Trifecta

ACT III: Chapter Seven - November Was White, December Was Grey (December, 2005)

Author's Note: NSFW Warning

I was over Lilah's left shoulder with Alex over her right while the three of us looked down in disdain at the paper the doctor handed Lilah in mutual silence.

Lilah was the first to break that awkward hush between us after the initial stunned moments. "It is what it is," she said with a voice that somehow managed to retain an incredible level of calm.

"This isn't just it," Alex said much louder and turned her fiery eyes on the doctor. "There's something that we can do. Right, Doc?"

Alex was angry. Lilah was complacent, but subdued. I was just in shock.

"Terminal..." I muttered as the bold type on the page finally clicked in my brain.

Both of them looked at me simultaneously. Lilah with a slow considerate turn of her head and Alex with a whip snap of her neck to set me with a deadly glare. Their reactions were complete polar opposites, just like their personalities.

Once Alex realized I wasn't going to say anymore, she ignored me and dove into the multiple options that Lilah could investigate with the doctor. When the pressure of her gaze turned away, I slipped into a sort of daze, wondering how we could have got here.

Lilah thought it was nothing when she had fainted during our anniversary dinner a few months back. Even though I was concerned I let it slide because she insisted it was nothing but a headache and a dizzy spell. Work stress probably. Then her breathing started to get bad and I started taking her to doctors despite her protests.

I thought maybe something would need an operation, it was the worst option I could really think of at that time. When the actual truth came around though, none of us--not Lilah, Alex or least of all, me--were prepared to face the truth. After countless tests and visits to different specialists, we finally had an answer, and it was all there on that paper.

Lilah was in the late stages of bone cancer. Her lungs had already started to develop tumors through metastases and the marrow in her bones were degrading by the day. They gave her a few weeks at worst and a few months at best.

I listened in numb shock as the doctor went through everything that they could do for her and what they would personally recommend. At the end of it all, the cold, hard fact was that there wasn't a one hundred percent guarantee that any procedure would prolong Lilah's life expectancy. Doing nothing was no different than doing anything.

That was the real kicker of it all. There was no grand solution to solve it all. This problem was ambiguous as it was deadly. It made me feel absolutely helpless and desperately frustrated as I tried to hold on tight to a slippery solution that didn't want to stay in my grasp whatsoever.

The silence that resonated within our little trio in the doctor's office followed us out the car. Alex took the keys Lilah held out and got into the driver's seat while Lilah slipped into the backseat with a tug on my hand to follow her. The drive was maddeningly quiet, which only added fuel to the anxious bonfire burning bright in my mind.

Then Alex spoke up and created a whole different kind of turbulence in the car.

"You could have been more supportive you know," she growled and threw an irate glare over her shoulder at me.

"What did I do?" I shot back defensively.

"It's what you didn't do, Marley," Alex scoffed and slammed a hand against the steering wheel. "You just stood there like a deer in the headlights."

"Well excuse me for not knowing how to process all of this!" I said, letting my voice rise as the tension of everything tightened around my chest.