𝑯𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒈𝒊𝒇𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔.
Elizabeth Reid learned, at seventeen, that she was going to die. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, she's faced with a question that no one should have to answer.
How do you leave a mark on a wo...
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Death lurks everywhere if you truly look. It's in the wilting flowers on the windowsill, the spider crushed beneath a careless shoe, the forgotten bread growing mould in the back of the cupboard—all inescapable proof that nothing lasts forever.
But when you're young, death feels like a distant notion—something that happens to other people in other places. It's not real, not tangible.
Until suddenly, it is.
It crashes down around you, shattering the illusion of invincibility that youth provides. One moment, you're daydreaming about university, planning gap year adventures, imagining your first flat and the exciting life ahead. The next, it's all gone. Ripped away instantly with words that don't make sense but somehow change everything.
I'm sitting in the waiting room, wedged between my mum and dad on uncomfortable plastic chairs. The walls are a sickly shade of green, probably meant to be calming but achieving the opposite effect. Posters about various illnesses stare down at us, their messages somehow mocking at this moment.
My leg won't stop bouncing, a nervous tic I've had since childhood. Mum reaches over and places her hand on my knee, stilling the movement. I look up at her, catching the worry in her eyes before she can mask it with a reassuring smile.
"It'll be alright, Beth," she says, but her voice wavers slightly.
Dad clears his throat, his go-to move when he's uncomfortable. "Your mum's right. No use getting worked up before we know anything."
But that's the thing. We do know something. The doctor wouldn't have called us in so urgently if everything was fine. The tests were supposed to be routine, to rule things out. It's a formality, really.
I think back to the past few months, mentally cataloguing the symptoms I'd brushed off as nothing. The constant fatigue I'd blamed on late nights revising for A-levels. The nagging back pain I'd attributed to lugging around heavy textbooks. Occasional nausea I'd written off as stress about university applications.
It was Mum who finally convinced me to see the GP. She noticed the weight I'd lost and how my favourite jeans hung loose on my hips. I'd been secretly pleased, thinking my diet was finally paying off. But Mum, with her uncanny maternal instinct, sensed something wasn't right.
"Better safe than sorry," she'd said, booking the appointment despite my protests.
Now, sitting in this waiting room with that ominous phone call hanging over us, I wish I'd listened to her sooner. Maybe if we'd caught it earlier, but I can't think like that. Not yet. We don't know anything for certain.
The clock on the wall ticks loudly, each second feeling like an eternity. A toddler in the corner plays with some toys, blissfully unaware of the tension surrounding him. His mum scrolls through her phone, occasionally glancing up to ensure he behaves.
