“No! No!” I slam my hand against the floor. “Steffi, no!”
“Yes. It’s going to get really bad, and I don’t want you to see me deteriorate that way. And, no, don’t try to talk . . . stop it. Don’t talk,” she warns me when I cannot control myself. “More than you having to see how this disease is going to take me down, I cannot worry about you and what this is doing to you. I can’t.” She’s wrecked—I know this—but she continues in a straightforward tone. “This is my choice, and I get to have that. I haven’t been able to make many choices in my life, but I at least get to choose how I handle my death. And you’re going to respect what I’m asking of you. I love you, and I will always love you, but we are saying good-bye right now.”
My world goes black.
“No!” I scream. “No! Don’t shut me out! I can help! I can help!”
There are sounds behind me, a touch on my back, maybe. I think that Esben’s hands are on me, trying to pull me into him, but I’m not sure.
“I love you so much, Allison,” I hear her say. “Don’t forget that. But I need to do this alone. Don’t call me, don’t text. Don’t try to be in touch at all. It’ll just make it harder on me, okay? Every call or text would be about cancer. About how I’m feeling. Or there’d be a freakin’ dance around cancer that I don’t have the energy for. I already feel like shit all the time, and it’s going to get a lot goddamn worse, and I do not want to feel like I have to tell you all about it. Because you love me, you’d want to help, and you can’t. You can’t do anything. No one can. I have great doctors and great nurses, and . . . everyone is taking care of me as best they can. I’m in good hands. It’s just this disease. It’s nobody’s fault, but there’s no saving me. There’s not.” Steffi is so blunt, and a knife through my chest would hurt less. “Please. I love you. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend. A sister, really. And I’m so glad you’ve found Esben and that you’re in love and have someone to get you through this. And you have Carmen, right? And other friends? You can do this. Do you hear me? You can do this. You have to.”
It’s hard to hear myself over my devastation. “Stop saying good-bye! Don’t you do this. Jesus, Steffi, don’t! I love you. God, I love you so much. Don’t you dare say good-bye! This isn’t right—”
“Esben is with you?” She asks this again with too much serenity.
I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything. Where I am, what I’m hearing. “Esben?” It’s hard to talk though my thready breathing. “You’re here?”
“I am,” he says firmly.
Finally, I notice how tight his hold is on me. I stop fighting it and let him lift me from the floor so that I’m resting against his chest. “Yes,” I tell Steffi. “He’s here.”
“Good. Hold on to him. He’s going to get you through this. That makes it better for me.” Steffi is so calm and takes so long before she speaks again that it panics me more. “This hurts. I told you it would. I wish there was some better way to prepare you, but there isn’t.” Steffi’s voice grows raw, and she gets assertive in a way that sends ice down my spine. “I’m going to hang up now. I need to. Please know that I hate this as much as you do. If I thought I could tolerate not cutting you out, I would. But it will make this all easier on me. Tell me that you understand this.”
“No!” I am in pieces. “It’s not right. Let me be with you! You have always done everything alone. Don’t do this alone,” I beg.
“I especially need to do this alone, so, stop. I’m asking you to stop,” she says sternly. “Tell me that you understand. Tell me that you’ll live your life with everything you’ve got and that you will not let this stop you. You will be happy, okay? You’ll do that for me?” She’s begging me, but there’s so much control in how she does so. “Give me that, Allison. Please. And promise me that you’ll let me go.”
There is infinite desperation in what she asks of me, and I know that I have to give her what she needs. If I flew out, she’d refuse to see me. I know her. I realize now that Steffi has always stubbornly refused my help, anyone’s help. If I’d understood that years ago, maybe I could have pushed more for her to let me in. But her walls are clearly a thousand times thicker than mine ever were. After everything my friend has done for me, there is no choice now but to give her what she wants, no matter how much I hate it. “Okay,” I say through tears. “Yes. I understand. I promise. I will do everything you want. I love you. I love you, Steffi.”
“Be brave. Be brave. Be brave. You can do this.”
She hangs up, and I begin to truly lose my ability to breathe. My ability to scream, however, is in full force.
Esben holds me with my back against his bare chest as I sob, and he’s the only reason I can sit up. I cannot do anything but heave sobs and succumb to searing pain.
This is the first time that I understand the term “blinding pain,” because the agony I’m in has cut off my vision, and I break free from Esben and crawl forward, groping for anything to break. I hear the couch thump hard against the floor several times, and I must be doing this, but I don’t know for sure. Then there’s the sound of glass shattering, then rattling and a crash as I careen around the room, my howling piercing my own ears.
“Allison, no. Baby, no.” Esben grabs me and pulls me in, taking something from my hand before he has me fully in his arms.
I want to cling to him, but my legs give out before I can. As I drop to the floor, Esben catches me in his arms and carries me to my bed. Gently, he sets me down and lies, facing me. My hands claw at him, and I’m crying and pleading. “Make this stop! You have to make this stop!” I call out Steffi’s name over and over. Suddenly, I stop and wipe my eyes and look up at Esben. “Wait. You can fix this. You fix everything. So do it. You have to do something.”
He shakes his head in confusion. “What is going on? Steffi?”
I shove my hands hard against him. “She’s sick again. Just tell me that you’ll fix this, goddamn it! Do something! Someone will know how to help her.”
Esben exhales loudly.
“She says it’s terminal, but that can’t be right. We can’t let it be right. Fix it. Change things back to the way they were. You can do anything, so do this for me. Please, oh please, Esben . . .”
He pulls me in, and I try to fight him, but I’m too spent now. “I wish I could . . . ,” he says.
“No, no, no. Don’t say that! Don’t say that! Please, just this one thing! You’re magic; you can find a way.” Now I am crying again, because I know that I’m being crazy and asking the impossible.
“I would do anything for you. I would. This just isn’t something I can fix. God, I’m so sorry.”
I fall apart. For hours, I cry and choke on anguish while Esben holds me. Eventually, my tears give out, my voice goes, and my throat is so raw that my body battles against my mind and shuts down my crying. There is nothing left in me now.
CHAPTER 25