Would You Rather?
By Sarah McKinley
Would you rather lose your best friend or your life? Yeah, hard question. Let me help you imagine.
Your friend.
The one you met that sunny September morning in 1995. You see, the problem is, even though you call each other “friends” you finally fuck up that line after three years of stolen glances and lingering touches. Truth is, you don’t have any other friends who refer to the night you first kissed as the “Night of Dreams.” You don’t have any other friends you kiss—period. Nor do you have any other friends who tell you they miss you so badly they feel it’s hazardous to their health.
Your life.
Your life that isn’t yours anymore. Six days ago, in the crisp cold of December 2010, you gave birth to a tiny baby girl. You expect challenges in the first days, but nothing prepares you for the ever-increasing pain, the doubling over as you feel stitches rip. Nothing prepares you for the look on your family doctor’s face, drained of colour, as she says, “What the hell did they do to you? I’ve never seen bruising this bad!” Nothing prepares you for the terror that grips you as she tells you to go to the ER immediately. Your mind flashes back to the floor nurses before discharge, rolling their eyes when you said you thought something was wrong. Shaking their heads as they told you to “just walk it off.” You begged them to listen. You plead with your doctor now, asking her to do anything but send you back there. But you need more than she can give, so she sends you off. To the hospital, where you stand in the triage area, feverish, shaking, and sobbing as your mom takes all 6 pounds of perfection that have stolen your heart, in her pale-yellow duck onesie, out through the double doors. There’s not a dry eye in the room as they watch you howl. You can’t leave with them; they’re ushering you the other way, into the Emergency Department.
Your friend.
With his full lips and your kisses that taste like rhum and strawberry mint lip balm. The one you’ve tried, from day one, to stay away from, to walk away from, to say goodbye to. But you can’t, because while they say gravity pulls all objects to the center of the Earth, your factory settings are broken. Your bodies? Your hearts? Your souls? They seem to think you’re the centre of one another’s earth.
Your life.
The one you don’t even realize is slipping through your fingers as you sway in the hot, overcrowded waiting room, air thick with sweat and vomit. Your breath grows increasingly laboured. Your brain can’t comprehend what’s happening as you collapse, your aunt screams, and suddenly everyone around you seems frantic. Even the nurses who, just minutes ago, had waved you off, saying, “Everyone has struggles after giving birth.”
Your friend.
Who numbs your exquisite pain. The only person in the world who makes you feel safe. Who, instead of disappearing like so many others do, after your dad dies, holds you and kisses your forehead and lets you feel mad and sad and scared. Who, still, years after that first kiss, answers your 3 a.m. calls. Who tells you, when you’re trapped in the darkness, to find that light, that twinkle, and hold on for dear life.
Your life.
Where they steer you into a room and put you on an exam table, hook you up to various monitors and jam needles in your arms. Where the nurse asks what antibiotic you’re on. Where you tell her none and she doesn’t believe you. Where she tells you it’s not possible with the white blood cell count you had before discharge a few days earlier, surely, they would have prescribed something? Where the pain and the fear and the fury overtake you. Where you wonder if they are incompetent or actually trying to kill you. Where the doctor moves his hand to your leg, and terrified, you scream wildly, “Fuck off, don’t touch me!” Where you can’t bring yourself to trust him. Where you can’t bring yourself to trust anyone.
Your friend, your light.
Whose heartbeat sings you to sleep, despite your rampant insomnia. Who you want to devour and who wants to devour you. Whose muscular arms, legs and torso tangle with yours in a perfect puzzle. Who you know you could be happy with forever. The one who you silently pray never lets you go as you watch the moon scatter a million sparkling diamonds on the snow beyond his bedroom window.
Your life.
That now consists only of the ever-increasing putrid stench of rotting flesh, searing pain, and then darkness.
Your friend.
Who, seven years after you first meet, and four years after you first kiss, despite all the time and distance, tells you he’s in love with you, as you stand, arms wrapped around one another, head burrowed into his chest, on the back porch of your mom’s house on an overcast summer’s day.
Your life.
That now only occurs in snippets. Excruciating pain. Flesh being ripped and prodded. Too ill for anesthetic. Begging. Pleading. Crying for them to stop. The doctor pressing on, apologetic, “I can’t. Your life is in jeopardy.” Consciousness fading in and out. Darkness.
Your friend.
Who, from a military base, sends you letters that say, “I miss you, Sarah. I wish that you were here, in my arms. That way it would match the way you are in my heart and mind every day.”
Your life.
Where, after two surgical procedures, you lie alone in a hospital bed, ghostly pale, oxygen tubing in your nose, puncture wounds dotting your arms, hands, and wrists from failed IV insertions. You can’t move, held captive by the Jackson-Pratt drain and angry IV alarm.
Your friend.
Who you plan a party for, gathering all your old high school friends during the few days he has between postings. Who, despite the celebration, pulls you into the house, locks the door, and leaves everyone else by the bonfire, where they trickle away into the night when you never return. Whose hungry kisses, tender touches, and smoldering gaze mean that you don’t see it coming. Who has eyes, ears, and a mouth only for you.
Your friend.
Who the next morning says he loves you, but it’s over.
Your friend.
Who kisses you one last time, gets into his red Sunfire, and drives away.
Your friend.
Who you need severed from your heart.
Your friend.
Who you want to haunt.
Your life.
That will never be the same. Your daughter, who will always be an only child. Your body, forever scarred and broken. Your life, plagued by nightmares, pain, anger, and fear. Your marriage, strained. Your career, that you can never quite fully return to.
Your friend.
Who stands in your room one year later, holding you far too tightly, for far too long. Who kisses your forehead and tells you all the feelings are still there. Who says it’s taking all he has not to kiss you. Who drives away again the next day. This time forever.
Your imagined lives.
That haunt you.
Your imagined lives.
That you need severed from your heart.
Have you made your decision?
I know. I’m sorry. I’m being uncharacteristically cruel by making you choose.
Here’s a secret: There never was any choice. You’re going to lose both.
Your best friend.
The life you thought you’d share with him.
Your light, your sense of gravity.
Your life.
The one you’ll never live, even after fighting so hard to stay alive.
Your imagined family, your career—the future you were dreaming of.
The lives you were building, slipping away.
