Even If Saving You Sends Me to Heaven

“Mara…” Zane started. It was hard for him to even say her name. He didn’t know where to begin. He’d never planned on breaking up with her, and he wondered how he should do it.

She didn’t even see it coming. She squeezed his hand and said shakily, “Don’t worry, Zane. I love you.”

Her words made his chest feel like someone was raking knives through him. He clenched his fists, ignored the pain, and resisted the urge to say that he loved her too and wanted her to stay with him until the end.

She misread the pain in his expression and crooned, “It’s going to be okay.”

This gave Zane the fuel he knew he would need to do what he was about to do. “No, it’s not going to be okay!” he yelled, pulling away from her.

She stared at him, unable to speak.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he explained with fierce certainty. “They are going to put me through some hopeless treatment. I am going to get sicker and sicker. I won’t remember you half of the time, maybe less. I’ll start to look really sick. I’ll get awful migraines all the time, vomit, and not be able to keep any food down. And, if it was up to you, you’d be with me the whole time because you love me.”

“I promise I’ll stay with you,” she vowed, looking hurt and frightened.

“And I’ll die,” Zane spat out, ignoring her. “I’ll be gone, forever, and you’d always remember me for the sick person – the boyfriend who couldn’t even speak to you and didn’t remember your name.”

“No, I won’t,” she said defiantly. “I swear I’ll remember you for who you really are. I want to stay with you no matter what.”

“Well it’s not up to you,” he retorted darkly. “I have a say in this. And I say that I want you to leave now and never come back. I don’t want you to ever see my face again. It’ll be like I died now, today. You can start moving on now. I won’t let you wait for me.”

Tears streamed down Mara’s face. Tears streamed down my face. Danny looked at the floor. Zane remained stony and cold. “You don’t mean this,” Mara sobbed, gently touching Zane’s cheek.

He closed his eyes. For a second, his composure faltered. He felt her cold, desperate touch and wanted nothing else but to pull her closer.

But then he pictured himself laying lifelessly on the very hospital bed he was on now. He could almost hear her tortured screams as she held his cool, colorless hand.

He opened his eyes, and once again he was sure of what he was doing. “I absolutely mean everything I said.”

“No,” I whimpered at about the same time Mara did. Danny finally looked at me, his expression confused. “Why are you upset?” he asked me blankly.

“What, are you kidding me?” I scoffed. “This is absurd! Mara is the only person Zane had to keep him alive! He can’t just throw that away.”

Danny shrugged. “He’s doing the right thing; he’s trying not to hurt her. It’s what I would do.”

“He’s hurting her now!” I exclaimed.

“Don’t think I don’t know that,” Danny shot at me darkly. “I feel it. But he’s protecting her from witnessing the long, drawn out death he’s about to go through.”

“He is not,” I denied, but my denial was weak, and Danny shook his head at me sympathetically.

“Leave,” Zane commanded Mara. “Now. And I’ll tell my uncle that whether I remember saying it or not, I don’t want you near me ever again.”

Mara stood up shakily. “You’ll regret this,” she told him weakly.

Without a doubt, he thought to himself, but out loud he said, “I won’t. Leave before I call someone to make you. You will not watch me die.” He closed his eyes and turned away from her.

She took a hesitant step towards the door.

“I guess this is goodbye,” Danny said to me in a strange tone.

I looked at him, my thoughts confused and distraught. I had come to accept him as my friend, the angel that would always be there for me if I needed help. As Mara began to leave, I realized, “I’ll miss you.”

Danny didn’t respond. While he walked out the door he let out a laugh that was too throaty and full of emotion to sound normal.

Zane and I were left alone. For once, he felt numb. He never opened his eyes and let the emptiness sink in. Sure, he was in pain, but it was only skin deep. His mind was blank and completely empty of everything.

Even when the doctors came to tell him his fate, he barely listened to them. Everything they said went in one ear and out the other.

But I listened. They said he would need to stay in the hospital while they treated him until they were sure the radiation treatment was working enough. If it worked, his chances were slim.

If it didn’t work, his chances were none. They didn’t know how much time he had. They said he may have had a month left, or he may have had years.

He didn’t think he had years. He was sure he was going to die, and that it was going to hurt. And I sobbed into my hands because he was probably right.

The doctors left, and then he sank into a blank trance that was his body’s defense system for all of the overwhelming feelings he refused to listen to. Anyone who looked into the hospital room would’ve thought he was sleeping. But I knew he was mourning his own death before it occurred.