Aggie & Paris - Chapter 1 - canniclown (2024)

Chapter Text

8:00 a.m. every Wednesday, Aggie’s alarm clock rattles against the tiny nightstand behind her head, wrenching her from sleep and forcing her to sit up and start the day. She gets dressed on autopilot today, maneuvering carefully around boxes of equipment stored in her bedroom to get to her closet, pulling down the outfit she already hung up for her interview today. Normally, she’ll go to group in her pajamas, or in whatever she deems comfortable enough for the drive over, but she wants to look nice for the museum this afternoon. She picked out some jeans last night, and a nicer sort of blouse, something that has never really suited her stocky build, but it’ll be good enough for a job interview, that’s for sure.

Aggie yawns as she pushes out of her bedroom, to walk down the hall of their small apartment and into the bathroom. Her older brother, Silas, has already left for the morning, a medical student who works weird, odd jobs, and takes early morning classes. They see each other less and less these days, so Aggie is definitely excited about the prospect of having a new job. Not only to finally pull her weight around here and help Silas with some of the bills, but to have something to do besides mope and go to group on Wednesdays.

She looks at her reflection in the bathroom mirror to do her makeup, some plain black eyeliner with a little bit of highlight in the inner corners of her eyes. She feels very simple, now that she can wear makeup again, but it’s been nice getting to f*ck with her appearance and figure out who she really is. She’s got a few new piercings, a ring in her septum and some studs in her dimples. For the first time in ages, these last few months she’s been able to actually focus on how she looks and what she wears. She combs her limp, brown hair up into a bun, as much as she can, and smooths out the shaved sides. It’s growing in patchy on the sides, so she’ll have to shave them again soon, but the hair on top of her head is actually getting pretty long. It’s nice to be able to style it.

As she’s filling up her reusable water bottle in the sink, she notices Silas’ keys on the counter, with a sticky note stuck to the key fob for his car.

Good luck with your interview!

Aggie grins to herself, and snatches his keys up before heading out to the driveway. She only just got her learner’s permit a year or so ago, and even though she isn’t legally allowed to drive on her own yet, it’s still so nice of Silas to leave his car behind for her, so she can drive herself around and not have to rely on the city bus, like she normally does. It’s especially nice today, that she’s done her makeup up and she’s not dressed like a bum, so she doesn’t have to worry about any freaks on the bus making her uncomfortable.

The drive is faster in a car, and she’s careful not to look too suspicious so passing cops won’t want to pull her over and find out she’s not supposed to be driving. As cool as she’s trying to make herself look, she’s got a deep seeded fear of rule breaking, so she’s mostly just trying to look like an experienced driver.

Group is held in a presbyterian church, a small, old chapel that Aggie is sure elderly people eat the f*ck up. It’s one of those churches that has community outreach programs and bake sales, food drives, summer camps, Easter egg hunts, anything that an old white lady would love. It’s weirder, for Aggie, to come here every week as an agnostic young adult with no real sense of community. She thinks the point of group is supposed to be to form a community of like-minded people who share similar struggles, so they don’t have to feel so alone.

She walks through the back entrance, far away from the chapel, in through the kitchen, back into the wide back room lined with rows and rows of community tables pointed towards a tv on the back wall. Aggie passes by them without much of a glance, pausing only to wave at one of the other girls from group she recognizes before heading up the rickety old stairs, each step creaking as she climbs up into the church’s second floor. There are long hallways up here that bend and twist and creak throughout the upper level of the church, but thankfully, her group is right through the second door on the left, across from a small bathroom.

It’s a children’s worship classroom, and the kids' tables have all been pushed to the edge of the room to make space for a circle of twenty or so chairs. Aggie has been in this church every Wednesday since she was supposed to be in middle school, and she always turns away from the chairs to walk right up to the back of the room, where breakfast is. She’ll do better in group once she’s had something to eat.

The spread today is pretty good, Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee, some fresh fruit and muffins, even some mini french toast sticks and packs of syrups. Terry takes breakfast incredibly seriously, which is probably the best part of coming to group at all. Sure, there’s the whole healing journey thing, but this is pretty nice. Aggie has been moved around in the different groups here, and talked with different counselors, and Terry is probably the best, if only for the breakfast he puts out. One of her old counselors only ever brought the same bag of stale, plain, untoasted bagels with no cream cheese. Terry’s breakfast spread is a f*cking Godsend.

That might not be a great thing to think in a church. Aggie glances up towards where God is supposed to be and promises to make up for it later.

She finds a seat, where she normally does, and rips open the top of her syrup and dunks in a french toast stick to eat quickly. It’s not crispy, but it’s not cold, and honestly, that’s a win in Aggie’s book. A couple people file in, taking their seats or chatting with Terry up at the front. He’s a squat, bald older man with a gray curly beard, and he’s pretty open to people coming up to him to talk. Aggie’s done it herself, time and time again, but today she feels fine. She’s content to eat her little french toast and relax herself mentally, so she won’t be stressed out before her interview.

The chair beside her rustles when Eden moves to sit in it, struggling to balance a little plate of fruit in his open palm. Aggie takes it from him, instantly, so he can sit down. Eden is a small sort of guy, with thin, brittle limbs and hollow cheekbones. He sits, and adjusts the straps of his oxygen tank, sat awkwardly on the side of his hip like a fanny pack. The tubes tangle in the zipper of his jacket, and he has to readjust them, visibly holding his breath a little while he reaches up to push the opening back in his nose, and settles the tubes up over his ears like a pair of glasses.

He huffs, irritated, and Aggie holds out his fruit plate. “You know, it’s not as bad as the rolly backpack.”

“Ugh,” Eden sticks his tongue out. “Don’t remind me. I guess it’s nice to have it so small, but it’s still inconvenient.” He gestures at the little tank, protruding from his hip and held up by a thick, velcro belt. “I mean, it’s huge. It’s hideous, it’s just,” He sighs, and the tank beeps, which makes him sigh even harder as he reaches for a knob on the side, to turn up the oxygen flow into his nostrils. “Anyway. Hi, Aggie, how are you?”

Aggie snorts. “Hi, Eden, I’m okay today. I have an interview after lunch later, and Silas gave me his car.”

“Oh, word. That’s great!”

“How are you?”

“I’m okay today,” Eden repeats, popping a grape in his mouth. It crunches, crisp, and Aggie wonders why the f*ck her french toast sticks were so soggy, then. “Tav’s out with my mom today, so I’ll probably be home alone after lunch. My fiddle leaf fig is being dramatic, so I’ll probably reorganize some of my bigger plants to get him some more sun.”

Aggie smiles to herself, but she doesn’t make fun of him for it. Eden talks about his plants like their his children, and it’s honestly pretty cute.

She’s known Eden for years now, bounced around from group to group one after the other as they got older. Eden is sort of dorky, in a charming way, and Aggie’s pretty sure they wouldn’t have become friends if they met the way normal people meet. He’s very proper and sweet and caring, and Aggie is loud with bad manners and a worse attitude. Eden was the kind of kid that kids like Aggie would probably bully. And yet, they’re still close anyway. They have lunch together after every group session, so they've basically shared their lives together. Every single Wednesday, since they were twelve and eleven. Aggie’s heard about Eden’s family, she’s heard about all of his struggles, she listened to him talk about his new friend, who later became his boyfriend, then his fiancé, until Aggie was sitting on a courthouse bench watching him get married. She’s met his mom, he’s met Silas. Eden is basically the closest thing she has to a best friend, and as stupid as it sounds, she likes hearing about his stupid plants.

“Is this the museum job?” Eden asks, fiddling with his tank again. “The tour group?”

“Yeah!” Aggie smiles, finishing off the rest of her french toast. She talks with food in her mouth. “It’s like a tour guide, I think. I think I have a good shot, since I was at the Archives for a while. All that I did there was spew facts about the exhibits.”

“Oh that’s right,” Eden leans forward to put his plate under his chair, along with Aggie’s, as the others file in to sit before they start. “I forget you worked there, too.”

Group always starts the same way. Terry, along with the other counselors in the other rooms of the church’s second floor, introduces himself, and talks a little bit about his experience with cancer.

Aggie thinks that must be a rule from the organization. In order to work with Blossoming Hope, you have to be a cancer survivor. Not a therapist, not a trained professional, just someone who has battled cancer and won. She used to think that maybe someday, as she moved from group to group, as she aged, as her condition worsened or got better, she would get a counselor who didn’t have f*cking cancer. An outside sort of perspective that will give all these cancer riddled patients a new kind of experience. Something different, something easier to listen to, but like everyone she’s ever met here, like Eden, like herself, every counselor has battled cancer in their own way.

Honestly, this is becoming exhausting.

This is part of why she likes Eden so damn much, at least he talks to her about plants. She asks how he is, and he asks how she is, and they give other answers than ‘well, I’ve got cancer.’ Obviously, everyone in this f*cking room has cancer, and it f*cking sucks. No, nobody is truly okay or good or well, because everyone has f*cking cancer. But at least Eden will talk about plants, or a book he’s reading, or his husband. At least he gives her a break from all this f*cking cancer talk.

When Terry’s done spewing about his brain tumor surgery, the circle goes around, one by one, introducing themself and explaining their history with cancer, to catch everyone up to speed. Terry insists it’s for transparency, so they can all feel supportive of how each of them has struggled. Aggie has known most of these people her whole life, bouncing between cancer support groups like misguided, tortured pinballs, clanking around a few times before moving on to the next obstacle.

The order gets to her first, before Eden, and she smiles, if only to be pleasant. “Hi, my name is Agatha Ross, I have Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I have been in and out of treatment since I was three or four, I’ve had dozens of unsuccessful stem cell transplants, but the last one stuck. I have been in remission for seven months now.” A couple people clap, but she doesn’t know why, really. Everyone here is in remission.

This is the f*cking remission group.

“And how are you feeling today, Aggie?” Terry asks, sweetly, like he asks every single person in the room.

Aggie huffs a breath, and she answers. “I’m okay. I had to get dressed up today,” She picks at her blouse. “So, I’m happy I have hair.”

A couple others laugh. Aggie slouches in her seat.

Terry glances past her, at Eden, and honestly, Aggie has heard him talk so much now, she recites his own cancer story in her head, mumbling it to herself as he says it. “Hi, my name is Eden Meeble, I have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. I had cancer in my left lung, went through aggressive chemotherapy for years until I qualified for a secular pneumonectomy. It was successful, I’ve been in remission for three years, and I am feeling fine today.”

Terry moves on to the next, and Aggie glances down at Eden’s oxygen tank.

The sad thing about knowing someone else with cancer for so many years, and watching them battle alongside you, is that you can see first hand how f*cking miserable they are. This group claims to be fairly happier than the others, but there are other members who have become friends like Aggie and Eden have. She can see them look at each other, after they share the cliff notes versions of their own stories. Aside from diagnoses, there’s no meat to anything anyone is saying, and they look at each other awkwardly, like they’re sorry their friends’ struggles have been reduced so plainly.

Not a single other person in this room, not Terry, not anyone, has seen Aggie’s struggle like Eden did. She knows, when he looks at her, he can see how cancer has worn on her. Years and years of unsuccessful transplants and death scares, weeks upon weeks of suffering through chemo, hollowing her cheeks and killing her more than the f*cking cancer did. He’s seen Aggie’s hair fall out in thick chunks, he’s sat with her while she sobbed openly, horribly into her hands from the pain. When her own immune system began destroying her, when her skin darkened with ugly veins and when she felt like giving up, she looked forward to seeing Eden. To being friends with someone who wouldn’t pull away from her at the sight of how horrible it was. Someone who doesn’t need to hear the short, happy, summary of her sh*tty life.

She knows he’s thinking about it, too, about what she thinks of him. She met Eden before, when he had both lungs, when one was rotting with tumors and corrupting him with poison, splintering through his body like thick roots of unbearable torture. She watched his body crumble, until he was little more than a horrible, bald skeleton, she watched him try frantically to cover up the tissues he hacked into before anyone could see the blood. They’ve seen each other at their worst, and they’ve built themselves back up now. Aggie is better, but she knows Eden can tell how exhausted she is, and he certainly knows Aggie can tell that his one ‘good’ lung is still diseased and he can’t breathe. But the lack of tumor makes everyone clap for him. Like they clap for the others, people who lost limbs, eyes, chunks of their brains to cancer. Like they clapped for Aggie, who will visibly, sickly always have a sh*tty immune system that wants to kill her.

Like they clapped for all of this f*cking bullsh*t.

It’s insane, actually, to be so shallow. To applaud remission like it’s a big accomplishment, as if more than half the people in this room aren’t scared to f*cking death their cancer will come back, or worse, the people they’ve gotten close to will relapse, too, and they’ll have to sit and watch, powerless to help. Aggie is scared of Eden’s disease, and of what it’s done to him, how exhausted and frail he looks, how his oxygen tank hisses with each breath, and reducing his illness to a tiny paragraph of dialogue is such a disservice to him. Would it be so much to ask for the group to at least be grotesquely, depressingly honest about how bad cancer really is? As annoying is it is, and as much as Aggie doesn’t want to talk about cancer every second of her life, this is f*cking cancer therapy. This is where they should talk about cancer.

Group normally lasts for a few hours, and Terry talks them through a wide range of activities about bonding and rebuilding your life in remission, and Aggie is ultimately pouting the whole time. By the time they’re walking out of the building together, she’s basically ready to sprint as far away from the church as humanly possible.

“Do you wanna go to Jason’s Deli?” She asks, sweetly, looking down at Eden as he digs around in his khakis for his phone. She tries very hard to just move on. They can leave the therapy sh*t at the church’s front door. “I want ice cream, and they have a salad bar.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Eden wheezes a little, looking up at the sun and cupping a hand over his eyes to see the sky.

She drives, because Eden doesn’t know how. His mom normally drives him everywhere, like Silas normally drives Aggie.

“You know I’ve been thinking,” Aggie says, drumming her hands on the steering wheel and ignoring the way Eden lifts his hand to grab the handle above the passenger window to steady himself. “You could try to get a job at the museum, too.” He rolls his eyes, and she waves her hand at him. “I’m serious! There’s a ton of jobs on the website. Well, maybe three or four. But that’s still a ton of jobs, and I’ve been thinking we could get a house.”

Eden glances at her, trying very hard to keep his eyes on the road, like Aggie will crash instantly if he doesn’t. “A house?”

“Yeah, like, for me and Silas, you and Tav.”

He laughs a little, delicately. “I don’t know about that.”

“Well, it’s something to think about.” Aggie says. “I’m sure it would be nice to move out of your mom’s house.”

“Sure,” Eden agrees, rolling his eyes again. “And your new tour guide job is going to make enough to put us in a house.”

“You’d work, too. So would Silas.”

“Sure, but I don’t work, and Tav can’t. So if you want to buy us a house and let us leech off of your hard work, you’re more than welcome to do so. But we’re fine with my mom. I like my mom.”

Aggie huffs, quietly, and keeps driving.

She’s lived with Silas her entire life. Their parents are dead, and they lived with their uncle Gideon for the rest of their childhood, until just in the last year or so, when he left to travel for work, and Silas was able to save up for an apartment. It’s tiny, and a little cramped, which Aggie truly doesn’t mind, but she’s really excited about her job interview.

One of the… other sh*tty things about having cancer, aside from struggling her entire life and only being able to make friends with other cancer patients, is that Aggie has seen what her cancer did to her family. Silas always brushes her off when she brings it up, but Gideon worked, and Silas was the one who sat with her in the hospital, who took care of her at home when she was too sick to even bathe herself. Silas administered most of her medicine, he held her hand through chemotherapy, he sat in the hospital and waited to rush to her bedside after every single surgery.

He has given her stem cells. Aggie has had a few transplants, overall, but the most recent one, and the only one that has proven to be successful so far, was all Silas. He had offered, every single time, to go under the knife with her and literally give her his bone marrow, on top of everything else he’s given her, and Aggie refused. She waited on donor lists. She suffered unsuccessful transplants. She felt so guilty, even at the idea of taking more from him, that she couldn’t. She refused to let him.

Until the last time her disease returned, and she was too sick to be asked.

Now, she’s in remission. Of course, she still feels guilty. Her brother literally gave his body to save her life. And, on f*cking top of that, now she feels even more guilty, because if she hadn’t been so stubborn, if she had taken his stem cells years ago, when she was a teenager, she would have been done with it sooner. Silas wouldn’t have had to take care of her for ten more years. Aggie is sick to f*cking death of being a burden on him. She’s going to get a job so he doesn’t have to work so much. She’s going to save up, and buy him a really nice house, and she’s going to make it up to him, because as much as having cancer f*cking sucks, Silas gave up his childhood, his body, his entire life to keep her alive, and she’s not going to let him suffer anymore.

They can barely speak now, because he’s so exhausted with work and school. She barely sees him. She wants her brother back, and this is the way to do it.

Lunch is pretty good. Aggie eats a full sandwich, which is a pretty big accomplishment in her own eyes. It's probably silly, to be proud of herself for finishing an entire sandwich, even the crusts, but that’s yet another f*cking thing on the long list of f*cking things that cancer does to someone. Chemotherapy makes people sick. It’s pure radiation, and it wears on your body, and your appetite, and your energy. Cancer patients are normally bone skinny and never hungry, and now that she hasn’t done treatment in a couple years, Aggie has been steadily gaining weight back and becoming hungry again.

She’s never been exceptionally skinny. Yeah, she was sick, but Aggie is sure she’s got big bones or something, because she’s bigger than a lot of girls she knows, broad shouldered and barrel chested, but she was still thin. It’s nice now, to eat a meal and feel full, to feel the stretch of fat in her cheeks and the soft pudge of her stomach. This is something she’s getting better at taking care of for herself, like learning to drive, like going out to get a job today. She’s going to be better.

Across from her, Eden sort of picks at his salad, with his fork, staring down at his phone on the table, reading through something his husband probably sent him to read. Eden has always been sort of scrawny, but she knows he really struggles to get himself to eat, even without the radiation making him sick anymore.

“I’m making you an ice cream.” Aggie says, pushing up from her chair and pointing down at his plate. “And you need to eat more than that.”

Eden sort of makes a face, but he ultimately nods, gratefully, and Aggie makes him put his phone away when she gets back so they can eat together, and she can encourage him through it.

In the afternoon, Aggie waits in front of the museum’s entrance while a girl at the ticket counter runs off somewhere to go fetch someone for her. She taps her fingers idly on the edge of the counter, glancing around the place to sort of get a feel for the kind of museum it is. Aggie has worked at a museum before, sometime last year, but it was indoors, and typically what she was expecting when she heard the word museum. A space of twisting hallways and big rooms with glass cases, for people to walk through slowly and learn about history.

This place is entirely outdoors, a swampy expanse of rescue animals and ziplines. She kind of understands the concept, from the website, that it’s mostly for kids to learn about taking care of animals and study nature, which is pretty cool, but being outside in the heat isn’t necessarily something she’s crazy about. It’ll be fine now, early in the year, but she bets summers are pretty brutal.

The front door swings open, to the left of the booth, and an older man steps out, with graying hair and a beautifully kind smile, outstretching his hand to meet her. “Agatha, right? I’m TJ. Thank you for coming in to talk to me.”

“Sure,” Aggie smiles, shaking his hand firmly. “It's nice to meet you.”

“You, too!” TJ drops her hand, still smiling. “Well, come on back, we’ll talk in my office.”

“Okay.” Aggie follows politely behind him, as TJ holds open the door for her, then another door into a conference room, all the way back through a little hallway, into what must be his office. It’s a pretty nice room, well lit and decorated with pictures and certificates. Aggie sits in one of the chairs while TJ shuts the door and rounds to sit behind his desk. She glances at the surface, and he’s got her resume out, along with a little packet of paperwork.

To start, TJ talks about the scope of the job. Apparently, the museum hasn’t had a tour guide for years now, and he’s been assigning it on rotation to a few of the people who work in something he calls the discovery rooms. He explains that it’s tough, because nobody ever wants to do it. Aggie is honestly a little surprised by how transparent he is, about how it’s one of those jobs none of his people have any interest in, and he has to sort of draw straws and assign people randomly when tours arrive.

“It’s a weird schedule,” He says, flipping through the folder in front of him. “We get a lot of elementary school field trips, those are fairly regular, but otherwise your schedule would be sort of up to whoever wants a tour. Some parents bring big groups of kids on sleepovers, or sports teams, tourists, anyone that wants to see the whole museum and have a real guide show them around. We don’t have a lot of those, but your schedule might be a little spontaneous. What’s your availability like?”

“Open.” Aggie nods, smiling to show her teeth. “I have a support group on Wednesdays, from 9:00-11:00, but otherwise, it’s totally open, I can come in whenever.”

“Perfect,” TJ looks from the folder, to her resume. It’s visibly pretty short, and Aggie swallows. “How long did you work at the Archives? I didn’t see an end date, and I called your reference here a few times, but no one answered.”

Figures. The dick bags at the Archives probably listened to a voicemail with Aggie’s name in it and deleted it right away. “Four months. I had to leave because of a medical emergency.”

“Okay,” Aggie braces herself for him to pry about that, but he doesn’t, just writing something down and moving on through her interview with ease.

They just chat for a little while, about the kinds of jobs Aggie has been looking for, and what she can expect from this one. Aggie tries to be pretty open with him, about how she got her GED when she was seventeen, and how she considered college, briefly, and that she would want to study history. TJ tells her that she could try looking into online school, and he actually knows a few people who could help her out with that if she needed. He seems to be genuinely a very nice person, and Aggie finds it pretty easy to talk to him. She even asks him a few questions about himself, how he came about owning the museum, and listens attentively while he talks about finding an abandoned zoo and turning into an animal rehab center.

Aggie doesn’t think she’s ever been so hopeful about a job before. This has been such a good day.

They fill out some paperwork, which is an incredible sign, and TJ lets her know he’ll get it processed, and she’ll probably hear back about an official start date sometime this weekend. Aggie is grinning, genuinely, when she thanks him, and her cheeks start to hurt.

“So,” TJ sighs, happily, his smile matching her own. “I can go ahead and show you around today. Is there anything else you think I should know beforehand?”

sh*t.

It is never really easy to talk about, especially not to strangers, so Aggie’s smile falters a little, like her new wave of hope and excitement just got the big f*cking cancer patient stamp on it, and she’s back to right where she was before. All the colors and brightness of a new opportunity are snuffed out in an instant, and she’s back in her gray, sick, sh*tty life again.

She swallows, and looks down at her lap. “Yeah, um…” She pauses, and TJ waits, patiently. “I’ve had cancer my whole life, basically. I’ve been in remission for seven months, but, um… I guess it’s kind of unpredictable.”

TJ nods, slowly, and he looks back down at her resume. “You left your last job a few months before that. Did you relapse?”

Aggie’s shoulders droop a little. “Yeah. This is the longest I’ve been in remission, but it’s never a hundred percent. And, yeah, I collapsed right before clocking in for my shift and,” Aggie holds her arm out to show him her bracelet, a long distance touch bracelet with a moon on it, that Silas gave her to use when she needs help. “My brother got me this so I can tap it when something’s wrong and he’ll call an ambulance and stuff, so my old boss didn’t know I left. I had an emergency stem cell transplant, and they wouldn’t let me come back after I recovered because it counted as a no call no show.”

For a second, TJ stares at her, like he’s concerned, and not in the way normal people are when she talks about having cancer or collapsing at work or needing a transplant.

“Those bastards.” He curses, shaking his head. “You will never have to deal with that here, we’ll be flexible with your schedule, and if you need time off, if anything is wrong, you just take care of yourself and I’ll take care of everything here, okay?”

The room flooding with that airy, happy color of hope again, Aggie smiles. “Okay.”

The museum itself is a twisting path of exhibits and ziplines, separated into different sections that TJ explains as he walks her through them. It’s gorgeous, a secluded little forest that’s all land that TJ owns and expands into, a sanctuary for not only the rescue animals, but for the actual native wildlife in the area. TJ spends a few hours showing her around the museum and introducing her to the different departments, for lack of a better term, except for the ziplines, which TJ explains are certainly out of her job description.

It’s sort of nice, honestly, to just spend some time talking to TJ and looking around at all of the animals and the old buildings, where TJ says she’ll be doing most of the tours.

Aggie loves learning about historical sites and their significance, and the museum has an abundance of just that. There’s a section that TJ calls the Old Florida buildings, that includes an antique train car you can actually, physically walk through, a church, a schoolhouse, and an old plantation home. Aggie gets to walk through them, and there are sections protected with glass casings and barriers to keep guests from climbing over them and disturbing the exhibits.

TJ lets her look around and read the little plaques and pamphlets before he brings her outside, where they round the edge of the church to get to the back, stepping over some overgrown landscaping hiding a little graveyard.

It’s real, and horribly spooky, and Aggie absolutely loves it. She spends some time reading the gravestones and cleaning up some of the obstructive weeds.

They head back to TJ’s office eventually, and he asks how comfortable she feels leading tour groups early on.

“We’ve got a field trip next week, on Friday,” He says, looking at the schedule on his computer screen. “We’ll figure out a start date to train you. I’ve never really trained a tour guide, so I’m not really sure what we’ll be doing, but I’ll come up with a plan.”

“I can come up with something.” Aggie says, smiling.

“Okay,” TJ chuckles. “Well, what do you need from me to be ready?”

“Well,” Aggie taps her fingers on the desk, excitedly. “If it’s okay with you, maybe I could shadow a few people and take notes about the animals, and what they work on throughout the day? Then I could write a real script.”

TJ’s eyes widen. “Yeah, that’s a great idea. That would be a big help to me, thank you. I’ll let you know when you can come in.”

Aggie smiles to herself, and she spends the rest of her evening researching everything she can about the museum, the Old Florida exhibits, and she starts writing a script in a crisp, brand new notebook.

She ends up starting work on Sunday, shadowing a few of the employees that TJ recommends for her to do research with. Kara, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Assistant, who walks Aggie through the rehab center and medication routines, gives Aggie names and schedules for all of the animals that need rehab assistance. She also gives Aggie some fun facts about the animals, that Aggie could include, and they sit together to have lunch, where Aggie gets to meet Kara’s family, who apparently all work at the museum, too. They seem happy, and Aggie honestly is glad to pick her brother’s brain about the construction of some of the exhibits, and hear about the zipline course from her brother-in-law.

Aggie also shadows a girl in the discovery rooms, who spends so much time talking and gossiping about the people that work in the museum that Aggie forgets her name. But she takes notes on the discovery center anyway, and asks about the kinds of camps the museum provides.

Towards the end of her shift, she gets to shadow Greg, the farmer. He’s wearing a farmer’s hat, and though most of the exciting farm stuff happens early in the mornings, he shows her around and lets her meet some of the animals. He talks to her about the history of the farmhouses, and he lets her feed a carrot to a goat. Aggie can’t think of a better first day.

It’s hard to believe how f*cking miserable she’s been, most of her life, when she could just live a life like this. Cancer free, with a well paying job where she gets to feed a f*cking carrot to a f*cking goat. She tries to focus on working on her script, despite the neon glow of her new, brighter world, and make it legible, so TJ can read through it. She stands with him at the ticket counter, bouncing excitedly on her heels while he flips through her notebook, filled with front and back pages packed with handwritten notes and information for the tours.

“Wow,” TJ flips through a few more pages, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “You wrote all this today?”

“Well,” Aggie reaches for the notebook, and flips to a few of the first pages. “I worked on this after you showed me around. Is that okay?”

“Is it okay?” TJ laughs, shaking his head. “This makes my job so much easier, Aggie. Thank you. Honestly,” TJ laughs again, huffing air through his nostrils. “You’re more of an expert on this than I am, now. I’ll get all this typed up and we can-”

“I can do it.” Aggie says, smiling. “I have a computer.”

For a second, TJ stares at her, incredulous, before he bursts into astounded laughter again. “Well, alright, knock yourself out. You know, you really should think about going to college for this, I’ll see if I can get you my-”

“Put your drinks here.” A voice cuts him off, and they both turn, looking through the window at the girl who works in the gift shop. She slaps her hand down, on the ticket window, sort of aggressively at this innocent group of grown adults with closed water bottles. They look around at each other, confused, and she sort of yells at them. “Put your drinks here, or throw them out, or don’t come in the f*cking gift shop again.”

The guests glance at each other before they decide to just wish her a good night and walk out of the museum’s front entrance, and she huffs and drops down in the stool at the cash register, pulling out her phone and returning to scroll on TikTok without any headphones in.

TJ watches the guests walk out, his mouth agape, then he looks at the girl, then at Aggie. Aggie shrugs. She has no idea what the f*ck that was either.

“Um…” TJ drums his hands on the window, leaning over it to poke his head out at her. “Hey, Beverly… What was that about?” She doesn’t answer him, so he sighs. “Okay, why don’t you head on home today, okay?”

Again, she doesn’t answer, and she storms off to the employee room to grab her sh*t and clock out.

TJ watches her go, before turning back to Aggie to mumble under his breath. “I have to fire her, don’t I?”

Aggie nods, gritting her teeth. “Has she done that before?”

“Yeah, she has. She’s got four write ups already.” TJ sighs. “I try to really give second chances here, but maybe it’s time to talk about letting her go.” He moves to the back wall of the ticket booth, where he picks up a little print out of everyone’s weekly schedule. “I don’t know who would cover for her, though. Nobody likes sitting up here all day.” He pauses, glancing over at Aggie again. “You’ve done nothing but miracles for me so far. Any chance you want to work in the gift shop, too?”

Instantly, Aggie thinks of Eden, and the concept of being able to work alongside someone she’s close with. A gift shop would be perfect for him, and he’d love it in here. It’s quiet, it's air conditioned, and everything outside is thick woods and plant life. “No, but I know someone who might.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!” Aggie beams, holding her notebook up to her chest and drumming her fingers on the cover. “I’ll ask him.”

8:00 a.m the next Wednesday, Aggie is up and out of bed already, getting dressed before group. Working steadily is already doing wonders for her confidence, and she spends time curling her thin hair and drawing on eyeliner and eyeshadow, and dabbing a shiny white highlight in the corner of her eyes. She feels good, and clean, like someone who’s been walking around and working, like a regular human being.

Silas drives her today, quietly, while he yawns behind the steering wheel. Aggie doesn’t want to bother him too much, so she just thanks him quietly and hops out of the car, walking up to the church’s front entrance and pushing inside. She’s got some time to kill, so she plays on her phone a little bit. Hopefully, at lunch today, she’ll get to tell Eden all about the gift shop job, and he’ll want to do it. Not even because he needs a job, but she just wants to work with him. She’s really excited about the idea of being able to stop by the gift shop at work and see someone she knows, and she can’t wait to tell him about it.

She actually spots Eden through one of the windows, surprisingly, climbing out of a car she doesn’t recognize, so used to his mom’s flower truck that she almost misses him. She decides to wait for him, and walk in with him, lingering in the church’s lobby. The car is nice, compared to a lot of the cars in the lot, and black. Aggie is confused, for a moment, while Eden turns away from the church to walk around the front of the car, to the driver’s side door, which he opens.

He leans into it, like he’s arguing with someone, and Aggie can see him crank up the dial on his oxygen tank before reaching in to pull the driver out by her arm. Eden shuts the door for her, and Aggie is very suddenly staring at this woman like a f*cking panting dog.

She’s gorgeous, all thick curves and feminine motions, flicking her hair away from her face with a casual swing of her shoulders. She looks like Eden, by a lot, actually, pale skinned and hooked nosed, with black hair that flows straight past her shoulders, down her back. She turns, and folds her arms while Eden shuts her door.

They’re arguing about something.

Aggie has no f*cking idea who this is. Eden does not have a sister. He lives with his mom, his dad is dead, and he had a brother, who, shocker, is also dead. Aggie is pretty sure she would know if he had a sister, but she is suddenly not sure at all, wondering if, this whole time, Eden has had a sister and she didn’t know. She didn’t realize. She had no idea he had a sister.

And she has no unearthly idea why Eden would never mention her, and honestly, what the f*ck? Are they not best friends? Should Aggie not know everything about him?

She watches Eden take her hand after a while, and pull her towards the church, and Aggie turns and hauls ass through the lobby, up through the church and into the kid’s classroom, sitting quickly in the circle without even looking for the breakfast table.

Eden has a sister. A secret, very incredibly hot sister.

Aggie sits, baffled, watching people file in and laugh with each other, and talk to Terry like they normally do. Time moves forward and Aggie is just f*cking stuck. Not only on how weird it is, but how beautiful she was. Aggie’s seen some pretty women, sure, even at the museum, but they’ve been coworkers, or strangers, or nurses, or other cancer patients in the groups she’s been in. This girl wasn’t like them, an effortless, captivating sort of pretty that Aggie is genuinely at a loss of words to. She thinks, deeply, about the flow of her hair and the soft sway of her shoulders, shaking her head casually like she’s just… really that beautiful.

She’s thinking too hard about it, lost in thought, when the chair beside her creaks, and Eden is pulling it out, dropping his bag in front of it.

“I brought my cousin today,” He whispers, like he doesn’t have a lot of time to fill her in.

Cousin. Aggie thinks. Not as bad as him having a secret sister, but Aggie still never thought Eden had family outside of his mom and Tav.

“If she asks,” Eden sort of wheezes, putting a hand on his chest to catch his breath. “Tell her mastectomy. Okay? Mastectomy.”

Aggie blinks, staring at him with her lips parted, and turns to look over at the breakfast table, where she can see her again. Eden’s cousin is nearly too much from behind, thin waist and soft hips, rounded and sculpted perfectly into black jeans that hug her ass astoundingly. Aggie has to cover her mouth with her hand

“Ags?” Eden says, and she can’t take her gaze away. “Hello?”

“I didn’t know you had a cousin.” Aggie says, behind her hand, so Eden won’t see the way her mouth waters.

“Aggie.”

“What?” Eden furrows his brow, and Aggie nods. “Oh, okay, mastectomy. Sure.”

“Thank you.” He says, and walks back to the breakfast table, taking his cousin’s hand again. A reassuring sort of touch that she brushes off, turning away from him to look out at the circle of chairs. Aggie has to wrench her eyes away, and look down at her lap, struggling to put her legs in a casual sort of way. She tries to sit open, slouched, and cool. The sort of sitting that screams, hey, I like women. And I’m single. And I’m cool.

She really hopes it doesn’t seem forced, while Eden walks her over to sit next to him. He opens his mouth, like he’s going to introduce them, but Terry gets to it first, talking over Eden and starting group for the day.

Aggie watches her past Eden’s nose, and she turns, looking right back at Aggie. Her face is riddled with imperfections, smudged mascara and crooked nose rings, and her bridge piercing is a little offset. Like Eden, his cousin is covered with moles and freckles, scattered randomly over her face. They are incredibly cute. Aggie glances down at her lap, where her thighs have squished in her jeans as she’s sitting, spilling over the sides of the plastic chair she’s sitting in, and Aggie has to sit upright, turning her focus on Terry to keep from ogling this woman’s body for too long.

Terry has everyone introduce themselves, and he sends the circle around clockwise, towards Eden, instead of to Aggie. People introduce themselves, again and again, until Terry holds a hand out towards Eden’s cousin, inviting her to introduce herself.

She stares, sort of blankly, her plump lips pouting, like she doesn’t want to do this. Eden nudges her arm a few times, and mumbles to her under his breath until she pushes him off, sighing, and opening her mouth to speak.

“Um… hi. My name is Paris Meeble. Um,” She looks at Eden again, and he nods, urging her on. Aggie hopes she’ll talk some more, that she’ll get to hear Paris’ voice. It’s nasally, and airy, like she is undoubtedly, absolutely out of Aggie’s league. “My mom was, uh… late diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.”

Aggie blinks. For a second she forgot these things are about f*cking cancer.

“My grandma died when my mom was little, so she didn’t really think about it or know any of the symptoms, and um…” She pauses again, and Eden takes her hand, which she accepts this time. “She died within two months of her diagnosis.”

God, Aggie feels so bad for staring at her, now.

“I had some tests done, and I have a ninety-seven percent chance of developing breast cancer, too.” Paris sighs, her shoulders slumping. Aggie can tell she squeezes Eden’s hand tightly, her knuckles whitening. “I’ve been trying to decide if I should try and fight it, after it killed my mom and grandma, or if I should just say f*ck it, and get a mastectomy.” Terry visibly cringes when she swears, but she doesn’t notice. “I don’t know what to do, and Eden has actual cancer. Well, not that breast cancer isn’t actual cancer, just that I don’t have cancer and he does. Well, he’s in remission, so he doesn’t have cancer right now, but he does have cancer. Anyway, I don’t know. He just thought it would help me to hear other people talk about their experiences, so… thank you guys for letting me listen.”

A couple people nod for her, or thank her for being here. Terry smiles. “Thank you for sharing with us, Paris. How are you feeling today?”

“sh*tty.” Paris says.

“Well,” Terry clears his throat, awkward. “I am sorry to hear that. We try to share positives about our days here, like what you had for breakfast or something to look forward to.”

“I didn’t have breakfast, and the only thing I have to look forward to is f*cking breast cancer. So I’m doing sh*tty.”

The room is silent for a second, before Eden leans sort of in front of her. “I’ll go!” He says, brightly, and adjusts the dial on his tank. “Hi, my name is Eden Meeble. I have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.”

He pauses, and Aggie is reciting his little introduction in her head, the same way he always introduces himself, but he says something different today. Aggie’s lips part as she listens.

“When I was a few months old, my dad had a schizoaffective episode that made him tie up my mother and set our house on fire. He died, so did my brother, my mom suffered horrific burns all over her body trying to protect me, and I developed COPD. I have had it my entire life, and it progressed aggressively into lung cancer.” He turns, fully, his knees pointing towards Paris. He speaks directly to her. “Battling cancer was the worst f*cking thing I have ever experienced. I have never felt pain like I felt when I was sick. There was a point in time where I had twenty-six different tumors in my lung, until my lung was so heavy and so swollen it cracked my rib cage. I had seven emergency surgeries in the span of five months, and then eleven additional surgeries over the next five years while I waited to get well enough to survive a pneumonectomy.”

He inhales, and his oxygen tank wheezes, loudly, echoing through the tiny church classroom and making everyone stiffen.

“I have one lung. And I am in remission, but I am scared, every single day, that I will show up for my monthly x-ray, and a doctor will look me in my eyes and tell me they found another tumor. I will not survive a total lung transplant, and if I relapse, I will die.” Eden smiles, finally, turning fully to face Terry again. “And I am doing just dandy today, Terry. I’ve been reading the final draft of my husband’s book, and I am going to tell him that it’s perfect, and he’s going to kiss me. So, I’m doing so great.”

Paris stares at him, and so does everyone else, but Aggie understands what he’s doing. She’s never met Paris, but she knows Eden like she knows her own brother. He’s trying to make her understand that if he was her, if he had the amount of choice that she does right now, he would do anything other than fight cancer. She needs to have the mastectomy.

“Okay, um…” Terry clears his throat again. “Aggie?”

Aggie turns, quickly, to look at him, to tell the room the worst parts about her struggle, the way Eden did, because she would do anything to help ensure no one ever has to suffer the way she has. “My mom died when I was three, I developed cancer and my dad couldn’t handle taking care of me on his own and he killed himself.”

A couple people gasp a little, but Eden beams, and Aggie straightens her shoulders to talk about the gloriously revolting details of her own disease.

Surprisingly, it catches on.

The people who share after Aggie, they talk longer, they explain their struggles, the friends they’ve lost, the way they felt at their lowest. They’re honest about how cancer destroyed them, and how now, sure, they’re alive. But their life f*cking sucks. Aggie’s heart honestly kind of swells for it. She’s spent so long listening to Terry encourage everyone to be happy, shiny, and fake about how they’re doing, and it is a relief to talk about it honestly. To not reduce everyone to such a shallow, happy exterior. It makes her feel so much better about being in this group with other people besides just Eden. She genuinely listens to them, and she feels listened to. It is so comforting to know how angry everyone else is, too. Cancer f*cking sucks and they should get to be mad about it. They don’t have to be better, or stronger, or happier. They can just be angry.

She can tell, just from Paris’ demeanor, that it's helping. She nods along as she listens, and she keeps Eden’s hand in her lap. By the time group is over, they barely had time for any activities. The entire group just talks openly about how much they’ve been through, and Aggie hopes it was just as helpful to everyone else as it was to her, and how much it was to Paris.

Terry dismisses them, red in the face and visibly sweating through his dress shirt, and Aggie lingers casually while Eden and Paris whisper to each other for a moment or two. She looks away when Paris hugs him, briefly, before playfully punching his scrawny shoulder, and she straightens, smiling, when Paris looks up at her.

She smiles, too, and Aggie’s stomach flips around inside her with nerves.

Eden introduces them formally, waving for Paris to put her hand out. “I’ve told you about Aggie. Ags, Paris is my dad’s brother’s kid.”

“That’s rude.” Paris mumbles, and Aggie takes her hand. “Hi, it's nice to meet you,” Paris adds, before looking back up at Eden. “We’re also friends. You can tell people we’re friends.”

“You’re Tav’s friend, not mine.” Eden says, playfully, and she smacks him again, apologizing immediately when she whacks the tubes of his oxygen tank and they pull down on his ears. Eden pushes her away, chuckling. “You still want to have lunch? Parry’s buying.” She tries to protest, and he drops his hands by his sides, stepping to stand beside Aggie. “Look at me and tell me you’re not buying the cancer patients lunch.”

Paris laughs, looking at Aggie, and Aggie can’t help it, speaking before she thinks. “Yeah, you’re really gonna make us buy our own lunch? We have cancer.”

Her smile falls, instantly, when she realizes how quickly that came out, but Paris shuts her eyes to laugh, smiling wide to show perfect, straight teeth. Her laugh is melodic, a high pitched sort of giggle that feels so f*cking infectious, Aggie is laughing, too.

“I’m not make a f*cking wish, Eden,” Paris hisses between hiccups of laughter. “But I’ll get lunch, because it was nice of you guys to talk to me today. Thank you.”

She looks up at Aggie for a second, and sort of bites her lip, like she’s nervous, and Aggie stares right back. God, she is pretty.

Eden leads them to the door, and they walk out together. Aggie holds her breath while Eden sort of struggles to hold onto the banister, because Paris makes a show of rolling her eyes behind his back, like he’s faking. Like he isn’t literally, genuinely disabled. She smiles, and pokes him in the side when they keep walking out of the church, and Aggie really can’t believe it. There is just… suddenly someone so new and so bright in Aggie’s little routine, and she’s funny. She’s not freaked out by weird cancer jokes. She’s cool. Aggie is truly at a loss for what to do. She just follows Eden blindly, nearly grabbing onto his shirt to keep track so she doesn’t get distracted by the soft bounce of Paris’ straight hair as she walks, or the way her wide hips sway with each step.

Aggie is nervous, to say the least, so she spends most of the car ride listening to Eden and Paris fake argue with each other about Taylor Swift. Mostly, Aggie watches’ Paris’ side profile from the front seat, when she turns to watch Eden when he’s talking, briefly, before looking back out at the road. Her nose is pretty big, like Eden’s is, but hers is a little more hooked. She’s got a bump in her bridge. It is, like the rest of her, cute. Aggie is running out of words to describe her with.

Paris drives them to an actual restaurant, which is sort of abnormal for Aggie’s weekly lunch dates. She’s used to small, cheap cafes or coffee shops, some place open where they can eat and talk, and hang out for a while without being kicked out. But Paris takes them somewhere nice, somewhere Aggie has actually never been before. It’s a small, dark place, and Paris instantly asks to eat outside. Aggie follows quietly as the hostess walks them out to the back of the restaurant, where the raised deck is enclosed with railing and nice tables. The walls are decorated with plants, fairy lights hang from the roof, and the cool January air is strangely perfect for a lunch like this.

Aggie sits at the table and gawks for a while before she’s ready to order, but she settles on some ravioli, eventually, and passes her menu up to their waiter. She watches, deeply, internally gratefully, as Eden orders a salad, and Paris immediately takes his menu and orders him the same thing she did. A hearty sort of pasta that he definitely needs. He looks at her and she glares at him, so he concedes.

Aggie is so f*cking grateful to know there are other people in Eden’s life who want him to eat more. She’s never eaten with Eden’s family before, or talked to them about it at all, really, and it is relieving to watch him nod and agree to try to eat. She feels so proud of him.

Eden’s mom calls him, while they’re waiting on an appetizer Paris ordered for the table, and he steps off the deck to answer her, leaving Aggie and Paris alone. She’s nervous, for a second, about not seeming cool enough or having anything to talk about, but Paris speaks first, casually, like she’s been dying to talk to Aggie alone.

“Can I ask you some questions?” She says, drumming her black nails on the table cloth. “I was kind of hoping to pick your brain about some stuff I’ve picked Eden’s about.”

“Sure,” Aggie says, leaning back in her chair. “Of course.”

“So,” Paris folds her hands together. “Your dad.”

Jesus. Okay, starting deep. Aggie can do deep.

“That stuff you said about him, that’s true?”

Aggie sighs. “I think it is. My mom had cancer, too, and he was grieving when I started doing treatment, and it wasn’t that long after. It’s one of those things I blame myself for. My brother says it’s not true, but it's just how it seems to me.”

Paris nods, thoughtful. “Does your brother have cancer, too?”

“No, just me.”

“I’m sorry,” Paris says, softly, raising a finger to swipe condensation off her water glass and rub it between her fingertips. “I don’t know what I’d do if my kid had cancer. Well… actually I do know.” Aggie tips her head, curious, and Paris sighs. “Okay, you can tell him I told you this, I’m not talking sh*t or anything.”

“Okay.”

“Eden’s dad was like… he was everyone in my family’s favorite uncle. And he had a mental illness that he hid from everyone, and he freaked out and tried to kill my aunt, and actually killed his son and himself, so my entire family was like, shocked, you know? And we never really… talked to Eden or my aunt, because it was just awkward.” Paris waves her hand out at Eden, still on the phone. “And then, he got cancer. And he was like, the kid in our family that had cancer, you know? Everyone feels so bad for kids like that, and my family and I would go to the hospital when he had surgeries and stuff, and my parents would take him to Disney World, but he scared the ever loving sh*t out of me.”

Aggie snorts. “Eden did?”

“Yeah!” Paris laughs, too. “Not in the intimidating way, because like, you’ve met him. But I was a kid, too, and seeing another kid all sick and hooked up to all these tubes and always in hospitals it just… being around him made me uncomfortable. And he knows that, I’ve told him that, and we’re friends now so it's okay. But sometimes I’m not sure what I’d feel if he relapsed and got sick again. I think I’d be uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable when my mom was sick. It sucks, but it’s just true.”

Aggie nods a little, dropping her hands to her lap to pick at the frayed fabric of her hoodie sleeves. “Well. I’ve seen him pretty sick. It’s probably hard, if you’ve never been around someone struggling like that before.”

“Yeah.” Paris sighs, again, wiping away some more condensation. “I thought, maybe your dad just didn’t know what to do because he’s never had to deal with cancer before. Did your mom have the same kind as you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

Aggie looks over the deck railing, down at Eden, smiling as he talks about something she can’t really hear. “Some people just have limits, I guess. My dad snapped like Eden’s dad did, in a way. Death is one of those things that pushes people until they can’t take it anymore, and my brother really believes my dad was just grieving and missed my mom so much he couldn’t fight, but I think I was just the last straw. It’s hard to see a sick kid. It was hard for me to see Eden. I have no idea what it would feel like to watch my own child suffer like that.”

Paris nods, a few times, and she changes the subject. “How long have you known Eden?”

“Like…” Aggie counts on her fingers. “Thirteen years. We met in our support group when we were in middle school. Well, when we should have been in middle school. I didn’t go much.”

“Neither did Eden,” Paris says, folding her hands to prop her elbows on the table, so she can rest her chin against her knuckles. “I didn’t really get close to Eden until my mom died.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Paris breathes out through her nose, long and slow. “When she got diagnosed, I called my aunt. I thought… she had been helping Eden for so long, that maybe she could help me help my mom. She was really there for me when my mom passed, and I spent a lot of time at their house just because I didn’t want to go home when my mom wasn’t there.” She smiles, showing her pretty teeth again. “He doesn’t talk about me, does he?”

“No,” Aggie chuckles. “I had no idea who you were.”

“Not surprising.” Paris rolls her eyes. “Have you met Tav?”

“Yeah, a few times. I went to their wedding.”

“Good.” Paris sits up, letting her arms fall flat against the table. “Tav is my best friend. I love Eden, sure, but Tav and I spend so much time together, every day. Probably more than he spends with Eden, even. I wish that I knew him before, so he could’ve met my mom, or we could’ve spent more time together. Like, he and Eden have been married for almost two years, and it took my mom dying for me to even meet the guy, and he’s my best friend in the whole world.” She pauses, rolling her eyes again. “I think Eden invited me for Tav.”

“Really?” Aggie asks, raising an eyebrow. “Not because you might get breast cancer?”

Paris shakes her head, laughing again. “No, that’s part of it. Tav has just… really been there for me whenever I need someone to talk to. Obviously, I know I need to get a mastectomy. It’s what I should do. I just get nervous and ranty sometimes, and I think Tav’s worried about me, so he told Eden, and Eden offered to bring me to your group.”

Aggie watches her for a second, trying to focus on keeping her tone light. “You should get a mastectomy. If your two options are to have one surgery or die. You should have one surgery.”

“I know,” Paris sighs, still smiling. “It’s stupid. I just like having tit*.” She sits up to grab them, to make a point, and Aggie swallows, trying very hard not to look.

She definitely wants to look, but she doesn’t. It’s not right to. She stares up at the ceiling. “You know, you can get implants.”

It’s quiet, after she says it, and when she looks back down, Paris is staring at her.

“What?” Paris whispers.

“Implants?” Aggie huffs a laugh, confused. “Surgery scars take, like, six months to be fully healed, then you can just get implants to get your boobs back. I’ve met a few women who got implants when they went into remission.”

“Seriously?” Paris raises her voice an octave, like she’s really shocked by this.

“Yeah?” Aggie laughs again. “Have you read anything about mastectomy patients or breast cancer survivors?”

“No.”

“Uh…” Aggie stares at her, still smiling, trying not to laugh. “You should.”

Paris watches her for a moment, before her gaze shifts back to Eden, his footsteps coming back up the wooden steps of the deck. “Hey, why didn’t you ever tell me I could get implants?”

“Implants?” Eden wheezes, bracing both hands on the table so he can sit back down, before reaching under it to turn up his flow of oxygen.

“Yeah, implants.” Paris waves her hand over at Aggie. “Your beautiful friend here was just telling me that I can still get implants after I have a mastectomy, so I won’t have to be titless for the rest of my life. Why didn’t you tell me that? Aren’t you like a cancer expert?”

Your beautiful friend.

Aggie’s breath hitches.

“Oh. Well,” Eden shrugs, reaching for his water glass. “You say that like you forget I’m a man. A gay man. I don’t think about your tit* at all.”

“Oh, so you don’t give a sh*t about breast cancer, huh?”

They continue to bicker, jokingly with each other, and Aggie just sort of sits there, astounded.

She has never felt particularly beautiful. Aggie has spent years of her life sick and bald, and when she thought about how she looked, when she caught glimpses of herself in the mirror, she felt ugly. In the last few years it hasn’t been so bad. She was reliant on stem cells, instead of chemotherapy, and she’s been growing her hair out. It’s patchy, and thin, and she still keeps the sides short, but she has hair. It’s helped with her confidence a little, and she puts effort into how she does her makeup and how she styles her hair, but she’s never gotten much attention from anyone before.

She’s used to staying home all the time, or more recently, going to work, or going to group, where she has one friend, who is, as he states so plainly to Paris, gay. Nobody ever looks at her like she’s attractive, and she has never really wondered if anyone could like her before. Aggie has always assumed and accepted that she’s not the kind of person someone could like.

But Paris thinks she’s beautiful, and she said it so casually, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like she thinks Aggie is beautiful and she wants other people to know she’s beautiful, too.

Aggie knows, logically, she’s probably just being nice. Paris is friendly, and it’s a nice thing to say about someone, that probably holds little weight behind it, but it means the world to Aggie, and she sits a little taller for the rest of their lunch together.

The food is delicious, of course it is, and Aggie watches with a smile while Eden actually eats some of his pasta. She remembers, suddenly, what she was so excited about this morning. “Oh! Hey, guess what?” Eden raises his eyebrows, twisting up some more noodles on his fork. “I may have done something for you. Don’t be mad.”

“Oh, God,” He rolls his eyes, smiling. “What?”

“There’s this girl who works in the gift shop at my job, and she’s a bitch.” Paris snorts, which is pretty, and distracting, but Aggie continues. “My boss is going to let her go, and he asked me if I would be interested in picking up some extra shifts, and I might have told him I have a friend who would be interested in coming to work there, too!”

She grins, and Eden kind of stares at her for a second, before angling his fork at his chest. “Me?”

“Yes!” Aggie picks up her own fork to stab a ravioli in the center. She raises it to her lips. “It’s in the gift shop, so you’d be inside, and you wouldn’t have to do anything crazy, just organize some knick knacks and work at the register.”

Eden blinks at her while she eats the ravioli whole. “I don’t work.”

“Well, yeah, but you could,” Aggie holds her hand up to cover her mouth, so Paris won’t have to see her talk with her mouth full. “It pays well, too, and TJ is so nice, he’s like the nicest guy I’ve ever met.”

Slowly, Eden sighs, poking at his food again. “Well, thank you for thinking of me. But, I don’t think I can.”

Aggie wants to argue with him, but Paris gets to it first, leaning into his shoulder. “puss*.”

“Jesus. Okay.” Eden puts his fork down to rub his temple.

“No, seriously,” Paris leans closer to him. “You’ve been in remission for years, and that sounds like a nice job. You can do it.”

“I’m not-”

“If you say something mean to yourself I’m gonna kick your ass.” Paris smiles, but her tone is firm. “And I’m going to tell your husband, and he’s going to let me kick your ass a second time.”

Eden shakes his head, shrugging away from her. “I can’t even climb stairs. If you think that I could-”

“There aren’t any stairs at the museum.” Aggie says, and Paris throws her hand out at her, like Eden should listen. “And it’s super laid back, and everyone is really nice and accommodating. And it would be really cool to work together, so we can hang out more. I really love it there.”

Eden deflates, slumping a little in his chair. “Can I think about it?”

“Yeah, of course, TJ hasn’t even fired her yet. I just thought you would like it.”

“Is the museum really that nice?” Paris asks, looking over at Aggie. “I used to work with this guy at Panera Bread who talked about it all the time. I swear everyone there sucks the owner’s dick or something.”

Aggie laughs, loud and abrupt, shaking her head. “No, no, TJ is just that nice. It’s the best job I’ve ever had.”

“Well,” Paris reaches for her glass to take a sip of her water. “f*ck, maybe I should quit my job and work there, too.”

Aggie is pretty sure Paris is joking, but her heart pounds at the idea anyway.

A few days later, Aggie is at work when her phone goes off, vibrating in the back pocket of her shorts. She makes a mental note to check it later, walking backwards through the birds of prey tunnel to show a group of kids through to wildlife. She doesn’t have a chance to look until they’ve circled back through the discovery rooms, when they all disperse on the playground by the cafe. She lingers, nearby, and digs her phone, surprised to see a text from Eden.

They don’t talk a lot, other than in person, and she’s used to going full weeks without really hearing from him, and then making strides to catch each other up on all they’ve been up to every Wednesday. At first, she’s worried something is wrong, but she reminds herself that it might be about the museum job, and she feels hopeful when she opens it.

It’s not, but the message he did send makes her head spin.

Hey! Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? My mom is out of town, and Paris wanted to cook for you.

Aggie blinks down at her phone screen.

Paris wanted to cook for you.

Genuinely, Aggie can’t believe it. First, she gets this incredible job, then she meets this incredible, funny, gorgeous girl who thinks Aggie is beautiful. Who wants to cook for her.

She swallows before she replies.

yeah! that sounds great, what time?

It takes a little while for Eden to reply, with a time and his address. Aggie has never been to his house before. She spends the rest of her shift nervous, and hyper analyzing everything she can remember about her closet to figure out what she should wear.

She even asks TJ, at the end of the day, when she’s clocking out, what he thinks she should wear.

“Hmm…” TJ taps his chin, thoughtful, leaning casually against the doorframe. “A dinner at your friend's house where the girl you like is cooking for you?” He asks, and she nods. “Well, it sounds like you should be yourself, then. Just wear whatever makes you comfortable, and I’m sure she’ll love it.”

Aggie’s cheeks flush, and she thanks him, and she walks out of the office feeling more confident than when she went in.

After she showers, she tries to take his advice, settling on dark jeans and a plain black t-shirt, covering her arms with her favorite hoodie. She was wearing it the last time she saw Paris, so at the very least, she’ll seem consistent. Aggie spends some time on her makeup while her hair dries, and she cleans all her piercings with saline, and she instinctively grabs her hair to pull it up on top of her head, but she pauses.

Be myself. She thinks.

She puts her hair tie back on the counter top, and she brushes through her hair carefully, trying not to rip any of it out. Logically, she won’t, but she’s always cautious anyway. She flips it all to one side, leaving the shaved side of her head exposed, and it’s actually not that bad. A few pieces fall out to hang in front of her eyes, and she doesn’t mind. It’s thin, and a little stringy, but it’s her hair. It’s part of her. She’s okay with it.

Eden’s house isn’t ungodly far, so she takes the bus. It’s nice to have a little walk from the bus stop to his street, to have some time to herself to clear her head in the fresh air. The sun is still up, but not for too long, so the breeze is nice and cool against her skin.

It’s a cute little house, a duplex with ample front yard space. She worries, for a second, that she’ll have to stare at the numbers on each house to tell which one is Eden’s, but the right side’s front porch is covered with plants and flowers. The sidewalk is lined with flower bushes and fruit trees, and a pristinely kept front garden with painted rocks and there’s a wheelchair ramp attached to the porch step. Eden likes plants, his mother is literally a florist, and the ramp is self-explanatory. Aggie smiles to herself and walks up the ramp, ringing the little doorbell camera and waving at the camera itself, stepping back a little so there’s room for the screen door to open.

She expects Eden, so her eyes widen with surprise when Paris opens the door, sort of abruptly, like she’s excited. For a moment, they just look at each other, separated by the screen door. Paris looks gorgeous, of course she does, in a black sweater and jeans, covered with a little black apron. Aggie can’t help herself, looking Paris up and down, honestly just taking in every inch of her. Her hair, her nose, her arms, her legs, her height. Paris does the same, looking at Aggie, until she reaches down to unlock the screen door and push it open.

“It’s good to see you,” Paris says, smiling softly, and looking up at Aggie with wide brown eyes. “I’ve been cooking.”

“Yeah,” Aggie takes the door from her, so Paris doesn’t have to step outside in her little black socks. She inhales, looking around at the living room behind her. “It smells good!”

“Oh, thank you,” Paris steps out of her way, and the screen door slaps shut behind her. Aggie notices, instantly, there’s a square of tile in the doorway before the carpet, and a shelf for everyone’s shoes. She toes her sneakers off before stepping into the house in her socks.

The living room is as filled with plants as she expected, honestly, lined along the wall and strung up in the window. They line the mantle of the fireplace, and there are some on the coffee table, and in the tv hutch, and on the side tables. And just sitting on the floor. She notices other things, too, a wheelchair folded up behind the couch, pictures of Eden and his mom huddled together in a hospital bed. A bedside patient monitor pushed up against the fireplace, identical to the one in Aggie’s bedroom. It’s off, of course, but they still keep it, like Aggie keeps hers, just in case. That’s sort of comforting to know.

She’s looking around so long, Paris sort of follows along with her. “I know, Eden is crazy about plants. It’s like a jungle in here.” She points to one hanging above the window, its vines twisting and tangling down to the floor. The leaves are twisting and curling in on each other. “I didn’t even know plants could do that. God, you should see the garden.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s pretty.” Aggie says, meaning the garden in the front yard, and Paris shakes her head, long and slow.

“It’s in the backyard. I’ll show you it before he gets here.” Paris says, turning to lead Aggie further into the house. “So you can say oh yeah, I saw it, and you won’t have to listen to him talk about plant breeding as much as I did.” They walk through the living room, past a little hallway where the bedrooms must be. “The bathroom’s back there,” Paris adds, before moving into the kitchen, where the smell of mushrooms and garlic is much stronger.

There aren’t as many plants in here, but there are a few flower vases on the counters, and it’s surprisingly clean. Aggie can hear the dishwasher running. The room itself is long, the counters wrapping around into a little island, separating the kitchen from the little dining table at the back.

It’s been a while since Aggie has seen Tav, and he sits comfortably in one of the dining chairs, his legs folded up underneath him. He writes, quietly, at a laptop, and pauses when he hears them come in. He doesn’t turn to look at them, but Aggie doesn’t expect him to, watching him angle his head towards where they’ve come in.

Tav is nearly totally blind, and his cane is propped up behind him against the wall. Aggie can’t remember, off the top of her head, where Eden met him, but she can’t imagine anyone who would be better suited for each other. They’re both equally quiet and introverted, with similar niche hobbies they can carry out in a little house like this, where they can be comfortable and alone together. They sound happy, when Eden tells her about how his weeks have been, and the few times that she’s talked to Tav, he’s been just as shy as Eden can be. It’s a wonder how either of them worked up the courage to talk to each other, but Aggie is happy they did. She’s happy for Eden.

Even now, Tav just sort of listens, until Paris speaks loudly over the music playing from her phone, face down on the counter top. “Hey Tav, you remember Aggie.”

“Of course,” Tav smiles, dropping his pale hands into his lap. “How are you?”

“I’m good!” Aggie smiles, shrugging out of her hoodie when Paris offers to take it for her. “Thank you for inviting me over, I’m excited about dinner. How are you?”

“I’m okay, thank you.” Tav says. “This was all Paris. Is Eden back yet?”

“No,” Paris sets Aggie’s hoodie on a little coat rack by the fridge. “I’m gonna show Aggie the garden, and then I’ll check on dinner.” She glances at Aggie before rounding the island to get to the sliding glass door behind the dining table. “Have you ever had polenta?”

Aggie furrows her eyebrows. “No, I don’t think so.”

“It’s good, it’s got mushrooms. Eden said you like mushrooms.”

“Yeah.” Aggie swallows. “I do like mushrooms.”

“Cool,” Paris puts her back against the glass door while she unlocks it, before sliding it open to the left. “You wanna sneak out here?” She adds for Tav, who shakes his head, a bit fervently.

“No, thank you.” He turns a little, tipping his head towards the sound of their voices. “Good luck, though. I’m banned from exploring out there anymore.”

“Oh,” Aggie glances from him, out at the patio behind Paris. “Why?”

“Eden thinks I’ll trip.” Tav sighs, shaking his head, again, like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.

Paris grins, mischievous. “I’ll carry you.”

“No,” Tav chuckles, waving her off. “I’m not allowed. Plus, there’s bees out there, I’m not touching a bee.”

“Suit yourself.” Paris says, and she nods for Aggie to follow her out.

The garden is astounding, really. Aggie steps out onto a little rug, on top of the brick floor of what used to be a full patio. It’s lined with lattice fencing, tall enough to block out some of the sun, each crawling with twisting vines and plant life, creating an enclosed sort of entryway to a long row of open plant boxes and wire fences.

Paris steps into a little pair of slides, and she points to another pair for Aggie to put on, so they can walk out onto the grass.

It’s beautiful, when they step out of the entryway, and it spans the entire backyard, twisting around in rows of plants and vines that will eventually bloom with flowers. Aggie can’t do anything besides gawk as she follows, as Paris guides her right up to a little pond in the center, surprisingly gorgeous and filled with little koi fish.

“What do you think?” Paris asks.

“What the f*ck?” Aggie looks around, before back at the fish, and Paris laughs.

“Right?” She shakes her head. “He’s back here every day, but he thinks he can’t work in a stupid gift shop. I don’t understand him.” Paris nudges the bottom bag in a stack, and Aggie looks down at the top, at a picture of the rocks inside. “He’s trying to pave it all out, before it gets hot again. The grass is kind of patchy, and Tav’s cane catches in the dirt, so that’s why he’s ‘banned.’” She raises her hands to mimic air quotes, before pointing around to different sections of the garden. “A lot of this is all Eden’s but over there is where my aunt breeds flowers for her shop, and over there,” She points again, across to the other side of the backyard. “-is my garden.”

“Your garden?” Aggie asks, curious, and Paris nods, reaching down to take Aggie’s hand and guide her through some rows of larger pots. Her hand is soft, in Aggie’s palm, and Aggie prays to whoever will listen that her hand isn’t sweaty.

“I’ve never been super into gardening,” Paris explains as they walk together, as Aggie’s heart pounds nervously in her chest. “But, when my mom died, my aunt kept telling me I needed something to do, so she got me some seeds to plant and look after. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s nice to have something to look forward to every day, like even if my day sucks, I can come over here and check on my peppers, you know?”

Paris’ little section of the garden is emptier than the rest of it, but it’s still pretty nice. Her garden beds are raised in wooden boxes, and a few of them sprout with thick vines and foliage. There’s a table nearby, with a tub underneath it, and she drops Aggie’s hand to pull it out. She struggles, hoisting it up to set on top of the table, rattling her garden tools and a little framed picture of Paris and her mom.

Aggie’s gaze lingers on it, smiling to herself while Paris struggles to get the tub open. Paris must look more like her dad, because her mother was tall and lanky, with dark skin and brown hair. She seems happy, in the picture, clinging to her mother’s torso tightly and grinning ear to ear. They must have been close. Aggie was never close with her parents, so thinking about their deaths isn’t as hard as it used to be. She can joke about it, sure, and she has her theories about why exactly her father gave up his life, but she doesn’t really remember her mother at all.

She can’t imagine what it must feel like to lose someone she was so close to, so suddenly. Aggie remembers, pretty vividly, what Paris said about her mother in group just a few days ago, and her heart breaks over it, watching Paris smile and show off her garden.

Within two months of her diagnosis.

Sick to her stomach, Aggie looks away from the picture, and holds a hand out to help pull the lid off the tub. Paris thanks her, and sets the lid on the floor, and steps back for Aggie to look in.

It’s warm inside, and it smells weird, and the walls are lined with mushrooms she must have been growing in here.

Understanding quickly, Aggie turns to look down at her. “You grew these yourself?”

“Yeah!” Paris beams. “It’s been a lot of fun coming up with recipes and using my own vegetables, and I know you really like mushrooms so I thought this would be the perfect way to use them!” She points at a cluster of mushrooms. “Plus, I have a ton left, so I can cook again sometime. Well, as long as I don’t give you food poisoning or something tonight.”

Aggie exhales, slowly, nearly whistling under her breath. “That's incredible. You’re…” She pauses, nervous, like maybe she shouldn’t say anything else, but Paris looks up at her with wide eyes, and Aggie can see, under the darkening sun, that her eyes aren’t brown, they’re a dark sort of hazel, with brilliant, captivating bursts of green around her irises. She beams, like she’s so happy to hear what Aggie thinks of her, like she’s dying for it. “You’re incredible.” Aggie says, nervously twisting her hands together in front of her waist. “This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”

Paris’ cheeks redden, and she takes Aggie’s hand again, running her thumb over the top of Aggie’s knuckles. “Thank you. I was really excited to show you.”

They spend a little while longer exploring the garden together, watching little caterpillars crawl up the lattice fences and talking while the sun sets. Aggie is watching the fish swim around in their little pond when she realizes she’s still holding onto Paris’ hand. She looks down at it, and Paris turns to look up at her, again with those big, hopeful eyes. She smiles, her lips parted ever so slightly, like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. They’re watching each other again.

Aggie has never wanted to know someone so badly. She wants to stand in this garden and beg Paris to tell her every little thing she can think of, she wants to hold onto her hand tightly and listen. She opens her mouth to ask something, anything about her, but Paris looks away, back at the house, through the glass patio doors.

“Oh, Eden is back.” She smiles, and then her eyes widen again. “Oh, God, my polenta.” She drops Aggie’s hand, to head back, and Aggie follows behind her, picking up her own hand to rub her palm, remembering the feeling of Paris’ skin against hers.

They get closer to the patio, and Aggie can see him, while Paris stops to step out of her slides and put them back by the door. Eden in the kitchen, his arms wrapped around the small of Tav’s back, Tav’s arms flung around Eden’s shoulders, their bodies pressed fully against each other in a very tight hug. Paris straightens, and pauses, with her hand hovering about the door handle, and she watches, too.

Eden brings his hands up to Tav’s jaw, holding his head up to look at him, grinning wider than Aggie ever sees him smile, and he kisses his husband, gently, slowly, like Tav is the most precious thing in his world. Like even after almost two years of marriage, he still savors touching him and kissing him and loving him. Like just looking at his husband means everything to him.

Aggie glances, trying to ignore how lonely it makes her feel, at Paris, who watches them with the same wide eyes, the same set jaw. She’s lonely, too.

Aggie should have f*cking kissed her.

“sh*t, my polenta.” Paris jumps again, and pulls the door open, marching into the kitchen and leaving the door for Aggie to follow behind her.

Numb, Aggie shuts it. She should have kissed her.

“Hello, gay people,” Paris says. “Move out of my way, please, I’m checking dinner.”

Tav leans heavily into Eden’s chest, shutting his eyes fully and pressing his head into Eden’s jugular. “No tumors.” He whispers, and Eden holds his hands out, gesturing vaguely to Paris, and to Aggie, who smiles for him.

“No tumors,” He repeats, smiling. “I think I’m hitting a record or something. Least amount of tumors in someone prone to getting a lot of tumors.”

“That’s great Eden.” Paris says, dryly. “I’m happy for you. Can you be tumor free and hom*osexual away from the stove, please?”

He laughs, and makes a show of pulling Tav out of the way to kiss him again, so Paris can stoop down to open the oven and check on dinner. Aggie watches her, and the plump outline of her lips, and disappointment splinters throughout her chest, tightening her lungs and making her eye twitch. It’s all she can think about now, kissing her, and how soft her lips must feel compared to her hands, or her pale skin.

She sinks to sit at the table, accepting some water when Eden offers to get her some, and watching with painful jealousy as Eden walks Tav back to his spot at the table, mumbling little instructions under his breath for where the chairs are, where the table is. He sits beside him, and inches his own chair closer, until they’re nearly sitting on top of each other, and Tav puts his hand out for Eden to take between both of his own hands.

Aggie waits, patiently, while Paris plates up dinner for everyone. She sits next to Aggie, and Aggie genuinely can’t believe how delicious it smells, and she cuts into her mushrooms carefully and tries her best to savor each bite. Shutting her eyes and really tasting it, still astounded and impressed that Paris grew these entirely on her own.

“This is amazing,” She whispers, swallowing, her cheeks heating up as she watches Paris’ happy smile. “Holy sh*t.”

“Thank you,” Paris mumbles, tucking her head to the side, bashfully, while Eden echoes Aggie’s praise, and they start talking about the types of mushrooms she used.

They use big words, and talk about gardening in a depth that Aggie will probably never understand, but Paris brushes her hand up against Aggie’s leg while she’s talking. Subtly, Aggie swaps her fork to her other hand, and drops her palm beneath the table so Paris can hold her hand, fully entwining their fingers together and squeezing tightly.

Aggie glances at her, and she smiles, wide, showing all of her teeth, like she’s just so happy Aggie is enjoying what she cooked, and blood rushes to Aggie’s head so fast she has to turn away and look back down at her plate.