My eyes snapped shut as her shaky hand guided mine to her left breast. “Do you feel it?”
She hadn’t stopped crying since we came in from the balcony. I didn’t console her, I couldn’t. On the inside, I was crying, too.
She told me that she had discovered it the day of the “night that never happened.” That was why she’d acted the way she had. Josh had been right; she’d gotten scared.
I nodded as I felt the lump, like thick skin, close to her underarm.
Her voice came out a shudder when she spoke. “I always knew there might be a chance—that this might happen—but I never prepared myself emotionally.” She let out another sob and pulled away from my hand, closing her robe as she did. “I never got tested, Blake. I’m sorry.” She sat on the bed and let her head fall into her hands.
I kneeled in front of her, stroking her hair.
“I never thought that I’d have someone like you to explain that decision to. And now it’s too late. Now you have to deal with it, too,” she sobbed. She gazed up, and shook her head, her eyes wild as they bore into mine. “Blake, you can’t deal with this. You’re eighteen. You shouldn’t have to deal with a dying fiancée.” She clasped the ring and began to slide it off her finger.
I covered her hands. “Stop! I’m sorry, Chloe. I am. But you can’t do this. You can’t take away your answer. You said yes, and you meant yes. I told you the other night, if you push me away—if you do that again—I’m leaving, and I meant it.” It was an empty threat. One I had absolutely no intention of keeping. I would never walk away from her. Not now, and not even then.
“Blake, you can’t possibly still want to marry me. Not now.”
“No,” I answered truthfully. “Not now. But afterwards. After you fight this . . . after you’ve beaten this . . . after you come out on the other side, then we’ll do it. Promise me you’ll still want me then?”
She laughed and cried, all at the same time.
I pulled on her hands so she was straddling me and placed her hand over my heart, my other hand skimming the lump on her breast. “What I feel in here,” I covered her hand on my chest and, with the other, stroked my fingers across the thick skin, “completely outweighs what I feel here. The love I have for you . . . Chloe.” I sighed. “What’s happening now, it doesn’t change a thing. Do you understand me? Not a damn thing is going to take this away from us. Ever.”
She held my face in her hands and kissed me with her tear-stained lips. “You, Blake Hunter, are my unexpectedly phenomenal.”
Chloe
My mother hadn’t left me many material items when she’d died. She’d been too young to possess a lot, but she had left a letter. One I was told to open if the disease ever got me. I used to wonder what magical words she might have in case I needed them. Now I needed them.
Like I had when I’d been a kid, I sat on the chair in the corner of the room and stared at the letter in my hand, tracing my name on the envelope with the tips of my fingers. I watched as Blake slowly moved onto his back, his arm out on my side of the bed, waiting for me to crawl in beside him, throw my arm and leg over him like I did every night. And in that moment, there were no insecurities, no petty teenage jealousy. There was just me—and Blake—and our maybe forever.
And that was all the courage I needed.
I lifted the envelope, taking one more look at its unopened form before quietly peeling back the flap and pulling the letter out.
I unfolded it.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
A gasp escaped before I covered my mouth with both hands, dropping the letter onto my lap.
To my beautiful girl, Chloe, it said.
White paper.
Red ink.