Chapter 2
When Evelyn finished, she went upstairs to change. She picked a loose dress that hid how thin she had become.
The woman in the mirror looked even paler than before. Her lips had no color, but her eyes burned with a strange brightness, like a candle flickering down to its last inch of wax.
She took a cab to the hospital.
The waiting room was packed, and the sharp smell of antiseptic hung in the air. Evelyn sat in a chair in the corner, watching people come and go.
An elderly man leaned on his daughter's arm as they shuffled past. A pregnant woman rested her hand on her belly with a quiet smile. A little boy wailed and squirmed, fighting off a needle he hadn't even gotten yet.
So much of life played out in a place like this. Birth, aging, illness, death, all of it crammed into one building.
"Evelyn Hart." A nurse called her name.
She stood and followed the nurse into the exam room. The doctor was a young man in gold-rimmed glasses, and he had a gentle look about him.
"What's been bothering you?" he asked.
"Stomach pain. It's been going on for a while now, but it's gotten worse lately. I can't keep food down, and I've been losing weight," she said evenly, as if she were describing someone else's symptoms.
The doctor asked a few follow-up questions and ordered a round of tests. Bloodwork, an ultrasound, and an endoscopy. By the time she finished them all, it was already past noon. She hadn't eaten anything, but she didn't feel hungry.
When she came back, the doctor sat studying the results, and his frown deepened with every line he read.
"Ms. Hart." He set the report down and looked at her. "You're going to need to be admitted for further testing."
"Is it serious?" she asked.
The doctor paused for a few seconds. "There's a tumor in your stomach. We'll need a biopsy to determine what we're dealing with, but based on the imaging, it doesn't look good."
Evelyn blinked. The overhead lights in the exam room were blinding, a flat, sterile white that seemed to press in on her. She heard her own voice, distant and hollow, as though it were rising up from underwater. "Is it cancer?"
"That's very likely," the doctor said. "And it may already be advanced."
Advanced. The word was so small, so light in the air, but it hit her chest like a sledgehammer.
She suddenly remembered what Richard had said that morning. The agreement would expire in one month, and he would give her a lump sum once it was over.
One month. She might not even have that long.
"How much time do I have?" she asked, her voice unnervingly calm.
"We'll need to wait for the biopsy results, but if it is late-stage—" The doctor chose his words carefully. "Three months to six months, possibly."
Three months. She had spent three years as someone's stand-in, and now all she had left was three months.
"I understand." Evelyn rose to her feet. "Thank you, doctor."
"Evelyn." The doctor stopped her and pulled down his mask, revealing a familiar face.
Evelyn froze. "Mason Ford?"
"It's me." Mason stood up, his expression caught between disbelief and concern. "Three years, and this is what you've done to yourself?"
He had been her lab partner in high school and was top of his class in med school. He'd gone abroad three years ago for his residency, and she never expected to run into him here.
"How did you—" Evelyn couldn't finish the sentence before another wave of pain twisted through her stomach, and she grabbed the edge of the desk to steady herself.
Mason was at her side in two strides, holding her arm. "Sit down. This is serious, Evelyn. You need to be admitted right now."
"Mason, I—"
"Don't tell me you can't afford it." Mason cut her off. "I know you married Richard, but can money buy you more time? Evelyn, this is late-stage stomach cancer, not the flu."
Evelyn looked at him, and then she laughed. She laughed until the tears came. "And then what? Check in, do chemo, lose my hair, suffer for a few more months, and die anyway?"
Mason said nothing.
"Mason, let me go with some dignity," Evelyn said softly. "Keep this between us. Don't tell anyone. Especially not Richard."
Mason studied her pale face for a long moment before he finally nodded. "Fine. But you come in for regular checkups, and you take the pain medication on schedule. Here."
He held up a piece of paper. "This is my number. My phone is on around the clock. If the pain gets unbearable, you call me."
He pressed the slip of paper into her hand.
Evelyn closed her fingers around it. "Thank you."
Evelyn stepped out of the examination room and into a long corridor of white walls, white floors, and white fluorescent light.
She walked steadily, one step after another, without stumbling. When she reached the hospital entrance, the sunlight hit her hard, and she raised a hand to shield her eyes.
Her phone rang. It was Richard.
She stared at his name flashing on the screen for a long time before declining the call.
It was the first time in three years she had ever hung up on him.
Her stomach still ached, but the pain had gone numb. She stood outside the hospital entrance, watching cars pass by and people stream in every direction.
The world carried on, loud and indifferent. No one knew that the woman standing in the sunlight had just been handed a death sentence.
She thought of Alisha. Alisha was still at the nursing home, convinced that Evelyn had married into wealth and was living a happy life. Every month, Evelyn would visit and bring vitamins and supplements, saying nothing but good things about Richard.
Alisha always held her hand and said, "Eve, as long as you're doing well, I can rest easy."
Doing well. What kind of life had she actually been living these past three years?
She had been playing someone else, living as another woman's shadow, and loving a man who would never love her back.
Her phone buzzed again, this time with a text.
Richard: [Why aren't you picking up?]
Evelyn looked at those words, and a laugh escaped her. But the laughter crumbled, and tears rolled down her cheeks. They hit the phone screen hot and heavy, blurring the message into nothing.
She wiped her eyes and typed back: [I'm busy.]
After she hit send, she deleted every trace of Richard from her phone.
She blocked him on social media, blocked his number, and filtered his texts. When it was done, a strange sense of relief washed over her, as if she had finally shed a weight she had been carrying for far too long.