Tears slipped free before I could stop them.
Michael leaned his forehead against mine. “You don’t have to be brave,” he whispered. “You just have to stay. Stay scared. Stay hopeful. Stay here with me, one day at a time. I’ll carry the rest if you need me to.”
I looked at the letters on the table. “If I really don’t make it, then…”
He followed my gaze and said, “I’ll read yours and you’ll read mine and we’ll both feel stupid for being so morbid.” He looked at me and smiled. “Now, when you wake up from surgery, the first thing you’re going to see is me. And then we’re going to plan the rest of our lives.”
“You sound very certain.”
“I’m not certain of the future. But I’m certain that I love you enough to hope with everything I have.”
I wanted his certainty. Wanted to believe that wanting something badly enough could make it true.
He pulled me up from the chair and led me back to bed. His arms held me while I tried and failed to sleep.
At some point I must have dozed because suddenly it was morning and Michael was shaking me gently.
“Time to get up,” he said. “We need to be at the hospital in two hours.”
Two hours until I might die.
I got up and went through the motions. Shower. Clothes which Michael helped me with.
Michael drove us to the hospital in the pre-dawn quiet, the world still half-asleep around us. Neither of us spoke much. What was there to say?
My family was waiting when we arrived. My parents looked nervous. Jack looked like he hadn’t slept. Pauline stood beside him, her hands twisting together.
They prepped me. Hospital gown. IV. Monitors. Dr. Matthews appeared to go over everything one more time.
“This is still your choice,” She said. “If you’ve changed your mind?—”
“I haven’t.”
“Okay. We’ll take good care of you.”
They wheeled me toward the operating room and Michael walked beside the gurney. His hand found mine and held tight.
At the doors where he had to stop, I gripped his hand tighter, refusing to let go yet.
Panic was rising in my throat. This was it. This was the moment. Once I went through those doors, I was either coming back or I wasn’t.
Michael leaned down close, his hand cupping my face.
“I’ll be right outside waiting,” he said. “This isn’t goodbye. This is just see-you-soon. You’re going to survive this. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known and you’re going to wake up and we’re going to see the world together. Santorini. Bali. All of it. I promise.”
“I love you,” I said. My voice was shaking.
“I love you too. I’ll keep loving you through this, and after, and always.” He kissed my forehead, and he lingered for a while. I could feel him hesitate to let me go,
Then they took me through the doors.
I looked back once. Michael stood in the hallway watching me disappear, fear carved into every line of his face. My gaze lingered on my family around him. Everyone I loved gathered in one place.
The doors closed.
The surgical team moved around me. Someone adjusted my IV while another nurse prepped the anesthesia.
Dr. Matthews appeared in scrubs. “Ready?”
