Not that she wants my sympathy. Not that she wants me lying in bed staring at the ceiling, chaining Luckys and thinking about the virus that’s eating her alive. Far as she’s concerned, I can fuck off whenever I want and just stop hovering around asking how she’s feeling.

Or I can do something to save her.

Not that I take it seriously, all that shit. That’s just the chemo talking. The misery and the pain and the acid they’re pouring into her. She doesn’t really think I can do anything. She’s just fucking desperate.

She’s just sick.

Girl was sick the night I met her. I knew the score then and I got in the game anyway. Nothing’s changed between us. She’s still sick. We still don’t sleep together. I still eat my heart out every time I look at her.

The pity party’s in the other room if you feel like joining it.

I won’t be in.

Only thing that’s changed is she’s dying faster. Faster than she was before. And faster than me. She’s dying really fucking fast.

’Course, she doesn’t know I’m dying. She doesn’t know shit about me. The nighttime schedule she chalks up to a sun allergy, solar urticaria. The guns and the rough and tumble and the padlocked fridge in my apartment and the donor blood I get deposited on her behalf so she always has enough for the transfusions she needs because of the anemia caused by the chemo? That’s all because of my job.

Organ courier.

Transporter of healthy tissues between those with perfect kidneys, healthy corneas, melanoma-free skin, pink lungs, unperforated intestines; and the miserable disease-wracked bastards with nothing but money. Nice work if you can get it.

Except that it’s a lie.

Yeah, I told my girl a lie. Just one on a long list. Once you skip over telling someone the part about needing to consume blood in order to feed the Vyrus that’s keeping you alive, there isn’t much room for truth in a relationship.