My Best Friend

“How did she..?”
“She had cancer.”
“Oh...I’m so sorry!”
I smiled. Sorry. Sometimes I felt envious of people merely for having this great comfort. They could be sorry about Suhana’s death. Just how sorry could I be? About having seen my best friend of fourteen years die?
*
It was seven months ago when Suhana’s first reports came in. Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, terminal stage.
By the end of two months, she stopped attending school—the constant chemotherapy having taken its toll on her general health. Her sleek, long, brown hair had begun to fall off in large clumps. Many nights, she would call me and cry and obsess about how her hair was going, “It's coming out in fistfuls and I don’t know what to do!” She would cry incessantly, and I would console her for hours on end.
Every time I met her, she looked a little worse—the dark circles, the fatigue, the recurring nausea. I know she knew that she wouldn’t live much longer—but I also realized that she lived on my persistent reassurances. And so as everyone else went out to have fun, I stayed home with her, planning to go shopping and for lunches and movies, once she got ‘alright’. I knew I would never watch those movies, or sample that new restaurant down the street, or ever shop for junk jewellery with her again, but somehow, it just felt good to fool myself.
Three months after she was diagnosed, Suhana celebrated her 16th and final birthday. It was a small affair—she didn’t want to make a spectacle of her ill-health. But that was one time when she really enjoyed her day. She was much too weak to dance, so we just sang along loudly to some of her favourite songs that I had hated, but which seemed perfect now. As I saw her treating herself to a rare indulgence—a piece of her chocolate birthday cake—I realised that she still looked strikingly pretty. Her hair fallen, skin blackened, and wrinkles of pain across her face—for me, she was still the most beautiful creature, her face glowing with sheer happiness as she sang. And before I knew, a silent tear rolled down my cheek—it was the first that I had shed in front of her ever since I had learnt of her condition. She saw it before I could wipe it off, and smiled angelically at me. “Don’t be lame; I’m going to be prefect!,” she said, even as she broke down, desperately crying in my arms.
I don’t know how long I sat there hugging her on the sofa, afraid even to hold her too tight, lest it hurt. And it was that day that I realised that it was probably best she left us all for good. She was in sheer agony—the medicines, the pain, the sickness were diluting her way of life, eating into the happiness she had experienced all these years. We sat curled up together till late in the night before my parents came to pick me up. As I hugged her right before I left, she held my hand quietly, “Thank you so much for being there. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I smiled, then ran out of her house, breaking out into furious tears.
That was the last I saw of her. She slipped away peacefully in her sleep that night, just the death she had wanted, just the death I had prayed for—a calm, painless end to her misery.
*

“How did she..?”
“She had cancer.”
“Oh...I’m so sorry!”
I smile. Sorry. They were all sorry about Suhana’s death. Just how sorry was I? About having seen my best friend of fourteen years die? I know the answer now. I wasn’t sorry at all...