She had wanted to stop for an iced coffee on the way, something to reward her for actually making this appointment, but as it turned out, time was too short to allow a stop.  Even without the steeling effect of the coffee, Amy sat as poised as she could manage in the upholstered chair in the examination room.  With one leg crossed over the other and the light that glinted off the new toe-ring highlighting the pedicure she had treated herself to, she thought she looked composed and cavalier as the doctor whipped out one radiograph after another, placing them against the lighted panel on the wall and saying "yes, there it is" and "hmmm" and other such pronouncements.  She only half heard him when he said words like "progression" and "spinal cord lesion" and was amazed herself that her thoughts were still elsewhere and not on this grim soliliquy.

"This is what I don't want to see in a patient with your condition.  This is the kind of thing that could put you in a wheelchair in five years if you aren't willing to do anything about it".  His admonitions were stern.  He was a believer in "telling it like it is" and was firm in his opinion that her stance of denial was no longer going to serve her well.  She had long lived as if refusing to acknowledge her condition could stave off its effects.

"I don't understand", he said.  "Someone with this kind of problem, who refuses treatments that have a proven history and yet smokes".

"I know,  you don't understand why anyone would refuse accepted treatments and then ingest large quantities of poison daily.  Well, that is just because you haven't known me long enough", she quipped.

The doctor's face didn't show any appreciation of her feeble attempt at humor.  This was one situation where she couldn't fast talk her way out of it.  He was not impressed.  He wore a face of concern and to his credit he noticed the tears welling up in her eyes.  He didn't know her well, for he thought she now cried because of his diagnosis and recommendations, something she was only barely acknowledging.

The physician's voice droned in the background as her mind wandered to other words that were indelibly etched in her memory.  It wasn't as if she had not expected to hear them, she had heard the death rattles coming from that corner for a long time.  Steven hadn't managed to surprise her with his announcement that he was leaving.  It was no surprise but it was no less painful for all her preparation.

When she met Steven she was impressed with his talent as a photographer.  His work was well received and he was not lacking in assignments.  He had been kind in his assessment of her paintings and even asked her to paint something for him. They seemed to have something in common and it naturally led to a relationship. At the beginning it was light and fun, they enjoyed all the same things, their tastes were so similiar she felt for the first time in her life that she had met someone who was capable of understanding her.  She understood him too and his ambitions, though she didn't share them.  His job at the newspaper was not his life goal, she knew that.  She also knew he would do whatever was necessary to achieve.  She wouldn't have been so hurt if only he had been honest with her.

"I can see three or four, yes four new episodes since the last brain study".  She heard the words and thought, that isn't too bad.  It has been ten years, four new areas of damage in ten years sounded like a bargain compared to what might happen in that amount of time.  It was the next words he used that caught her attention.

"And here, there is a black hole", he said.

"Excuse me, a black hole?", she asked.

"That's an area of permanent damage", he explained.

Amy chuckled bitterly. The doctor looked quizzically at her reaction.

 "You have to understand this, that is just so, so... so perfect", she told him.  "That so perfectly fits me it is actually funny.  What area is it in?"

"What area?  Do you mean what does it control?  Memory, concentration, some sensory".

She looked at him suspiciously.  "I have an excellent memory."

"I am not saying it is necessarily causing problems, you asked what that area of the brain controls and I told you."

For a moment she forgot all about being angry with Steven and concentrated on being angry with this man who could so blithely talk about things that were never going to affect him personally. He was trying to scare her, he clearly disapproved of her "hands off" attitude towards her condition for so many years although he grudgingly admitted that she was doing well considering her inattention to it.

"You don't understand", she had told him.  "Up until now, I was winning".

But today she was being told that she wasn't winning any longer, that she couldn't win. Normally, nothing made her more determined than being told she couldn't win. She had spent her life fighting losing battles.  But Steven's timing had taken the fight out of her.  His boss had given him an assignment that took him to San Diego. While out there he had made some connections and through them received an offer from a magazine.  He told her he could not pass it up, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.  She knew that it wasn't really much more prestigious than the job he had at the paper, but it had one fringe benefit.  It gave him an excuse.  Her pride made her pretend to believe, maybe part of her needed to believe that he was sorry to go.  But in her heart she knew he had planned to leave all along. She had entered the doctor's office today, already thoroughly defeated.  She surprised even herself when she nodded mutely at him when he asked if she were ready to give in and try the injections.  She had been fighting too long. It was time to admit she couldn't win.

"I suppose I have no choice", she said as she accepted the tissues from his hand, dabbing at tears that had very little to do with this morning's appointment and everything to do with her disappointment.  Choices were things only others seemed to possess. She left the office with yet another choice taken from her.

She never turned on the radio but drove through the rain in silence, the only sound the one that came from the stripped wiper blade as it scraped and scored the windshield.  She hadn't bothered to have it replaced as the shrieking it made perfectly matched the cry that echoed within her. The employee at the drive thru smiled and called her "honey".  He was sweet and yet she knew he called everyone "honey". So many in the line, so many times he had used that charm.  She asked for sugar in the iced coffee, but still it tasted bitter.