We spend the rest of our night tossing back drinks, dancing, and reminiscing about the last three years. It’s times like this that make me grateful I’m surrounded by such amazing people.

Rain spatters me as I run into Mayo Clinic the following week.

The security guard holds the door open when he sees me coming, giving me his usual tight nod.

“Thank you,” I say as I rush past him.

There is a crowd by the elevators so I decide to take the stairs, my wet sneakers squeaking with each step. On the third floor, I walk into the oncology office, pushing my wet hair out of my face.

When I get to the back, though, Amy isn’t here yet. Casey walks in and freezes when she sees me.

“Hey! I thought Amy was coming in today? I haven’t seen her in weeks.” I’ve been looking forward to this day. We made plans to go out for lunch and talk nothing but baby.

Casey’s face falls and her shoulders hunch.

“What is it?” I’m wary.

I can see the pain in her wide, bloodshot eyes. “Dre.” She sounds afraid to say anything else.

“What happened?” I can’t take a step closer.

Her chin starts to quaver and she bites her bottom lip.

A light prickling sensation hits the back of my neck. The kind that tells me something is horribly wrong.

Her mouth open and closes. An uneasy feeling takes over—that sickening feeling that sets in the pit of my stomach—and I can’t take it. I know something’s wrong and I need Casey to spit it out. It feels like there’s a hundred-pound weight on my sternum.

“What is it?”

Casey looks over my shoulder instead of at me. She opens her mouth again to speak but no words come out, only the agonizing, horrifying sound of her cries.

Watching her, listening to her, it’s as if all of her pain passes right into me.

My shoulders begin to quake. I don’t know exactly what’s going on but I know it has to be completely terrible for Casey to be crying the way she is. Her make-up runs down her face as she hurriedly digs for a tissue.

“I-I I’m so s-orry, Dre.”

I take a slow step toward her, holding my hands in front of me so I don’t startle her. “Take a deep breath, Casey.” She tries, but her sobs are uncontrollable. “Sit down.” I pull out a chair and ease her feather-light body into it. “Deep breaths.”

She drops her head between her knees and I direct her breathing. I take a few of my own deep breaths. When she finally controls herself I look around for someone. Where is everyone?

“What happened?”

Her head snaps up, mouth wide and face smeared with snot and mascara-tinged tears. She looks around, closing her eyes tightly. I brace myself.

“Amy.”

My throat feels like I’ve swallowed a handful of needles. “What about Amy?”

“She passed away last night.”

I didn’t brace myself enough, apparently, because I fall hard against the cold floor.

I feel like I’ve fallen into a black hole: no light, no hope. In astrophysics, we call that boundary the event horizon. Nothing from the other side can reach you there and you continue speeding up as the gravity waves pull you to the center.

I’m cold and numb. Casey’s speaking too fast for me to follow. I can’t make out a single word. I just sit, unmoving, staring into space from my black hole.

“What do you mean? She was doing okay. She was okay!” My voice is shaky, almost unrecognizable. “I just talked to her last week. We were getting together today!” My voice rises with each word.

A few employees come walking around the corner to see what’s going on. When I look their way, they won’t meet my eyes. Everyone here knows how close Amy and I are. Were.

“Dre, Amy stopped full treatment last year.”

“Stopped treatment?” I shake my head. Everything feels fuzzy. “That’s not possible. I know her. I know her! She finished treatment when we met. She is a survivor. We are survivors!”

“Her cancer metastasized to her bones, Aundrea. There wasn’t anything further that could be done. I’m so sorry.”

“But I saw her. She was doing well.”

“She was on maintenance chemo to help keep her stable, but it spread so fast over the last two months. Nothing was working and over the last month it took over. She only allowed you to see what she wanted.”

I don’t understand why she didn’t tell me. Why she led me to believe everything was okay.

If Casey’s still talking to me I don’t hear a thing. Everything inside of me is gone. Whatever life or soul that was inside of me has left my body.

I stand, pushing past her and force myself to keep walking. It finally hits me when I take my first step down the stairs. Everything comes crashing down when my foot hits the cement in the stairwell. It sounds like a crack of thunder.

Pushing myself, I run down the stairs, holding onto the railing to keep myself from falling. It’s the only thing holding me up.

The security guard jumps up when he sees me. “Are you okay?”

I wave him off and fling the door open. The rain slashes at my face and the pain feels good. I stand and let it pierce my skin. My heart is shattering into a million shards, as if it were made of glass.

I clutch my chest, falling to my knees on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. I can’t even be certain if I’m still breathing. People walk past me; a few stop, but they sound distant. I clutch my chest, begging the burning pain to stop. She’s gone. Casey’s words run through my head over and over again, cutting deeper each time. She passed away last night.