The Deadline

The Deadline

“The results are positive.”

Trista stares at her phone’s reflection, repeating the sentence ten times in a whisper, hoping it will anchor the truth in her fried brain.

It doesn’t.

Ovarian cancer.

The word frightens her, but not for the usual reason. She sits on her bed’s edge, still in the clothes she threw on that morning. Even her sneakers, worn to catch the train, remain on her sore feet. The laces press into her skin, tighter than she remembers tying them. She hasn’t moved enough to notice.

The room feels off. Too quiet. Too still. Like everything is waiting for her to understand something she can’t quite reach.

The phone rings.

Trista jumps, nearly dropping the phone, her palms slick with sweat. She presses the green circle pulsing beneath her thumb and clears her throat, but her voice still comes out thin.

“Ma? Did you get my text?”

“I did…” Her mother’s voice softens, then falters. “Are you sure?”

The same question that’s been plaguing Trista. Now spoken aloud, it feels heavier. More real.

She searches for an answer, but her mind is blank.

For years, her brain had been a liar. Cells crawling. Symptoms blooming out of nowhere. Headaches splitting her skull. Pains that never had a source. Each new sensation fed her anxiety, hurting not just her but everyone who loved her. Each time she believed it. Each time she was wrong.

Trista tightens her grip on the phone.

“I’m not, but the doctor said…” She exhales shakily, “What I’m going through isn’t a relapse. He said this time… I actually have it.”

“Why don’t you come stay with me for a while?”

“It’s not in my head this time. He said I’ve been doing so well that when something real showed up… I ignored it. I have a week left. That’s what he said.”

The words tumble out of her before she can slow them down. Saying them feels like dropping something fragile and not being able to catch it.

For a moment, Trista can hardly breathe. The air feels thicker and stickier with each second, pressing against her chest. A cold, vibrating fear crawls down her arms, slipping around her ribs and squeezing her insides like a fist. Her vision sharpens in a strange way. The rumpled sheets. The dust along the corners. The unopened mail near the door. Proof that life is still going on despite the sentence hanging over her.

Numbness flickers in next. Soft. Quiet. Like something trying to protect her.

Or something trying to trick her again.

A pause.

“Have you… been taking your medicine? When was the last time?”

A tremor grows from her pale hands up into her voice. Has she taken it? She can’t admit this now, but she can’t even find the bottle. It’s been so long since she’s felt this way. She thought she was over this. Over the constant questions. Over the doubt that sits behind every feeling.

“I… he told me… the doctor said…”

“Honey? You’re fading out. Are you okay? Call Doctor Rupert, alright?”

Trista hangs up.

The phone slips from her hand and hits the floor. The sound is dull, unimpressive. Not nearly loud enough for something that feels this important.

She stares at the painting on the wall across from her bed, her shaking hands bracing themselves on her knees. Trista focuses. Focuses on the colors. The intricate strokes that hang on the wall in front of her. Forces her eyes to stay there.

The painting. It was the first thing she bought after her diagnosis from the first therapist who cared. It was something to ground her. A reminder that the world is bigger than the mind and its endless, twisting puzzles.

Outer space. A vast expanse scattered with glittering stars, the Earth suspended in endless dark.

She feels like she’s floating inside it.

She’s been trapped in the vacuum of her own mind for as long as she can remember. It consumes everything. Worse, it lies. It builds things so carefully that they feel real long after they should have fallen apart.

So why would this time be different?

Maybe none of it happened. The walk down the street. The doctor’s rushed, sympathetic tone. The way he looked at her like he already knew how she would react. The diagnosis. All of it could be a fabrication. An intricate weave of memory, dissolving as quickly as smoke if she looks at it too closely.

If that’s true… what about the deadline?

A week.

The number sits wrong. Clean and unrealistically final.

The expiration date he gave her so casually, like her life was already over. Like her spiraling thoughts didn’t matter.

Or maybe he didn’t.

Maybe he never said it at all.

Trista clutches her head. Her nails dig into her scalp, pulling slightly at the roots of her mousy hair. A last attempt to force clarity. To break through the noise.

Nothing.

Then a drop of something. A small shift or a more like a quiet click.

A glimmer of light sparks in her mind like a distant planet.

Her lips part, releasing a low groan, then a breath.

“Another fake.”

The words settle into her chest.

Her body responds immediately. The tremors loosen. Her shoulders drop. Like the magic words were muttered, the tightness around her ribs eases just enough for her to breathe again.

Relief comes in slow, then all at once.

“My illness doesn’t run me. I run me.”

She repeats it. Again. Again. Each time stronger.

“I run me.”

The words start to feel solid. Like something she can hold onto without it slipping away.

Pushing her hair behind her ear, she smiles to herself. It is small, but it is there. A quiet victory. Proof that she can still pull herself back.

She stands up, gathering the pieces of her mind back together. Not perfectly. Not cleanly. But enough.

She slides from her bed to her feet, stooping down to grasp her phone once again.

The screen lights up instantly.

She slides her finger across the surface, then pulls the phone to her ear.

A ring echoes.

Then a soft voice answers again.

“Trista? Hon’?”

“I’m sorry, I dropped my phone.” She begins pacing, a lightness in her step that wasn’t there before. “You know what? I think I just spiraled a little. I’m going to call Dr. Rupert. I might need… a conversation with him.”

Her mother’s silence fills the air between them, then softens.

“…this is a hard disease. I’m just glad you reached out, Tris’.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m more happy that it wasn’t… you know.”

A buzz pulls her attention to the screen.

Unknown number.

“I’ll call you back, okay, Ma?”

She doesn’t wait.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Trista Lori? This is Doctor Edwards. I’m sorry to interrupt your day. Especially after hours.”

Her pacing slows.

“Yes?”

“Your results were incorrect earlier. They were unfortunately swapped with another patient.”

Something inside her loosens. Quiet. Immediate.

“Oh.”

Her shoulders drop slightly.

“Well… your biopsy came back. You are in the final stages of ovarian cancer.”

The feeling disappears.

Not slowly.

But another emerges.

The room tilts, just slightly enough to notice.

Her eyes drift back to the painting. The stars blur together.

“The results are positive.”

Trista repeats.

This time, she doesn’t try to convince herself.

She just listens to how it sounds.