it was a very big deal to her. She had lost a part of her self-image and her self-confidence, and her life was at stake now. That was about as big a deal as you get, no matter how small your breasts were. She hadn't wanted to lose one.
“How are you going to feel about me now?” she asked him honestly, facing him from across the small room. She wanted to hear it, since he had never reassured her about it before the operation. But he felt that the fact that he was there told her everything. To Alex, it didn't. He was passing through once a day for an hour, between office and home, and the rest of his busy life. That was a little too easy.
“What does that mean?” He looked annoyed at the question.
“I'm asking you if it's going to gross you out to see me the way I am now.” She hadn't even seen it herself yet, so she wasn't sure what she was talking about, but she was desperate for reassurance.
“How do I know what I'm going to feel? I can't imagine it makes that much difference. Why don't we cross that bridge when we come to it?”
“Like when? Next week? Tomorrow? Now?” There were tears in her eyes again, he wasn't saying what she needed to hear, or what she wanted. And he looked faintly panicked by her question. “Do you want me to show it to you, or would you rather see a picture first, so you're forewarned? Dr. Herman has some great ones, very clear, very graphic. It just looks like a flat piece of meat with no nipple.” Alex saw him go pale and he looked suddenly angry.
“Why are you doing this? Do you want to scare me, or just turn me off before we even start? What's the deal here, Al? Are you mad at me, or just pissed off at life? Maybe you better reconstruct your attitude, before you start worrying about getting your breast back.”
“Who said I was trying to get my breast back?” She looked surprised at what he'd said to her.
“Dr. Herman said you could have reconstructive surgery in a few months, if you were up to it. That sounds like a good idea to me.”
“Would you rather I stay hidden till then?” she asked nastily, and he threw up his hands in obvious irritation.
“You're being a real bitch about this. I'm sorry you lost your breast. I'm sorry you've been ‘disfigured.' I don't know how I'm going to feel when I see it. Okay? I'll let you know. All right?”
“Be sure you do that.” But he had said none of the right things for her. There was no reassurance that it didn't matter to him, that she was beautiful anyway. He just wanted to go on with their life, and pretend it hadn't happened. Dinner and a movie with friends sounded fine to him. He refused to realize how distraught she was over what had happened. And she was making no effort yet to get out of her depression, and he certainly wasn't helping.
“Why don't you just concentrate on getting your strength back and getting home? You'll feel a lot better once you're home with Annabelle, and you can go back to work, and get your life back to normal.”
“How normal do you think it's going to be while I'm on chemotherapy, Sam?” she asked him bluntly.
“As normal as you're willing to let it be,” he said brutally, but not really understanding what was in store for her either. “You don't have to make such a big deal of this, you don't have to punish us too. It's going to be hard on Annabelle if you stay angry like this. You're going to have to make your peace with what happened.” It had only been a day though. “I'm not even sure anymore I know how to help you.”
“Apparently not,” she said unhappily, “you seem to be a little too busy with your own life to be inconvenienced by all this, from what I can tell. You seem to be awfully busy at the moment with Simon and his new clients.”
“I have a busy professional life, so do you. If this were happening to me, you wouldn't be staying home from work, or canceling trials or meetings with your clients either. Try to be realistic. The whole world didn't come to a shrieking stop yesterday because of what happened to you.”
“That's reassuring.”
“I'm sorry,” he said