نیمه جان

HALF-LIFE

IT’S A STRANGE thing to realize that you’re willing to die. It doesn’t come in a flash, a sudden epiphany. It happens slowly, a balloon leak in reverse.

The sight of Olly crying alone on his porch will not leave me.

I pore over the pictures that he sent from school. I make myself a place in every single one. Maddy in the library. Maddy standing next to Olly’s locker waiting to go to class. Maddy as Girl Most Likely To.

I memorize every inch of my family photo, trying to divine its secrets. I marvel at the not-sick Maddy, baby Maddy, her life stretching before her with endless possibility.

Ever since Olly came into my life there’ve been two Maddys: the one who lives through books and doesn’t want to die, and the one who lives and suspects that death will be small price to pay for it. The first Maddy is surprised at the direction of her thoughts. The second Maddy, the one from the Hawaii photograph? She’s like a god—impervious to cold, famine, disease, natural and man-made disasters. She’s impervious to heartbreak.

The second Maddy knows that this pale half-life is not really living.