heart like yours / phan

1 / lost

P.

I've already lost.

The three words echo through my brain on repeat, like a broken record, as they have been for the past month. Every time I think of them, it's like another fraction of me disintegrates as it gives in to the thing destroying my body.

Cancer is a bitch. I, of all people, should know this. When I first got it, at the ripe old age of sixteen, I was naive and young; I thought I could win with pure willpower and belief in myself.

One year on with it having spread to my brain, lungs, and basically every vital organ which I need to survive, I know that I don't have long. Now I spend my days waiting for death, counting down and hoping maybe today will have been my last every night before I sleep.

In the beginning, I began keeping a diary in order to document my battle -my fight. However, that fight has been lost and now the worn, torn and tear stained black journal sits on the table beside my bed in the hospital; a memoir of all the hope I had, and all that I have lost.

"Phil," Dan's warm, smooth voice says, and I feel his hands wrap around my wrists, pulling me out of my head.

I can feel tears on my face and look down to see my shaking hands clutching onto my journal tightly, my nails digging in, however Dan's hands are helping to stop the shaking slightly.

"D-Dan," I breathe, looking down as I attempt to will my 'lungs' to breath at least somewhat normally while I ignore the pain in my chest.

"Phil, are you okay?" he asks with his eyebrows creased from worry, dark smudged on the pale skin under his eyes and his hair a mess; each stand going in its own personal direction making him look like an electric current has passed through his hair recently.

I must look like a mess, I think with a wince, I've been crying for god knows how long, not to mention having a death grip on this stupid book while shaking like a lunatic.

"Dan, t-turn away," I breathe through my chapping lips, my breath making them feel somehow even more dry.

"Phil, it's okay, I-" Dan begins, looking at me sympathetically but I shake my head, begging him persistently until he finally turns away, granting me ephemeral relief.

I wipe my eyes and shove the notebook behind my pillow, even though I know that my face is probably as red as a stop sign I feel slightly better in making myself look like I'm stable - well, somewhat at least.

"Dan, what brings you here?" I ask, my voice rough and scratching my throat with every syllable of every word.

"Well, I'm your best friend Phil, and I've visited you every day for the past four hundred and eighty nine days, whether you're here or home, so why stop now?" Dan asks with a light shrug.

"Dan, you know there's no point in visiting me anymore, you know that I'm destined to go, soon," I say with a heavy sigh, looking defeatedly at my best friend, who's shoulders are hanging forward and head is tilted towards the ground; the posture of an emotionally deflated human.

"Have a little hope Phil," Dan says, his voice quivering along with his hands.

I look down because I can't stand to look into his eyes as I know how they will look. They will be sad, so sad that one second of looking into them could break even the coldest person's heart. Dan's sadness is contagious, especially though his eyes, it's almost as if he taints the air with it and then you breathe it in.

"I'm sorry Dan, but you know my end is coming," I sigh, "you need to stop being in your state of denial."

"I can't lose you Phil," Dan says stubbornly, "please just... humour me or something."

"But-"

"Please Phil," Dan says loudly and desperately, as if he can keep me alive with his want for me to be escape from my inevitable death, which is rapidly approaching.

I sigh deeply and intertwine my fingers as Dan sits, slumped in the uncomfortable, cold chair which sits beside my hospital bed.

"Can you get me a glass of water?" I ask weakly, breaking te silence between us.

"Of course," Dan says, and I watch as he leaves the room.

I know it takes him exactly one minute and twelve seconds on average to get water, so that's how long I have to hide this note in his jacket pocket.

I tear a page out of my notebook from under my pillow and scribble a simple sentence on it before folding it and shoving it into a small, usually unchecked pocket of his jacket.

I snap the book shut and lie back on my bed as he walks back in. I clasp the plastic cup in my hand, the coldness of the water inside seeping through the sides of the cup and working its way into my fingers, numbing my shaking hand.

I look at Dan, who is staring into his own cup of water like it contains the universe inside of it and he's trying to decipher it. I inhale deeply and close my eyes as I told my head back towards the ceiling.

The hardest part of this is leaving you.