Beautiful Burn(50)

I didn't expect my life to be short, I didn't expect to divorce my wife and fall in love with my former student, and I didn’t expect to get so little time on earth that I couldn't accomplish all the goals I'd dreamed of, but the time I did have, I would spend living.

And so I'd pushed on and went to radiation, and the rest of the time I pretended it didn't exist. I pretended that my body wasn't waging a war against it's own cells as I lost myself in Auburn -- her smile, her love, her laugh. But I hadn't been able to silence the nagging fact that I didn't know if I could give her forever. I'd forced myself to get to that six-month check-up. I had to know what my future held before I could give myself to her. Coming out of that appointment the week before Christmas with a confirmation that the treatment had worked had me anxious to sign the divorce papers and more excited than ever to tell Auburn my plans for our future, together.





twenty-seven


But cancer isn't forgiving, or discerning, or fair.

I sat muddled and desperate for a miracle in the waiting room, all too aware that sooner or later my miracles were bound to run out.

Three months after my life fell apart one snowy Christmas night, it crumbled again when Dr. Blair stepped into his office, a look of resignation on his face.

The cold settled into my bones when the oncologist reluctantly stated that the cancer had metastasized into the lymph nodes. My vision fragmented and my breathing became shallow. My lungs screamed for air as the synapses in my brain fired off with broken pieces of a life I loved.

The doctor used words like aggressive and chemotherapy. Long term likelihood and side effects. I'd dodged one bullet last summer, but maybe it had been the bullet that had done me in. I suddenly wondered if I'd chosen the wrong oncologist. Maybe if I'd gone to Detroit I'd have found a better one that recommended chemotherapy from the beginning and this cancer wouldn't have come back.

But it had. My hands shook before I bolted out of the chair and left his office. He and a nurse trailed into the waiting room after me, and the last words I heard as the heavy glass-paned door slammed was, "Call to schedule first round."

I didn't want it, didn't want any of it. Impossible. Not right. I was only twenty-eight years old. I wanted her. Wanted Auburn, but I'd chosen not to tell her about the radiation last summer to save her, and I would do it again. She'd left, moved on, and I'd continued, I'd been working to get her back, divorcing Mel and talking to the superintendent, but with one word, everything fell apart.

Metastasized.

That same day I walked into the superintendents's office and took a leave of absence, effective immediately. I hadn't told him about the radiation last summer, and apparently I'd hidden it well. For once the summer rush of tourists had paid off, it was easy to get lost three times a week for a half hour each time in Traverse.

He'd sat dumbfounded, as I turned and left his office. I wouldn't answer questions, couldn’t bear to get the words out, I needed to sit with this myself, so I just kept moving.

I started treatments the following week. Driving every day to Traverse by myself, letting them pump my veins with toxins to rid the diseased cells from my body. I hunched over my own toilet, weak and shaking, sick from the chemicals that were constantly fed into my bloodstream to kill something I couldn't even see.

And I dreamed of her. On the rare moments at night that my mind could focus and the shaking and sweats didn't obscure my vision, I read. I read “Lolita” and “To the Lighthouse” and “The Sun Also Rises.” I filled her bookshelf with the volumes I knew she'd love, and I survived.





twenty-eight


By week two of treatment everyone in town knew I'd taken a leave of absence. Mel was calling at all hours of the day and night, and each time I sent her to voicemail. It wasn't long before my inbox had filled and would no longer accept new messages. The urge to throw my phone away was powerful, but somewhere in the back of my mind I still hoped she would call.

And yet, when I saw her name pop up on the caller ID, I was surprised.

"Auburn." I answered, my voice shaking as I lay in bed, a book in my weakened hands.

"Why did you take a leave of absence?" She cut straight to the point. I would have cringed, but the happiness pulsing through my veins overpowered all else.

"It's good to hear from you too." I hummed, momentarily forgetting everything but her.

"Are you okay?" Her concerned voice melted my insides. I missed her. Fuck, it felt like my chest was caving in I missed her so much.

"No, I'm not okay." I couldn't lie to her anymore. I had one regret this summer, one thing that haunted me, not telling her.

"What's going on?" The fear ratcheted another notch in her voice.