“Yes.”
He fought the word.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s horrible.”
“I know.”
“I should do something.”
“You can love her.”
“That’s nothing.”
“No.”
I held him tighter.
“It feels like nothing because it doesn’t control the outcome.”
He cried into my shoulder.
For a long time.
That night I understood why children sometimes take on impossible missions.
Action is easier than helplessness.
Hair grows.
Computers sell.
Fundraisers collect.
Those have
numbers.
Cancer does not care.
The scan did not show clear recurrence.
More monitoring.
Relief.
Not certainty.
Cancer families learn to live in that space.
At fifteen, Ethan began seeing the school counselor regularly.
Not because he was “having problems.”
Because loving a seriously ill friend had changed him.
He needed somewhere to put fear that wasn’t Lily.
That helped.
Lily had her own counselor.
Good.
Best friends should not become each other’s only emotional infrastructure.
