Chapter 1
The day I found out there was a tumour in my brain, Oscar proposed to me.
My mind was still full of white hospital walls, the smell of disinfectant, the doctor’s careful voice. For one absurd second, I wondered whether Oscar knew.
I hesitated for less than thirty seconds.
That was all it took for him to rise from one knee, snap the ring box shut, and slide it back into his pocket.
“If it weren’t for my parents, I wouldn’t have done this,” he said, looking at me with bored indifference. “Since you don’t agree, forget it.”
My heart tightened.
And, strangely, I felt relieved.
Of course. He had only been playing another cruel joke on me.
He must have thought I had gone to his parents again. That I had cried, begged, pressured them into forcing his hand, just as he believed I had pressured him into everything else.
So the proposal had never been sincere.
It was only another way to humiliate me.
Silently, I lowered the right hand I had already begun to lift towards him.
Then I smiled.
“What if I agreed?” I asked. “Would you really marry me?”
Oscar said nothing.
His silence was answer enough.
No.
It still hurt, even though I had known.
“If you don’t marry me now, you’ll miss your last chance,” I said, forcing my voice to stay light while my eyes burned. “You might regret it one day.”
Oscar did not care.
He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of the sofa. A faint smile touched his mouth, so small it was almost not there.
“Are you sure that day will ever come?”
He had always known exactly where to place the knife.
This time was no different.
I really would not be able to wait for that day.
That night, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor.
The hospital report lay folded in my bag. I had not told him about it. I had not told anyone. The words inside it seemed to pulse in the dark, silent and alive.
Oscar closed his laptop, pressed two fingers against his tired eyes, and lifted the blanket.
As usual, he turned his back to me.
Between us, he left a careful strip of empty space.
Sleeping posture does not lie.
Even after eight years together, Oscar had never grown used to sharing a bed with me.
I had always been shameless when it came to him. If he refused to hold me, I waited until he fell asleep, then moved closer inch by inch, pressing myself against his back and wrapping my arms around his waist.
Even our first time was something I had asked for without dignity.
I was eighteen then.
Finally an adult.
I still remember the rain that night. It struck the windows again and again, cold and relentless, until the whole room seemed to shiver with it.
I took off my jacket and walked towards him.
Then I hugged him from behind.
He did not move.
Beneath his white shirt, his waist was firm and warm. Oscar had always run hotter than me. His body felt alive in a way mine never did, steady and distant, like something I could touch but never keep.
I trembled with shame.
At that moment, I thought that if he pushed me away, I might break apart from humiliation.
I lifted my head and tried to smile at him, but tears blurred my sight.
Back then, I was terrified of hearing certain words from his mouth.
Shameless.
Cheap.
Disgusting.
I was still only a girl, reckless enough to offer everything and far too fragile to survive the answer.
Oscar looked at me coldly.
For a moment, I thought he would push me away.
With shaking fingers, I began to unbutton his shirt. My legs trembled so badly I could barely stand.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
Then he lowered his head and kissed me.
The kiss tasted bitter, mixed with my tears.
“You don’t even know how to seduce someone,” he said hoarsely. “Stupid girl.”
I smelled the faint trace of alcohol on him.
He had just broken up with his girlfriend. He was drunk, miserable, and angry at the world.
And I seized the opportunity.
From that night on, I became the burden he could never quite throw away.
In the darkness, I stared at the faint outline of the chandelier above our bed.
Perhaps when a person draws close to death, the heart becomes strangely calm.
The man I had spent my youth chasing, the love that had once torn me open, the ring he had put away before I could even answer, all of it suddenly seemed very small beside one simple question.
Would I still be alive to see tomorrow’s sunrise?
