What if, instead of those fantastical adventures our characters lead—or even the more mundane ones of the world-famous simulation games—we logged in to a game where our character logs in to a game to play a computer game?

Wouldn’t that be the ultimate form of meta-escapism?

***

This second round of chemo didn’t floor me for long. Thank God. I hoped that it boded well for the future. I had a chart sitting on the nightstand beside my bed. It had twelve boxes and two of them were now checked off. Two down, ten to go. Just kill me now.

Or maybe I was waiting for my super powers to kick in. My chemo oncologist, a wonderful man who had male pattern baldness admired my still-full head of hair and warned me that it would most likely fall out soon. Running his hand over his own bald pate, he said, “But at least yours will grow back in!”

Of course getting cancer wasn’t worth the jokes, but I’d take them over self-pity.

I flipped the chart over on the nightstand with no desire to even think about the ten rounds remaining. Instead I studied the group of figurines that William had given me. They were so intricately painted, detailed and shaded—even the tiny pewter bases upon which they stood were painted to simulate grass or earth or stone. There was the Guide, with a map and sextant. The Bodyguard dressed in a full suit of armor. The Jester, with the funny hat and wildly colored clothes. Sometimes I’d pass an hour staring at them, rearranging them. Pretending they represented people in my life.

I also spent a lot of my downtime on the laptop playing Dragon Epoch. Since these were times when none of my friends—except Adam—could log on, I worked on the secret quest that he was completely hands-off about. I knew better than to ask him about it or wheedle more clues out of him. He’d once thought himself the height of generous by giving me the uber-elusive “yellow” as a clue. In the end it had been a very valid clue, but so generic as to be useless.

After our talk about asking for help, and the very simple fact that I needed help constantly, working on the quest by myself was a way that I could assert my independence and do things on my own. I spent long hours laying back in bed, my laptop propped on my knees, looking for answers on how to proceed with the quest.

But I was getting nowhere and soon frustration drove me out of bed once I was feeling better. I decided to take a shower.

Though I’d prepared myself for the upcoming, inevitable loss, it still hit me as a shock when the first clump of hair came off in my hands. It was dry and dead, like autumn leaves, and it left my head with little to no resistance.

With a quick intake of breath and a sharp stab of alarm, my heart battered against my chest in fear. I pulled out four or five handfuls and let them fall to the floor. Though this loss was nothing to what I’d already suffered, it was still something to remind me of all that cancer was robbing me of. This loss may have been temporary, but it served as an all-too-poignant reminder of the more permanent losses. My breath came in shivery gulps and tears prickled my eyes.

The drain was starting to plug up with the excess water running out of the showerhead before I finally stopped yanking and pulling at my own hair. I reached up to touch my patchy scalp. The skin there was tender, sensitive.

I think I tried for about sixty seconds to be brave, but it was soon overwhelming and I was shaking with rage and anguish as tears trickled down my face to match the rain of the showerhead. Fuck you, cancer, for succeeding stealing yet another thing from me… my hair and all it represented—youth, beauty, femininity.

By the time the shower started overflowing onto the bathroom floor, I was on the ground, sobbing and trying to pull the hair out of the drain to unclog it.

The world around me turned and my stomach flipped. I felt like throwing up, but fortunately I held it in. I was not as successful with my tears. And because of that, I could hardly see what the hell I was doing and the water was getting cold and I was frantic, shivering.

Suddenly, there was a rush of cold air and the showerhead turned off. I huddled on the shower floor, a mess, bent over myself.

Adam knelt in the water beside me. “Mia. Get up.”

But I didn’t move. I buried my face in my hands. “I don’t want you to see me.”

“I’ve seen you naked before. Come on. You’re shivering.”

“Get me a towel,” I sniveled.

He’d seen everything, yes. But not like this. Not this scarred, maimed, skin-and-bones version. I would disgust him. I knew I would. I disgusted myself every time I stared in the mirror.

This cowering weakling was a far cry from the empowered, confident female who had once shucked my bathing suit to expose myself to him before luring him to take a shower with me. I’d been confident in my body then. I’d wanted him and I’d wanted him to want me. And he had. He so had.