I Pretended to Cheat So My Boyfriend Wouldn't Watch Me Die

The oncologist's office smelled like mint and antiseptic. I sat alone in the chair across from Dr. Patricia Howe's desk. The leather was cold through my jeans. Outside the window, Manhattan moved like it always did — taxis honking, people crossing, the world continuing.

Dr. Howe folded her hands on top of a manila folder. She had kind eyes. That made it worse.

"Miss Bell," she said quietly. "The imaging shows a mass in the left temporal lobe. Given the location and the rate of growth, surgery isn't an option. We can discuss palliative care, but I need you to understand—" She paused. Her mouth tightened. "You have approximately three months."

I pressed my thumbnail into the pad of my index finger. The pressure kept me present. The nail turned white at the edges.

"Three months," I repeated.

She nodded. "I'm very sorry."

I thanked her. I don't know why. Maybe because she looked sad, and I didn't want her to feel worse. She offered follow-up appointments, support groups, experimental trials. I nodded at each one and wrote nothing down. When she finished, I stood, shook her hand, and walked out.

The elevator took forever. A nurse got on at the fourth floor and smiled at me. I smiled back. My face knew how to do that without my permission.

On the sidewalk outside Mount Sinai, I stopped. People flowed around me like I was a stone in a river. I stood there for eleven minutes. I counted. Then I hailed a cab and gave the driver our address.

Our penthouse. Lucien's and mine.

I thought about him the entire ride home. The way he hummed while he made coffee. The way he pulled me against his chest at night and buried his face in my hair. The way he looked at me sometimes — like I was the only thing in the room that mattered.

I couldn't let him watch me die.

That night, Lucien was asleep when I came home. I stood in the bedroom doorway and watched his chest rise and fall. The moonlight through the window cut across his face. He looked younger when he slept. Softer.

I pulled out my phone. My hands shook so badly I almost dropped it.

I typed: *I've been seeing someone else. I'm pregnant. I'm sorry.*

I deleted it.

I typed it again.

Deleted it again.

I did this four times. On the fifth, I closed my eyes and hit send before I could stop myself.

The phone made a soft whooshing sound. The message was gone. I stared at the screen until it went black.

I walked to the closet and pulled down the bag I'd packed that afternoon while he was at work. I stopped at the coat rack by the door. His jacket hung there — the charcoal wool one he wore to meetings. I pressed my face into it and breathed in. Cedarwood. Expensive fabric. Him.

I stayed like that until I couldn't anymore.

Then I picked up my bag and left.

The apartment in Westport, Connecticut was small and dim. The landlord called it "cozy." It had one window that faced a brick wall. The refrigerator hummed too loud. The shower took five minutes to get warm.

I didn't care.

I spent the first week crying so hard I thought I'd break my own ribs. I spent the second week numb. By the third, I realized I needed to do something with my hands or I'd go insane.

I opened my laptop and created a Reddit account. Anonymous. I found a terminal illness support forum and typed a post with shaking fingers:

*I have three months to live. How do I leave the man I love without destroying him?*

I hit submit and closed the laptop. I didn't expect anyone to reply.

But they did.

By morning, there were thirty-seven comments. People I'd never met, never would meet, telling me I was brave. Telling me they understood. Telling me that loving someone sometimes meant letting them go before the grief could hollow them out.

I read every single one. I replied to as many as I could. I thanked them. I told them their words gave me courage.

I didn't tell them I was terrified.

Three months passed.

I wrote in a journal every day. I wrote letters to Lucien I'd never send. I made lists of things I wanted him to know. I slept badly. I ate less. I waited.

Death didn't come.

Then my phone rang.

Dr. Howe's voice was tight and strange. "Miss Bell, I need you to come in immediately. There's been—" She stopped. Started again. "The pathology slides were contaminated. We ran new imaging. There's no tumor. You're not dying."

I sat on the floor. The phone stayed pressed to my ear long after she hung up. The journal sat open on the coffee table. Three months of preparing to die, written in my own handwriting.

Lucien.

I took the first train back to Manhattan.

My hands shook the entire way. I rehearsed what I'd say. *I lied. I'm sorry. I thought I was dying. Please forgive me.* The words felt too small. Too simple. But they were all I had.

I unlocked the penthouse door with the key I never returned.

The furniture was different. Rearranged. The photographs we'd hung together — gone. Replaced with abstract art I'd never seen.

A woman sat at the dining table. My chair. She was young, maybe twenty-two, with dark hair and a silk blouse. She looked up from her phone.

On her left hand: my ring. The custom Tiffany setting Lucien designed. The one he'd spent two months choosing.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

I couldn't speak.

Footsteps. Lucien emerged from the bedroom. He stopped when he saw me. His face shifted — surprise, then something harder. Something rehearsed.

"Raina." His voice was flat. "You lost the right to be here the night you told me you were carrying another man's child."

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

The woman — Yasmin, I'd learn later — tilted her head. "This is her?"

Lucien didn't look away from me. "Yes."

I stood there until my legs remembered how to move. I turned. I walked back to the elevator. I pressed the button. The doors opened. I stepped inside.

The doors closed.

Then I cried. I pressed my thumbnail into my finger until I felt the skin break. Blood welled under the nail. I watched it spread.

The elevator descended. I didn't.