Page 1 of While I’m Still Here

Chapter 1

MURDEROUS TITS

Beatrice ‘Bea’ James

Ihave murderous tits.

Not figuratively, either… They’re genuinely trying to kill me, which seems spectacularly ungrateful considering everything I have done for them over the past twenty-something years… fine, thirty.

Bras purchased: approximately £3, 789.

Money wasted on bras that looked gorgeous on the model but made my tits resemble two disgruntled Yorkshire puddings: probably half of that.

Strapless dresses worn despite knowing perfectly well that gravity exists: seventeen.

Near-death experiences involving the rogue underwire of my bra: countless.

Attempts on my life: one.

“Are you listening to me?”

I blink. There’s a woman sitting opposite me.

Doctor. Right. Cancer. Fuck.

“Yes.” She raises an eyebrow. “No,” I admit.

Excellent start. I drag my attention away from the framed picture hanging behind her head. It’s a photograph of sunlight breaking through a forest, accompanied by a quote about hope.

I’ve been staring at it for approximately four minutes. Possibly ten. Time stopped somewhere around the word cancer.

“Sorry.” My voice sounds strange, so I clear my throat and attempt to sit a little straighter and arrange my face into the expression of a mature woman completely capable of receiving important medical information “I got distracted by the fact that my boobs have apparently decided to try to kill me.”

The doctor’s expression changes. Not much. She’s clearly good at this. There must be an entire section of medical school dedicated to maintaining the appropriate facial expression while someone’s life goes to shit on the other side of your desk.

Concerned, but not pitying.

Warm, but not falsely cheerful.

Serious, but not perhaps start thinking about what photograph you’d like at the funeral serious.

I decide this is encouraging unless she’s simply very good at her job, which is significantly less encouraging. She folds her hands over the file in front of her. “I know this is a lot to take in.”

Understatement of the fucking century.

A lot to take in is discovering your electricity bill has doubled, or that your mother has suddenly announced that she’s coming to stay for three weeks.

I look down at my chest. They look exactly the bloody same. That’s the part I can’t seem to get my head around. They’re sitting beneath my black jumper, minding their own business, looking completely innocent. Surely cancerous breasts ought to look suspicious? One of them should have grown a moustache, or perhaps an eye patch. At minimum there’s should be a flashing neon arrow announcing ONE OF THESE BITCHES IS TRYING TO KILL YOU.

But nope, they are just boobs—my boobs—the same ones I spent my teenage years desperately waiting for. I’ve had them since puberty came along and decided to give me back pain before I could even regulate my emotions.

Breasts: yes.

Ability to cope with life’s minor inconveniences without crying in a Tesco car park: no.

I put my hand against my jumper. Which one was it again? I know she told me. Obviously she told me. There were scans, biopsies on both because one decided to grow a hormonal lump while the other grew cancer, and appointments with words like mass and abnormal, all of which I had carefully filed inside the section of my brain I like to label Things we are absolutely not panicking about until someone tells us to panic.

Somehow has now told me to panic.