The Cost of Loving Catherine

The Cost of Loving Catherine - a WIP

“I bet even in a zombie apocalypse, even if you were infected—I’d still love you, Catherine,” he decides then, laughing.

Oh, how Jace had the way with words, when she was dying.

It began in the bathroom. Bright red cypresses were sitting in their pots on the windowpane, their blooms reaching out for the March sun. Spring has arrived but not quite shaken free from winter’s grasp, the chill of wintry air leaving a film of frost glossed over the windows.

It was always like this, basking in the levity of loneliness, whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears. But the same gloom piqued at their senses, and it was the resolution to their nonexistent forevers which drew them to even sweeter sadness.

It went like this: His hand, so evenly tucked into hers. The other hand, she held tightly onto her torn, worn down copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. (“Read it to me again,” he urged. He’s been wanting to hear her read it for a while now. “I like the sound of your voice.”

“You are unbelievable,” she’d say back, shaking her head. But she always read it for him, always.)

And then.

 “Even with cancer?” Catherine’s chewing at her lip, running her hands through her hair, or at least, where her hair used to be.

Jace’s laughing stops. He tilts his head, as if he really has to give this some thought. “Even with cancer,” he agrees. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“I don’t know”—she smiles—“maybe it’s just an illusion, maybe it’s all a fantasy…”

“Puh. The Matrix, sweetheart? And you say I’m the unbelievable one,” Jace laughs. “No, I reassure you, Catherine—I’m very much here. Feel that?” He grabs her hand and leads it to touch the small of his back. Catherine’s holding tight, tighter than she needs to be. “Real.”

            But she’s quick to pull her hand away. I love him, she wanted to say. God, I really do.

A feeling of panic bounced around in her stomach again, and the force of flutters is tugging her words down into the pit of her belly’s butterflies; these butterflies, endlessly flapping their wings against her chest. She simply couldn’t bring himself to say those three words with him there. Jace with his unending smiles; Jace, this is the boy she loves forever—or, whatever forever’s left. Jace—looking at her.

Pursing her lips, she sat on the toilet and tucked her legs up to her chest. He gives her hand a squeeze. “You okay?”

“Promise you’ll be there in the morning,” she said suddenly.

“Promise.”

 Catherine finally looked up from her lap, and her look is more dubious than ever. “You always promise to all my promises,” she said. “How am I supposed to know you mean them?”

Catherine rolled her eyes so contrived that it hurt (literally.)

“Cath, Cath, Cath… when did I ever break any of those promises?”

She thought for a moment. “Never, but…aren’t you worried what people think about my… bald head? My cannula?”

“Cannula?”

Catherine gave a motioned nod to her oxygen tank, and tapped at the tubes unified into her nostrils. “My cannula,” she corrected.

“It’s never bothered me once before…”