping me with fluids and painkiller although I never hurt. Dying didn’t hurt for me.

“So are you just going to leave her die?! You’re not even going to try?!” I heard my mother sob through the slightly opened door. “I can’t have her die… she’s young and has her whole life ahead. I…”

“We’re sorry,” was all the doctors said. “We can keep her here and give her painkillers till the end or we can discharge her. I personally believe it would be better if she went home, be surrounded by her things, by her friends and people she knows rather than the hospital’s staff.”

“So you want her to die at home?” Mom was choking on her own tears.

“It would be easier for her.”

It would have been indeed. But it would have been difficult for her.

“Hey, bunny,” she smiled, few minutes later, face dry and bloodshot eyes, “guess what?” She sat down on the edge of my bed, putting an arm around my shoulders. “They said we can go home.”

A smartass reply was on the tip of my tongue, but I managed to swallow it back. It wasn’t of any use to be mean to my own mother. Not when I was going to die and leave her alone behind.

“That’s great then!” I even managed to smile a bit. “I get to see my friends without the nurses coming in and out of my ward. When are we leaving?”

“Well, if you start packing now, I’ll go sign the papers and we’ll be out by noon. Maybe we’ll get to stop by that restaurant you like that much on our way back. How does that sound?”

“It sounds awesome. Thanks, mom,” I hugged her waist before letting her go.

“For what?” Her eyes betrayed her surprise.

“For fighting for me,” I said looking out the window to the blue sky and wondering if there was a Heaven.

***

Good and bad days came. Good days filled with people that made me laugh, with group binging on Salem, with unhealthy snacks and talks about life and strange movies. Good days that made me wonder if me being terminal ill wasn’t just a bad dream. But then the bad days would come as if to confirm everything. Maaan, and they were some bad days! Loneliness, depression, anger, self-loathing, despair, death of all dreams – all of them and some more were hitting me right here, in the center of my being where my heart was bruising quietly. At first I cried and I begged to all gods to have mercy on me, to let me live. But at some point I stopped the crying and begging and even the smiling altogether. What was the point? Hoping meant just prolonging my soul’s torture. After all, death was a certainty for me…

“You can’t give up hope,” my mother used