September 16, 2023

Content Warning: Terminal Illness, planned suicide.

Prompt: Create a dialogue between two characters in which one person knows they will never see the other again (and the second person has no idea).

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"Mara, it's been ages! My goodness, look at you!"

Carissa comes careening down the aisle, not a care in the world for shoppers browsing the pharmacy shelves...or me, really. If the woman knew a single thing about me, she'd know this kind of display is not welcome. At all. This is exactly why I haven't seen her since graduation.

A tendril of bleach-blonde hair is plastered to her shocking-pink lipstick, and as she marches toward me with a slight wobble on those ridiculous heels, she hastily pulls it away from her mouth. The strands drag neon pigment from the corner of her lips and across her cheek—she looks like a deranged, half made-up version of the Joker. From Jersey Shore.

"My god," she squeals, pulling me in for an unsolicited hug. She smells like patchouli and cloves. "You look nothing like your Facebook photo. You must have lost 50 pounds. Please tell me how you did it; my husband won't stop bitching about the size of my ass!"

She laughs, her joke obviously hilarious to her own ears. It's not funny.

"Yeah well, you know. Haven't had much time to update social media lately." I have no intention of telling her anything about what I like to call 'the chemo diet.' The bitter taste of nickel and bile. The sores on my tongue. Most days, even the sight of food makes me nauseous—never had such an easy time losing weight. They really ought to figure out how to turn cancer into a weight loss drug. Think of the profits.

"Oh, don't I know it. That thing is such a time-suck. I swear, start scrolling and before you know it, it's midnight. Seems like it's the only way to keep up, though, with what's going on these days. Do you know, I saw a post the other day about Becca—do you remember her? She's got five kids, now. Five..."

I do know Becca; she volunteers with Hospice. She comes to my house once a week with a refill of my ginger tea and the romance novel we picked out together. It was weird at first, listening to her read the spicy parts, and we would cackle until we were both wheezing and breathless. But it felt good to laugh, and it feels good to listen to her read because there are times when even holding up a book feels like a gargantuan task. You can only watch so much t.v., you know?

"...and it must be nice to have that kind of money, because god knows it would be impossible to feed that many kids without it. I have a hard enough time feeding my two. But what about you? Still holding off on having kids?"

Yes, Carissa. They cut out my ovaries and my uterus to try to save my life. As it turns out, it didn't work. Best birth control, ever.

"You know how it is. Kids? In this economy?" A laugh, disingenuous to my own ears—but she's too engrossed in digging through her purse to notice. She laughs too, equally fake. But then, I've never known Carissa to have any depth. She hasn't mentioned the bruising under my eyes or my thin hair, or the rash I have crawling up my arms. And if she had bothered to notice anything about me, she would have mentioned it. She couldn't help herself. I roll my eyes.

That's what's so tiresome about these encounters. There is not a single part of me that wants to be inspected or pitied or, I don't know...interrogated. Even so, on the rare good day that affords me the energy to go out in public, there's a part of me that wishes someone would notice the world is ending. Be forced to know it like I do. I don't even know what that would look like...but the part of me that's dying wants it more than anything.

She's still digging through her purse.

"Hey, Carissa, it was good to see you, but my Haagen Daas is melting. Maybe we'll get coffee sometime?"

I swear her arm is up to the shoulder in that bag she's hauling around. A sudden image of Carissa, dressed as Mary Poppins pops into mind. She's the least Mary Poppins person I've ever known. But when I begin to inch away from her, she pulls her phone out of the depths in triumph and brandishes it like a trophy.

"HA! I knew I had it somewhere. Let me get your number. There's a new coffee shop on the corner of Spring and 27th that has the best fucking danishes I've ever had in my life," she gushes. Just the idea of meeting with her on purpose sounds infinitely worse than dying a slow, agonizing death. Even if I hadn't chosen assisted suicide, the prospect of suffering through coffee with this woman would make me consider it.

Have I always been this bitter?

"How about next Thursday? My oldest has football practice at 6:00 and for a whole goddamned hour and a half, we can chug coffee and eat pastries. Who cares if we get fat? You've got some wiggle room there, huh?"

She hands me her phone and I add my contact info, conveniently forgetting a digit or two. Even if I had a week to live, which I don't, I wouldn't spend the last of these precious moments with her. I wish I had learned that lesson sooner: live every moment just the way you want to.

I might be alone, but Becca will be there. Not this false friend with her plastic face and her mean-spirited gossip-mongering. Her vain conceit. Becca will read and we will laugh and then she'll hold my hand.

"Sounds good," I say. I muster up what seems like an honest smile. "Spring and 27th. See you then."