Valentine’s Day — Split Lip Magazine

Last Valentine’s Day, I got six tattoos I did not want.

The six dots formed a constellation, a guide around my breast for the radiation I would receive.

In the waiting room, I watched couples’ papery hands clasped. I wanted someone to press their palms against mine, to etch their allegiance into my skin.

“Are you here alone?” a social worker asked in her office before my appointment. Her eyebrows scrunched, fingers furled in her lap, wedding ring gleaming.

I nodded, glanced at posters: Every day is a new day. You have to look through the rain to see the rainbow.

“Well.” She looked down at the floor, at a loss for words. “Are you okay?”

“I’m great,” I said, snorting. This must be difficult for you, I’d imagined she would say, having read my history, my mother lost to cancer.

She stared as snot bubbled, then dripped to my lips. I looked for the requisite tissue box and saw none. Had no one else cried in here?

She continued to stare. “Do you have any questions?”

Yes. What kind of social worker are you? Will my cancer go away, and will I find someone who’ll care for me?

Soon I’d be branded, my tattoos as targets. I already had the grimace of a scar. My breast would turn pink, then darken to scarlet, then peel and itch like poison ivy. After my sixteen radiation sessions, I’d ask someone to fuck me, just so I knew I was still desired. The guy came too quickly, then smushed his face into a pillow and slept. I left for his doughy brown couch with a battery-operated toothbrush that burned in its vibration, my body alive with ache and want.

“Do you have a tissue?”

Elizabeth Koster’s (@elizkoster) work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fourth Genre, River Teeth, Hobart, Lost Balloon, Five Minutes, and The New York Times Modern Love column. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia University and has been cancer-free for over twelve years.