“I need to confess something to you…” I said, taking a deep breath and lowering my eyes with guilt, as we sat on the veranda that evening. “That doesn't sound good. I’m all ears,” Snake replied quietly, visibly tensing up. “I’m sick. And I can’t hide it from you anymore.” “What happened?” His voice trembled.
For Snake, health had always been sacred. Pessimistic diagnoses from doctors had made him anxious—almost obsessively careful about himself and those around him. Annual checkups at the world’s best clinics had long become a necessity for him, even a norm of life.
For me, it had always been the opposite. Since childhood, hospitals, doctors, tests—all of it filled me with disgust and total distrust. I had never been seriously ill…except for the endless intimate health issues that had plagued me since my teenage years. But this time it went too far. Pills barely helped, so I turned to alternative treatments for my condition: oils, herbs, douching, meditation practices. Even my beloved jade eggs proved useless. I went to everyone imaginable—fortune tellers, shamans, “seers.” One “enlightened” Indian healer gave me a miraculous recipe: a mixture of turmeric, honey, and yogurt, which I had to stir strictly clockwise every evening under the moonlight, chanting a special mantra exactly—no more, no less—108 times. I would then pour this “elixir” into my body for half an hour and continue chanting a healing mantra for the sacred center. Needless to say, the “remedy” had the opposite effect.
Now I laugh, remembering all that magical madness. But back then, I was willing to try anything—just to regain the ability to enjoy life.
I told Snake how the illness had started progressing while I was with man who didn’t love me; about the terrifying diagnosis I was given; about how, for a long time, I drowned the symptoms in pills to which I had clearly developed a tolerance.
“The disease is progressing,” I said quietly. “And no matter what I do…nothing seems to help anymore…”
He was silent for just a second—but that silence cut through the air like a blade.
“Pffft. That’s nonsense,” he waved his hand, as if brushing away an invisible veil between us, and looked straight into my eyes. “We’ll get you through this, you hear me? And in the meantime…” his voice suddenly softened, almost fatherly, “we’ll heal your little girl who’s been so hurt by men. Come here.”
Those words spread warmth inside me. I burst into tears. My terrifying, shameful truth didn’t push him away. He didn’t turn away. Didn’t close off. On the contrary—that evening, we realized just how close we had become.