Pieces of Your Heart

He Wasn't Right

Ian stood in front of a target, breathing deeply, trying to relax is body, focus his eyes. He felt his concentration slipping. Over the last month or so, things finally seemed to be catching up with him. It was not only his heart that was broken, but his body as well. He breathed in and squeezed the trigger.

"Fuck!" he growled under his breath. His clumsy shot had missed the target completely.

"Hey hey, you're off your game today," Bill said jovially as he came to stand beside him.

"Bill don't take this the wrong way, but fuck off. Seriously."

"Damn, what's wrong with you?"

Ian exhaled loudly. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You still hung up on that girl, huh?" Bill asked sympathetically.

Ian took several paces away from his friend, and then looked back, wondering if he should say anything. He desperately wanted to unburden himself; however he did not wish to become a burden by doing so, and that was almost inevitable.

Bill was caught off guard by the look on Ian's face. His usual expression of seriousness was clouded by something that had not been there before; the sadness and exhaustion had come together in his eyes, making him look old for the first time.

"What is it, man?"

Ian sighed again. "I want to tell you – to tell someone; I just don't know..."

"Just fucking tell me already, you're scaring the shit out of me to tell you the truth."

"Bill, I have cancer. Lung cancer."

Bill's shoulders slumped down as the words fell out of Ian's mouth and hung heavily in the air. The word cancer was like a punch in the solar plexus.

"Motherfucker."

Ian grinned sadly. "Yeah."

"So, what, are you doing radiation? Chemo? What stage is it?"

"Slow down. I wasn't getting treated, but I've started. I'm taking an oral chemo drug, and I haven't been taking it that long. It makes me feel sicker than hell, and that's the reason for all the other fucking pharmaceuticals I'm on right now. The doctor says I should consider more aggressive treatment, but --- I don't know what I'm going to do just yet."

"Fucking hell. Are you gonna lose your hair?"

Ian let out a melancholy chuckle. "Probably."

"And this girl you were seeing, she left knowing you were sick? Shit, is that why she left?"

Ian said nothing.

"She doesn't know," Bill said quietly, understanding in that moment all the reasons Ian had told her not to stay.

Ian shook his head slowly. "No she doesn't know. No one does."

"You gotta tell her man."

"Doesn't matter now. I'm not her problem anymore."

"You don't think she deserves to know?"

"Bill, for fuck's sake, her sister died of cancer. The last thing I want to do is to tell her about this. I don't want her to have to deal with all that shit again. I don't want her to see me sick and pathetic, coughing up blood and puking my guts out. I can't do that to her, I couldn't do that to her. And now she's gone and I don't have to worry about that anymore."