radicalducati chapter 3
chapter 3
Some time at home after the diagnosis felt like learning a new language without a dictionary. Mornings meant pill trays and a timer for stretches.
Afternoons were naps I hadn’t earned and small defeats I hadn’t planned—buttons I couldn’t fasten, jars that wouldn’t open, a fork that suddenly weighed too much.
Adam adapted faster than I did. He labeled drawers, portioned meals, fielded calls from insurance, and—when my hands wouldn’t obey—stood outside the shower and helped me wash my hair with a gentleness that was both tender and devastating.
Every task he took made life possible and made me feel a little less like myself.
Talking about the wedding actually made me happy.
Then the appointment day with Dr. Torres arrived. We buckled in without speaking in Adam’s car, the city sliding past the window while I practiced swallowing and tried to pretend I wasn’t afraid of whatever the next hour would redraw.
Dr. Torres's office felt smaller than before, as if the walls were practicing compression. She held test results.
"The progression is more aggressive than we initially assessed. Your grip strength has declined forty percent in two weeks. The swallow tests are borderline."
Each word landed like a stone thrown into still water, ripples spreading outward.
My body wasn't just failing now. It was racing toward an ending I couldn't see but could feel approaching like thunder before rain.
"It would be safer to continue treatment as an inpatient," Dr. Torres continued. "We need to monitor respiratory function closely, adjust medications in real-time. The neuro ward has specialized equipment—"
"When?" Adam interrupted, his hand finding my knee under the desk, squeezing gently. "How soon can we get a room? Private, if possible. I'll handle insurance."
They discussed logistics while I sat between them, a problem to be solved, a body to be managed.
Adam's voice was all business now. "What about her work—she has projects, she is a graphic designer—"
But I heard only one word, repeating like a bell: stay.
"I don't want to live in a hospital," I whispered, but the words got lost in Adam's questions about visiting hours and whether he could bring my own pillows from home.
* * *
Two weeks into my residency I escaped my room the moment Adam left for a meeting he couldn't reschedule—something about medical leave paperwork, insurance appeals.
I was desperate for air that didn't taste like industrial cleaning products and other people's grief.
The hospital garden was three floors down and technically for psychiatric patients, but I'd discovered security didn't question anyone who looked sufficiently tragic.
Terminal illness was an all-access pass to anywhere with flowers.
Someone had beat me to the good bench, the one facing away from the building so you could pretend you weren't surrounded by cancer and catastrophe.
A guy around my age, maybe older, sketching in a Moleskine notebook with hands that shook like he was sitting on a washing machine.
His lines were... ambitious.
What I think was supposed to be the skyline looked more like a toddler's interpretation of a bar graph.
"Either I'm creating abstract art or having a very elegant seizure," he said without looking up.
The laugh erupted from me—sudden and genuine, almost foreign after weeks of careful smiles. "I'd go with abstract art. Very Pollock-inspired."
"Generous of you."
He looked up then, and Christ, he was unfairly attractive for someone dying.
Sharp cheekbones that probably looked better now with the weight loss, dark hair and eyes that were probably blue before but had gone gray like the rest of us here.
He turned to face me fully, and I noticed the surgical scar curving along his temple like a question mark.
"You're new to the terminal ward. I know all the regulars."
"Two weeks. Still adjusting to my membership benefits."
I sat down uninvited. My legs were doing that thing where they pretended they might give out just to keep me guessing.
"Lionel Allen, brain cancer ward's most disappointing artist," he said, extending his hand.
"Grace Owens, ALS ward's newest resident."
"ALS?" He whistled low. "That's the deluxe package. Full body betrayal with a side of existential dread. My roommate had it. Said the worst part wasn't the dying but everyone treating him like he was already dead."
"Yes!" The word came out fierce, grateful. "Everyone speaks in hushed tones now, like regular volume might break me. And the crying… God, my future mother-in-law cries more than I do."
"Tell me about it. My sister brings tissues in bulk. Costco-sized boxes."
Lionel picked up his brush again, making a deliberately chaotic stroke.
"I've started rating them. Yesterday was a seven—decent volume, good duration, but lacking in originality." His hand tremored hard and the pen skittered across the page. "Fuck. There goes the Space Needle…"
"Could be abstract rain."
"Could be." He went back to his sketch, adding what might have been birds or planes or just seizure marks. "Though the ALS wing has better jello. Neurology always gets the good shit. Oncology's still serving lime from 2003."
"How long for you?"
"Two months in this particular luxury resort. Six months since diagnosis. Brain cancer, specifically glioblastoma if you want to Google horror stories later."
My phone buzzed with Adam's panicked texts.
Honey A. <3: Where are you??? Searched everywhere. Security said you're not in the therapy room.
Of course he'd checked. Of course he'd interrogated security. I typed back.
Me: Garden. Coming up soon.
"Protective boyfriend?" Lionel observed, clocking my expression.
"Fiancé," I admitted.
"Ah, a classic tragic story.” He closed his notebook, and I caught sight of pages full of deteriorating sketches, each one worse than the last. A visual diary of decline. "You haven't hit that point yet. The exhaustion of being someone else's inspiration porn."
My phone buzzed again.
Honey A. <3: Do you need help? I'm coming down.
"I should go," I said, already exhausted by the thought of more hope, more prayers, more of Adam looking at me like I was already a saint.
"Thursday," Lionel said as I stood. "Room 5B. Support group for people who want to talk about actually dying instead of 'fighting' and 'journeys' and whatever the fuck else they call it to avoid saying death."
"I couldn't. Adam would—"
"Hate it?" He smiled, and it transformed his face from attractive-despite-dying to something more dangerous. "Yeah, they usually do. The healthy ones can't handle us talking about death like it's real. Ruins their rescue fantasies."
A third text from Adam.
Honey A. <3: In elevator.
"I don't know if I'm ready to talk about dying," I admitted.
"Nobody is. That's kind of the point."
Lionel stood too, and I realized he was much taller than I'd expected, though the slight hunch from pain or exhaustion made it hard to tell.
"Here's the thing about terminal illness—ready or not, it's happening. And despite what your fiancé probably thinks, you don't get points for pretending otherwise."
The garden door opened and Adam appeared, slightly out of breath. His eyes found me, then Lionel, then the space between us that wasn't quite appropriate for strangers.
"Grace. There you are." He said it like I'd been missing for hours instead of twenty minutes. His hand found my elbow, proprietary. "We should get back. Dr. Torres wants to discuss treatment options."
Treatment options.
Like we were choosing paint colors instead of deciding how aggressively to fail at stopping the inevitable.
"Thursday," Lionel repeated, not looking at Adam. "Room 5B support group. Two o'clock."
Adam's grip tightened slightly. "Grace has physical therapy on Thursdays."
"On Tuesday, actually," I corrected, though I knew he knew that. "Thursdays are free."
Lionel's mouth quirked up at the corner. He gave Adam the kind of nod men give each other when they're being polite about territory disputes.
Then headed toward the other exit, his gait slightly unsteady but refusing Adam's obvious watch for weakness.
"Who was that?" Adam asked as soon as Lionel was gone.
"Just another patient."
"You shouldn't wander off alone. What if something happened?" He pulled me against him, his heart hammering against my chest. "Don't do that to me. Please. I can't…" His voice broke. "I can't lose you twice."
"I'm here," I told Adam, standing in his arms.
But even as I said it, I could feel myself drifting toward something he couldn't follow.
Toward rooms he wouldn't understand.