into schoolwork. It turns out it’s a lot easier to deal with stuff when you have a plan.”
I didn’t say her mom probably did that because she wasn’t exactly the “breaking down and crying” type. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that writing everything down helped Meg make sense of what was happening to her.
But I think she wrote for the joy of it too. Her entries are more like little stories than memories. Perfect moments preserved forever.
Not that things with us were always perfect. There was a big chunk of time in the middle that was pretty rough, actually. When she found out she was pregnant, and I realized what that meant not only for us, but for her, we, shall we say, disagreed on what course of action to take. But things happened the way they happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it now. Apparently there was nothing I could do about it then either.
Last August, we sat in her massive living room with her parents, her sister, and my mother. Everyone was well aware of the pregnancy. Meg had been scheduled to go back for her second round of chemo at the end of June, but that obviously hadn’t happened. Meg’s parents were disappointed, outraged, embarrassed—all the things a couple of uptight robots are programmed to feel when their perfect daughter doesn’t follow their perfect plans. My mom was just sad.
But it wasn’t a done deal yet. Meg could’ve still gotten an abortion. She could’ve still gone back on chemo. If we acted fast, her treatment plan would’ve barely been interrupted at all. To me, it was a no-brainer. Her parents agreed. It was probably the only thing we ever agreed on.
Meg saw things differently. And as I had come to learn over the last several weeks of shouting and crying and pleading and futile attempts at reasoning, her opinion was the only one that mattered. “I’m having the baby,” she declared.
My mom didn’t say anything. Neither did her sister Mabel. Neither did I. I was still so, so mad.
“I feel good,” she said. “Better than I have in a long time. All I have to do is hold out another seven or so months, and then I’ll go right back on treatment. I promise.”
“But, Megan,” her mother said, “you know how quickly things can change. Seven months is a very long time when it comes to cancer.”
“I don’t care.”
Her mother shook her head and glared at me. Me, the asshole who knocked up her sick daughter. Believe me, anything she was thinking, I was thinking ten times worse.
“Everything is going to be fine,” Meg said. “You just have to trust me.”
Well, it wasn’t fine. Not even close.
But there was so much good stuff in our relationship too. So much. I loved her. I miss her. And her journal helps me remember. Everything is so out of control lately. I’m so tired, and it’s really hard to just think. Sometimes I worry I’m going to forget her. Forget the time we had together, as if it was some strange, wonderful/horrible dream. I can’t do that. I need to tell Hope all about Meg when she gets old enough. I can’t control the fact that Hope’s going to grow up without a mom, like I grew up without a dad, which really fucking sucks, but I can give her what I never had—as many details as possible.
When I read the journal, Meg’s words latch onto my tired brain, and the memories from those specific moments come flooding back. Not the big things, the mistakes. Believe me, I don’t need a journal to remind me of that. The journal helps with the small things—the things I’d forget without Meg’s notes, the things I need to tell Hope someday.
I wish I had more journals, more reminders.
Meg left this journal at my house sometime at the end of sophomore year, after she told me about the cancer but before we found out she was pregnant. I kept it without telling her. There’s writing in it up to the very last page, which is probably why she never missed it—she was ready to start a fresh one anyway. I couldn’t have known at the time that it would become my most valued possession in the entire freaking world.
I open it up.
May 20.
Ryden Brooks spoke to me in Honors English today.
I can’t do this again. The crush is absolutely, positively not coming back. I am going to carry out the rest