Until the Last Breath

“Do we have good news?” John asked.

Doctor Juarez’s smile faded and to avoid having to say it out right—rip it off like a Band-Aid—he picked up his clipboard, read something on it, and then lowered it, meeting my eyes.

“After running a few tests on the black masses we found on your right lung, we’ve come to the conclusion that you have what is called Onyx Pleura Disease,” said Doctor Juarez. “It is very hard to cure here, but there are treatments available.”

Tessa gasped dramatically and I’m sure she was squeezing my hand tighter, but I couldn’t feel it.

In that moment, as Doctor Juarez explained the blood I’d coughed up on the cruise and informed me that this type of disease was extremely rare, I felt like I was drowning right there in that hospital room. Not just metaphorically, but with Tessa’s tears, John’s tears, and even Danny’s tears, I was drowning.

My life, just like that, seemed to be snatched right away from me. All that I had fought for…all that I’d gone through. It felt as if it was all for nothing.

My childhood wasn’t the best and I thought the chaos of that had finally passed and life would automatically be better, easier.

Boy, was I wrong.

I’d just married the most wonderful man—just gotten hitched and ready to take on the world, bear his children, even, and then this happens?

All of it—the future and all that felt promised to us—disappeared just like that. The floor may as well have swallowed me whole.

Although Doctor Juarez said repeatedly that there was a chance of it going away, I didn’t believe it. All hope for me was lost and it was obvious. I began to question my existence. Why be created just to die at the age of twenty-five?

Why try and live the life I deserved if there was no life to look forward to?

As I sat on that bed, spaced out and on the verge of tears, I couldn’t help thinking about all the things I had yet to experience. I’d just started getting into traveling and that was because of John. He made a way for me and Tessa to live—to be happy for once—and even so, it’d taken me a while to accept this leisure, the bliss. It all seemed too good to be true, and I realized this was why. All of that bliss was to soften the blow.

I wished then that I wouldn’t have hesitated. Paris. That was a goal of mine. We were supposed to travel there next. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen anymore.

Mine and my sister’s lives as children and even teenagers was dark, lonely, and horrible and to finally have some light shone on us—to be pulled out of the darkness—was a blessing. We deserved it.

I’d pretty much become a mom to a sister that was only four years younger than me. I sacrificed so much, not only for myself, but for Tessa. I did so much so she could have a better future. I worked my ass off day and night, fought for her and myself until I bled. I worked so she could go to school and get an education.

I could’ve given up and not done any of that, but I wasn’t selfish enough to leave her in this world alone. I was all she had left, and she knew that.

It almost seemed she was thinking the same as I was because in that moment our heads turned, our attention averting from Doctor Juarez to each other.

I fought hard to hold back my tears—to be strong for her—but it didn’t even last a second. Because it wasn’t pity that I saw in her eyes that day. It was fear.

I broke down as she climbed on the bed and held me in her arms. I still wanted to play my role as big sister—as her guardian and protector—but in that moment, she was mine.

As I wept, she placed my forehead to her chest and let me cry without saying a word, only giving tears in return. This was way worse than when we found our mother on the kitchen floor with needles in her arms. Worse than when we found out our father was dead, the man who took care of us most because of Mom’s absence. He looked out for us and guided us, teaching us right from wrong, but losing to his demons in the process. He had a lot of good in him. Unfortunately, the bad overshadowed his kind heart.

That night, my strength dwindled and hung by a thread. Tessa and Danny eventually booked a hotel and left to catch some sleep, but John sat in a chair in the corner, not speaking any words for hours. His elbows were perched on the top of his thighs, his hands covering his face.