“I'm glad you're optimistic.” I wasn't feeling that way.
“It won't fail because I'm not taking treatment.”
My mouth moved rapidly to question his decision, but no sound came out. I tried to walk toward him, my fists balled ready to knock some sense into him, but my knees went from beneath me—a higher power saving him from my wrath.
I sunk to the floor, and I couldn’t get back up. The weight of my devastation was too heavy. I held my stomach, crouched over myself, and I sobbed.
A Woodrow-shaped shadow wrapped around me, and I felt a little comfort from it. A second later, his hands clutched at my biceps and guided me into a sitting position in his lap. I used his chest for comfort but felt the opposite as each wheeze of his lungs was amplified in my ears.
I turned my head, not wanting to hear hispainful struggle.
The tattoos on his chest called to me, and for the first time, I was able to understand the words. Each tattoo was a message . . .to me. Words engraved into his skin by sharp objects that he shouldn't have had access to within prison.
My fingers trailed the letters, taking in his written apologies to me. And the beautiful words made more tears race down my already soaked cheeks.
Woodrow lifted my chin with two fingers, raising my face to see the pink daisy tucked behind his ear as he tucked my hair behind mine.
“I can't live without you.”
“You can, my strong, brave girl. You have for ten years.”
“I can't do it again. I won’t do it again. You have to take the treatment. Do it for me. Please, do it for me.”
I knocked the flower to the floor as I clasped his face.
“Why haven't you done it already?”
“I put a lot of money into this house. Into giving you a home. A future. I didn’t want to waste any of it—"
“My future was meant to be with you. Us. Together.”
“Ah, Moonlight, fate had other plans.” His hands enveloped mine.
I shook my head, refusing to allow fate to win.
“There's money on the land, you said—"
“Not enough for what I need.”
“We can sell some land. Sell the house. Get a mortgage.” His sad eyes disagreed with my ramblings. “We can try. We can try. . . something. Anything. I want you to live.”
A smile elevated his pout, making dimples pop. He was smiling because it wasn't so long ago, I'd said the opposite. . . but it was never true.
I was just mad at him.
And time with my captors had me believing their lies, and they told a-fucking-lot of them. They'd told me I'd been sent to them for training, that one day my true master would come for me, and he wouldn't go easy on me. When Hell showed up, that was all too easy to believe.
“I need you to live.”
“I want to live, but the choice isn't mine.”
“We can sell the house; we can live somewhere smaller.”
“Moonlight.” He smiled. “My special Moonlight. We're not selling your home.” His hands moved from his face to mine, his gentle fingers wiping away my tears and calming the tremble of my lip. “I spent months getting this place perfect. . . for you. I put in time and almost all of my energy, and some days, I wasn't even sure I'd make it through the day, never mind live long enough to see you here.” He licked the dryness from his lips. “Treatment is pointless. They offered it to me when I was first diagnosed.”
“When was that?”
“I had issues in prison, but nothing was really done until three weeks before I got out of the institute. That was when I stopped eating so much, feeling full quickly. I was sick a lot. My throat felt more constricted. I was coughing up blood.” He licked his lips again, and I noticed this to be a pattern. “I was sent for a medical exam, and they did some tests. Starting with my throat. I don't know if my father was lying all those years ago. . . but the doctor told me my tumor had mutated. It was cancer and slow growing, but I'd had it for years. Some other tests were run and they confirmed I had metastatic cancer."
