“I dropped out of medical school, obviously. My worst fear was that I would black out or faint during a procedure and end up killing someone.” I laugh bitterly. “I began treatment after that. I’ve been poked and prodded with every drug imaginable over the last two years.”
I let out a choked sob as my next words leave my mouth.
“Nothing worked. My doctor said I had roughly three months left during our last phone call. And so I got drunk, and I wrote those letters.”
I lift my gaze once more. Logan has his hands in his hair, and he’s rocking back and forth. Quaid looks like he’s about to pass out, like he’s not sure where he is and how he got here. Carter…well, he’s perfectly still, staring at me unblinkingly with blacked out eyes and a shockingly pale complexion.
“I should have told you,” I whisper, touching my heart with my trembling hands, as if somehow that can stop the pain that I’m feeling. “I should have told you from the beginning. But I didn’t want our time together to be just because you felt sorry for me.”
My voice is pleading as I try to explain my thought process. I want them to understand desperately. I need them to understand.
“I wanted you to be here because you were in love with me, because you wanted this time together as badly as I did.”
I struggle to keep my eyes on them, because I want to hide from the shame coursing through me. “I’m so sorry,” I tell them. “I know this can’t be easy to hear—”
“This can’t be easy to hear,” Carter’s voice slices through my plea. He begins to laugh, and it’s a cold, dark laugh that sends shivers down my spine. “It can’t be easy to hear that you’re fucking dying. And you’ve been lying to us since you first sent that letter.”
He continues to laugh, bending over as he puts his hands on his knees, his whole body shaking. The sounds change after a few moments though, and there’s only choking sobs coming out of his mouth. He falls to his knees, his wails echoing throughout the room.
I have no idea what to do. There’s more crashing, and I see that Logan is destroying whatever he can get his hands on, his face crumpled up in agony and anguish. Quaid throws up right there on the couch, his face pale and clammy looking, and he looks like he’s having trouble breathing.
What have I done?
Logan abruptly leaves the room, heading for the balcony just off the room. I watch as he grips the railing. I stand up and take a step forward because I honestly am not sure what he’s going to do.
He lets out a long, anguished scream and then falls to his knees, gripping on to the railing as if it’s his lifeline.
I think I’ll remember the sound of that scream even after I’m dead.
Numbness starts to spread through my limbs. It feels like I’m just an observer of everything that’s happening, like I’m not really here. In a daze, I walk to my bedroom and lay down on my bed. I stare up at the ceiling as I listen to the sounds of their distress from outside my door.
And then I fall into a deep, anxious sleep, where only nightmares find me.
I know I’m not alone when I wake up. It’s not because a sound wakes me up, it’s that I can feel him. I can always feel them now.
Night has fallen, and I look over and see that Logan is sitting in a chair by the window, his face in his hands.
“Logan,” I say softly. Now that my secret’s out, it’s like my body has decided to dive off the deep end. I haven’t felt this sick the entire trip. Even just speaking feels almost impossible.
He looks up at the sound of his name and wipes a hand across his face. He gets up and walks towards me, knee walking across the bed until he gets to me. He then lays down beside me so that we’re face to face.
“Please,” he begs softly in a choked voice. “Please find a way to live. It feels like I’m the one dying, and if you leave me again… If you go to a place that I can’t follow you…I won’t survive. Please tell me this is just some cruel joke. That we have forever ahead of us.”
He’s crying, and obviously, I’m crying. This was exactly what I was trying to avoid—last days filled with sorrow instead of joy in being together.
As much as dying is painful for me, I think I’d convinced myself that it wasn’t as painful for the ones left behind.
I was wrong. So fucking wrong.
Logan
I’m not sure if I’m the one dying or she’s the one dying. It’s incredible how a few words can have the power to change your whole fucking life.
She’s dying.
The girl that I’ve been in love with my entire life is dying, and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t go to the store to get her something. I can’t comfort her. I can’t do fucking anything.
I’m furious with her. But I’m also furious with myself. The girl of my dreams has been literally fading away in front of me for weeks, and I’ve let it go by.
“Tell me that it would have been the same if you’d had treatment instead of coming here,” I beg.
I don’t know what I’ll do if I find out that she could have been doing more treatment to extend her life this whole time. I would have come to the hospital. I would have been anything she needed. Anything she wanted. I would have given my life for this fucking girl.
“It would have been the same,” she softly reassures me, reaching up to play with my hair.
She’s dying.
The words are a litany in my mind. I feel like there will only be before and after today. I thought I was forever changed when I met Valentina, but I think that the truth is that I have been forever changed with the knowledge that I’m about to lose Valentina, forever.
When she left before, at least I knew that she was out there somewhere. I could envision her sometimes, when things got dark, and imagine that she was happy and accomplishing everything she’d ever wanted to do. I could tell myself she was better off without me, and I could survive one more day because she still existed.
What am I going to do when she doesn’t exist?
I curl up next to the girl I’ve always loved, desperate to get any comfort I can from her, even though she’s the one dying.
“I can’t live without you,” I whisper to her.
And I know that’s the truth.
Quaid
I’m plastered. It’s my usual coping mechanism when shit hits the fan, but it’s failing miserably at the moment. It’s failing to numb what I’m feeling at all. I still feel like I’m being ripped to shreds. I choke down another long gulp of bourbon from the bottle that I took from the bar. I’ve made my way through almost the entire bottle. It’s a testament to my years of drinking heavily that I’m not passed out on the ground right now. Somehow, I’m still awake. Somehow, I’m still burdened with all of this ugly, awful pain. A pain worse than anything I’ve ever experienced before.
Tears spring to my eyes. I’ve cried a river since this morning, there can’t be many more left, yet they squeeze through my clenched lids. Damnit. Breathe in, breathe out. I follow this mantra so I can’t think about what’s happened, what could happen at any time.
I haven’t cried since Valentina left so many years ago. I didn’t cry of happiness. I didn’t cry during failures. I didn’t even cry when I got injured. It was like that part of my body had been turned off.