Page 43 of Nice Guys Don't Kiss Like That At Christmas
She continues, “I had been dizzy.Coughing.Tired.Itchy.And I dropped everything.I was studying GenEd at community college.I thought I wanted to be a vet.”
“I remember.”Of course, I remember.
She loved animals, even telling me once she became a vet, I’d be the first person she called when she inevitably adopted too many dogs.
She swallows again.“I stopped going on forums.Didn’t even join any for Hodgkin’s at first.I thought, okay, a few months of chemo, a scan, and back to life.”She shakes her head.“It wasn’t like that.”
My grip tightens at her waist.“You came back almost five months later.”
“Yeah.That first scan was rough.And the oncologist overseeing my oncologist-in-training was...a dick.And not an emotional pickle dick that pays attention.”Her next inhale is shakier.“Got a second opinion from an oncologist who actually listened to me.A kind specialist who didn’t push transplant on me even though he was a transplant specialist.He saw me.He gave me hope, and we started a different chemo treatment.Started therapy, too.I felt… seen, and… I started talking to you again.”
That part, I remember, too.She had turned twenty.I was twenty-three.And our messages?They went from casual to constant.From casual friendship to more.
She told me she changed her mind and wanted to become a Registered Nurse.That she wanted to work in ER.She sent me memes about vets and nurses, terrible anatomy diagrams and funny dog ones, let me rant about my vet courses.
And I threw myself into everything.Vet school.Volunteering.Studying at all hours.Picking up extra shifts at the animal shelter.I was already stretched thin, already filling every gap of time, because if I was needed, I felt like I had a purpose.
Saturday nights were the one thing I never skipped.Because Saturday nights belonged to us.
We’d eat something sweet (comparing cronuts).We’d laugh.We’d talk about whatever, our weeks, our classes, the meaning of life or the weather, and read books.
She read romance.I read nonfiction.
We argued about it like it was a sport.I’d quote history about the roman empire.She’d quote the books that made her laugh and hold her chest.
Until one day, she sent me a link with exactly zero context.The Hating Game,a romance novel.“Read it please,” she’d written.“It’s funny.And it has sex.And someone who sees past what everyone else sees.And someone who does way too much for others.You’ll like it.”
And fuck, I did.
After that, I read to her sometimes, did stupid voices for the characters to make her laugh.Got personally offended when she rated one of my favorites three stars.“I’m sorry but that … genitalia are too big,” she wheezed.“Too.Big.”And then she killed me when she added, “Not that I have firsthand experience, but…”
She converted me, book by book.Until it became our thing.
Throughout everything.Through two years of stories she didn’t tell me.
There were a couple of times we didn’t talk for several weeks, usually because she was busy with school, or her family and friends, a trip… or so I thought.
Even when she started going to school again part-time, instead of full-time, I didn’t question her.Even when she didn’t put on the light (to not wake up her roommate, she’d say) or when her video stopped working for at least three weeks.I should have asked more questions.
She had biopsies, more treatments, radiations, immunotherapy...she was rebuilding her body, having scans, and more scans.
About three weeks before Pittsburgh, I told her things I had kept from her.Because if she was going to truly see me, she needed the full picture.I told her about the test I failed.The second one ever.How I’d studied so hard my brain went numb, how I sat in my car for an hour afterward, telling myself it didn’t mean anything.
But it did.It was the third time I thought, “I’m not good enough for this.”
Told her about Cassandra.My high school sweetheart.Cassandra, who never did anything outright wrong, except treat me like a goddamn transaction.Like I was there to be reliable, to help, to fix things.
That relationship fucked me up.Because being helpful is what I do, but with Cassandra that’sallI did.Never told her when I was struggling.Never asked for anything back.She used what I offered, and I never offered anything else.Can’t fix a broken pattern when you don’t even know you’re in one.
Being on thatiZombieforum was me needing an outlet after a shitty date and a shitty day.
And when Eve didn’t show in Pittsburgh, when I stood in that hotel lobby for three hours, checking my phone, sending messages that went unanswered, that felt personal.Like I’d finally let someone see every part of me—every crack, every doubt—and she’d turned away.
Cassandra and I never argued when we dated.
Eve and I did.When we were tired.When we were hungry.When we disagreed.
I thought what we had was real.
