Start or end your story with someone being soothed by a hug or words of comfort.

Nara holds it together as they stab her breasts with a freakishly thick syringe. She holds it together as they slide her in and out of the airconditioned MRI tube, belly down, neck locked as her teeth chatter from the cold. She holds it together when she gets up too fast, and her vision tilts like that time she had vertigo on top of Tokyo Skytree. She holds it together as she almost slips on her own blood, pooling on the rubber floor.

She loses her resolve as she waits for the Uber, knees trembling from exhaustion. Farid cancels. João cancels. The air suffocates and stifles, wrapping around her neck like a noose and squeezing. Today is not her day. Is any day?

She abandons the Uber app and walks slowly down the street, searing pain shooting up her breasts as the sky opens and sends an icy shower down her mousy blonde hair and paper-thin cardigan. She doesn’t believe in God, but if there was one, he’d be mocking her right now. 

Sticky wind blows down the street. She lifts her left arm and hisses in pain as a taxi rushes past her without stopping, sending a blast of dirt and mud water down her already shivering body. 

She racks her brains furiously for who to call. There is no boyfriend or husband. Her family are in Sweden. Her only two friends are an eccentric artist who is as reliable as the postman and a stubborn Slavic writer who insists on being there for her to the point where she’s exhausted just thinking about texting her. She thinks of him for a brief second. His warm, crushing bear hugs and jokes peppered with age-old sarcasm. She abandons the idea just as quickly. He can’t see her like this. 

In that very second, she longs to crawl under her thick duvet and dissolve into the mattress. She’s tired. Bone-deep tired of pretending that her life isn’t one long list of disappointments and letdowns. She lets out a shuddering breath as, finally, one taxi slows down. A man who reminds her of her old boss chatters away in rapid Portuguese. He drives much too fast down Lisbon’s narrow streets, rambling on about how gentrification is sinking the city like quicksand. He’s the type of man she despises, the type who loves the sound of his own voice and thoughts, submerging everyone else with his ego. He spews on, unaware that she is on the verge of passing out. That she might be sick in his pristine cab. She slides further into the polished leather seats, collapsing into herself.

Nobody talks about what it’s like to be vulnerable and in pain and alone. How lonely it is. Shameful. She never would have guessed that she’d be here. 42 and marooned from connection. 42 and childless. 42 and manless. 42 and with possible breast cancer. In both breasts. She almost wants to laugh at that. What’s the point of clean kale smoothies from the farmer’s market and anti-inflammatory diets when cancer comes to collect you at the door? What’s the point of vitality and art and long walks down the beach and runs by the dazzling Tejo river when death snatches you in its jaws, and you fade away from people’s memories like a washed-out billboard? There is no other currency than time. And she’s wasting hers.

Thoughts as dark as the sky outside swirl around in her thoughts until she thinks she might vomit from the brutality of unfairness. But didn’t her grandmother warn her of this very thing? The childish phrase comes back to her now. Life is unfair. Her grandmother survived two world wars and her son’s death to own these words. She has no right to do the same. 

Somehow, she manages to climb out of the cab. Somehow, she makes it up the stairs, heart clattering in her chest, head dizzy. She manages to open her flimsy, rusty door that she refuses to fix because she hasn’t had any work in the past three months. She slots the key and plays with the lock, twisting and turning the chipping metal until the door gives, and she stumbles inside. 

Nara’s life might be falling apart like a tattered book but her apartment is air and light and sustenance. It’s the first apartment she bought with her own money from her grandmother’s inheritance. It’s the first home that she could freely decorate with her artistic whims, with no landlords to answer to but her own taste. Her coloured walls and plants soothe her when she needs it most.

She kicks off her soggy shoes and lunges straight for the bed, crawling into her sheets like a slithering worm. She lies like that for a while, catching her breath. The gentle patter of rain against the windowsill washes down the panic churning in her gut. Outside, darkness falls fast like a guillotine. The next dose of pain comes. It slices and presses into her left breast until a whimper escapes her lips. Enough of this foolish bravery.

She picks up the phone and calls him.

He answers on the second ring.

“I need you," she says. She’s never spoken these words here. Six years in Lisbon, and she’s never needed anyone. But if anyone understands what these three small words mean to her, it’s him.

He comes smelling of oranges and washing powder. He consumes her apartment the way he consumes life, gently and then all at once, peeling off his giant Parka and throwing it over her stool. Droplets of rain spray the floorboards. He doesn't notice.

The first thing he does is take a long look at her, lapping the state of her, the messy oily hair meshed together in a bun, the hoody and loose pants, face bare, feet bare, soul bare. He’s never seen her like this.

“Right, I think you’re in dire need of a cup of tea.” 

She loves his accent. It’s melodic and British, spilling out like romantic poetry, taking up space in her space. 

He’s tall and large and boisterously loud when he wants to be. But he always keeps it real and is refreshingly direct in a sea of fakeness that runs through Lisbon’s expat circles.

Jay. He navigates her tiny kitchen the only way a kitchen chef knows how to, with unabashed confidence. He sails through her cupboard full of mismatched tuppleware until he pulls out her favourite mug: Bitch I woke up like this.

She watches as he sprinkles green tea infused with Japanese Cherry blossom in her infuser and boils the water the old-fashioned way on the hob, his tall, broad back turned away from her. He whistles an indistinguishable melody under his breath while working as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to be here in her kitchen, away from his restaurant and wife.

When he brings over the steaming cup of rich tea, and she takes the first sip of bittersweetness in, tears pool in her eyes. Food has always been her love language.

“Hey, hey, no tears now. You’re going to be ok," Jay says softly.

He’s kneeling in front of her, holding her together like sticky tape with his wide chocolate-brown eyes and frown. She counts the lines on his face until her breath stills.

“Will you come every week and tell me I’m beautiful when I’m bald?” 

Something dark glitters in his gaze. A sad smile breaks through. “You have cancer?”

“I might. Got the biopsy today. It was horrible. Reminded me of the time my parents insisted I learn French and abandoned me in some dreary summer camp that looked like a concentration camp.” She pauses, taking a shuddering breath to calm the quiver in her voice. “I lost a lot of blood. I’m a mess. My life is a mess. I might die before I make something of myself.”

He brushes a loose strand of her hair away. “If you even think about dying, I am going to haul you back from the ashes.”

“How do you know I won’t be buried?” 

“You don’t strike me as the type of person that wants to be eaten by worms. You’re far too classy for that.”

She can’t help but laugh. But then the pain cuts her down, making her wince. He notices.

“Right. No jokes tonight. And definitely no stories about death and illness. I’ve got something better.”  He pulls out a ziplock freezer bag from his jeans pocket and holds it up in the dim yellow light for her to see. Three tightly wrapped joints.

Of course, he’s prepared. She can’t expect anything less of him.

He does the honours, popping the joint in her mouth and lighting it. She devours the first inhale, holding the smoke in her belly for as long as possible before exhaling softly. A plume of smoke curls over them. 

She releases a long sigh she feels like she’s been holding for decades. “You know that feeling when you’re no longer the youngest person in the room but the oldest? Where does the time go? It’s slipped by me, and I don’t know how to get it back.”

“You’re talking like you’re dead already. Don’t do that.”

“It looks bad.” Nara tries to be strong, but her voice breaks.

She drifts away and looks across the street towards the block of apartments opposite hers. A family sit at the dinner table. How many times has she watched them living a life that she thought she’d have? That she could have had, had she stayed in Sweden and married Malcolm. Instead, she finds herself here, so completely alone that if she collapses in the shower and hits her head, no one would come to her rescue. No one would know that she’s missing. 

She takes another drag and then another, relishing how the weed softens the edges of her panic, taking with it the ugliness of her own thoughts.

Jay grabs her hand suddenly, startling her. Their eyes meet. There’s something in his eyes that makes her think of how her mother looked when she crumbled on the staircase after Dad’s funeral. 

The memory tries to zigzag its way into her mind. She slams on the brakes.

“I don’t need your pity," She snaps before she can stop herself. 

Instead of moving away, he moves closer, taking a seat next to her on the sofa. His shoulder brushes up against her. The smell of him overpowers her senses. She knows all about Jay’s open marriage. She also knows that this quiet chemistry between them is stronger than concrete, that it’s weathered her grandmother and father’s deaths and her episode with depression last year. 

He speaks after a while, his voice rusty with emotion. “I don’t pity you. On the contrary. You’re so fucking strong. Beautiful.”

“I’m tired of being strong. Of holding the strings together."

He squeezes her hand. Wherever she turns, she sees Jay. He’s been here. Stayed even when she was impossible to be around. She returns the hand squeeze.  

She doesn’t know what she needs, but he does. He wraps his arms around her and holds tight, anchoring her in this storm. 

“This is a storm. It will pass.” He murmurs.

She clings on as if she’s about to drown, and he’s her lifeboat. He tightens his grip and they stay like that for an age and yet, not nearly long enough. 

Sometimes no words can fix the hole inside of you. But a touch can stitch you back together.