Three Years Passed, One Word Ending

It all happened so quickly that you couldn't make sense of it at first. She did. But then, she was always better than you about being able to pick things up right away. She could recognize the signs; read into them and ignore them for years.

Three years, if you had marked it by date.

The doctor said something, and your fingers immediately tightened around hers. You were waiting with such anxiousness that when he actually told you what was going on, all you saw were his lips move in some monotonous rhythm.

Your initial reaction consisted of "What?"

She squeezed your hand, and though you wanted to tell her that you honestly didn't know what he had said, you didn't. Because suddenly you came to the realization that she knew something you did not. Maybe it was in the flicker of her eyes, or the way she had sucked down the last of her cigarettes the hour before. Maybe it was in her fingernails, bitten to the quick. Or maybe, just maybe, it was in her cautious nature; the ever- present concern for what you would do if something happened to her.

You used to joke about it, saying that you were fully capable of catering to your own needs. Never once did you think that this would be a possibility, much less a reality.

Cancer. Three years had passed. This was your one-word ending.

"Cancer." You breathed, testing the word, rolling it around on your tongue. You cringed, the way you often did when you kissed her while she was smoking. "How?"

But of course you knew how. It was predictable. In many ways, she was predictable. You had noticed the bruises first. You didn't think to ask, because you knew she worked with children and that in itself was a sufficient enough explanation. Some kid hadn't gotten his way, had poked at her until she relented. She bruised easily anyway.

You nodded an understanding; she shrugged in agreement.

Christmas Day, two years ago, you'd bought her a dress. An ornament she rarely favored, citing that anything other than jeans and a t-shirt was a masochist's wardrobe. She had worn it that night, only for your eyes to savor. For you to laugh as she stumbled down the stairs in the only pair of heels she owned, for you to admire the way the fabric swayed around her ankles, and for you to worry as you saw hints of her ribs pushing through the thick black velvet. "You've lost weight." It was not a question. You knew this and so did she.

"I haven't." she responded sternly. "The dress is too big."

You stayed quiet then, having learned from your father when it was time for a husband to suppress his thoughts.

Weeks later, she fell down those same stairs and remained unconscious until the paramedics came. The hospital told you nothing. You waited in a room, cold and alone, blanketed only by the sterile smell all hospitals carry.

They told you they would have to keep her longer. They told you it was probably nothing serious, a mere case of her not eating right. You nodded and smiled in pathetic relief, believing every word they fed you. You sat down again, playing with the wedding ring that had slipped off the thin rail of a finger she wanted to acknowledge when she was irritated with you.

She smiled at you afterwards, after you'd heard the words that sealed your fate. Your future. And your past, had she told you beforehand. You walked away; shut yourself off from her and the rest of the house for days.

On a Thursday afternoon she came to you, set her cold hands on yours, and spoke, though she was sure you wanted no part of the conversation. "We can do this, you know."

"You didn't tell me."

"I wasn't sure." Her words were hardly defensive, hardly even convincing.

"But you knew. You knew and you didn't say anything and you waited for me to find out like this." Perhaps you were being petty. You were probably being selfish. You chose to ignore it.

"It wouldn't have made any difference."

"Yes it would have! It would have made a big might have caught it before. We could have fought it-"

"We still can. I haven't keeled over just yet." She smirked, and before you could rationalize your actions you had her pressed against the wall, rigid beneath your grip.

"It's not funny, Madeline." Your voice was someone else's, and the anger permeating through every word was completely foreign to you.

"We're going to be okay. This is fine. We're fine." She set her head to yours, and it was then, for the first time since you had known her that you didn't believe a damn word of what she was saying. You knew this was hopeless. You knew this was a battle you were both going to lose long before you could even begin it. You knew when you looked at her, when you kissed her, that she knew these things too.

But you lied.

You lied to yourself as she had lied to you; you lied to her as she had lied to herself.

You simply lied, because things were just easier that way.