Audrey | On Borrowed Time

Audrey looked at the lab report with a sigh.

The doctor said three months, but that was before the infection. The revised update now puts the estimate at eight weeks, maybe nine if she drank the gross protein shakes.

"Yeah, that's not happening."

She crumpled the paper and leaned on the railing of the hospital balcony, raising her eyes to the skyline. Below her, the lights of the city stretched in all directions, glittering, beautiful, and utterly indifferent.

She'd been up here a dozen times since the start of the treatments. It was the only place that felt quiet, that didn't feel invasive.

The paper ball sailed into the dark.

Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulled out her small notebook. In the grand scheme, it was nothing special: spiral-bound, dog-eared pages, a random doodle of The Cure logo on the front, a Bic pen clipped to the back.

Inside, at the top of the page, was "Audrey's Bucket List" with some doodles to the left and right of the text. She'd written it months ago, back when three months felt like forever.

The list was short, no outlandish pie-in-the-sky wants like "go skydiving" or "kiss Keanu Reeves." Her list was full of simple things like "see the northern lights" or "stand in the ocean at night."

At the top of the list was "tell Mom and Dad," with three tick marks next to it. Three messages, three unanswered texts. She crossed it out.

Right below that was "reconnect with old friends." The group chat went silent when she mentioned hospice. Another line went through another item.

At the very bottom, below "go whale watching" and "finally watch a Star Wars movie," were two blank lines. Below that was a cartoon-y heart with sparkles, now smudged from being touched too many times. Next to it, written small: "Feel loved. Really loved. At least once."

She closed the notebook and tucked it back into her pocket, pulling out her phone again. A couple of taps of her thumb and she opened Reddit. She'd downloaded it three weeks ago but never bothered with it.

Tonight felt different.

She tapped the icon. Before she could second-guess herself, she quickly posted to a local subreddit: "ISO someone to hold my hand while I die. Will pay in cookies and honesty."

A few moments later, the notifications came pouring in:

"FIRST!!!!" "Thoughts and prayers 🙏" "Have you found God yet?" "My grandma died of cancer. It was beautiful in the end."

She watched the replies pour in — sympathy that felt performative, trolls demanding proof. Noise.

"A waste of time, just like I thought..." she said with a sigh, finger hovering over the delete post button. For a long moment, she stood there, caught between closing the app or letting herself hope for five more minutes...

"This is against my medical advice," said the doctor with the kind eyes and bald head, watching Audrey button up her jacket while refusing to look him in the eye.

"Noted, Doctor Fine. Noted and ignored." It wasn’t anger; it wasn’t even defiance, really. Just finality, like the conversation had already ended and she was politely letting him catch up.

The oncologist folded his arms and sighed the exhausted sigh of a doctor who had lost this argument before. "You have eight weeks, maybe less. A fair is—"

"Loud, crowded, and full of delicious fried things that will probably kill me even faster." She finally looked at him as she cut him off. "Don't care. Going anyway."

The doctor just shook his head and made a note on his clipboard as she walked out without a backward glance. A minute later, Audrey Vega was outside and heading for the bus.

---

Audrey stood just inside the south gate of the state fairgrounds, letting the noise and light wash over her. The air was thick with the fried dough from elephant ears, fresh hay from the 4-H barn, the sweat of the crowd, and the exhaust of farm tractors.

Somewhere, a child was screaming with joy at a ring landing on a milk bottle. Somewhere else, a carny was yelling into a microphone: "Step right up, three balls for five dollars, win the big one for the little lady!"

Amid the spinning rides and the flashing lights, couples walked past holding hands. A dad lifted a toddler onto his shoulders. A teenager puked behind a trash can while his friends laughed and filmed it.

"This is what people do. This is normal," she muttered to herself. "Fine, I can fake 'normal' for a few hours."

For a while, she managed. Not well, but well enough.

---

It was halfway down the midway, somewhere between the Flight to Mars and The Gravitron 2000, when it happened, like someone flipped a switch in her body. Her vision wavered and her legs turned to jelly. Then her chest tightened—not in panic, at least not yet. Just... no air, like someone was sitting on her ribs.

“I—” she started, but didn’t finish the thought. She staggered over to a nearby bench as a wave of exhaustion crashed over her and sat down hard.

"Oh God, this is it? This is how I die? In the shadow of The Bamboozler?"

After a few moments, her breathing returned, and the bone-deep weariness settled back to its usual level. "Breathe. Just breathe," she said quietly.

And that's when the other wave hit: "What the fuck am I doing?" she gasped, her voice wavering.

Alone. At a fair. Watching couples and families and normal people while her body fell apart on a bench next to a Deep-Fried Butter stand. She'd wanted to feel alive, but instead she felt small, stupid, and powerless.

The tears came before she could stop them.