I collapsed during English. No one really noticed until the end of the lesson. Seema just thought I was sleeping off last night’s late night Maths revision.
It was only at the end, when the bell rung and I didn’t move that she started to panic.

That’s what I’ve been told anyhow. Seema shook me to see if I was awake and I just fell onto the floor. I think she thought I was dead.
Then they called 999 and the “very-fit-ohmygod-i-wish-you’d-seen-him” paramedic lifted me like the end of a romantic film where one party dies onto the stretcher.
And the ambulance nee-nawed all the way to the hospital.
I thought it would just be dehydration, or some sort of symptom of Diet Coke withdrawal.

When the Doctor came in and told me it was cancer, I didn’t cry. I just told him to go away, that I didn’t want to hear the specifics yet.

People came, people who didn’t even like me or know me all that well.
I just felt lonely. Lonelier with each mourner.
Suddenly they were the sufferers and I, the comforter, untroubled.