Somehow, without me being aware of it, my body has become my enemy. Days and weeks have passed and slowly, slowly cells multiply and mutate – or so the doctors tell me. I’m not aware of it. I’m completely clueless. There’s no sign, there’s nothing. And then I see the lump…

My body is not my own anymore. It’s a foreign land, an unchartered territory for which I do not own a map. It is un-mappable. How can you ever know a place so strange and secret and savage?

I used to think we were in this thing together, my body and I. We had an agreement. We were partners in crime. Through second helpings of dessert and marathon stretches through Manhattan, I listened to her murmurs and soothed her woes. We did everything together, hand-in-hand. And now the ultimate act of betrayal. A secret left to fester…

How will I ever look at her the same way again?