Monday evening I order us takeout for dinner and we eat in silence. On Tuesday, the day of the appointment, Vince wakes up long before I do. I find him in the kitchen, staring out thewindow. All the lights are off, and his attention is on something unseen.
I want to go to him. Wrap my arms around him and try to absorb some of his anxiety. But if I’ve learned anything about Vince, it’s that sometimes he needs space to feel things before he can say them out loud. So I give him room and try to believe he’ll come to me when he’s ready.
I cling to his vague promise oftodaywhile we pull our jackets on.
I cling to it while we get in the truck.
I cling to it when his knee bounces the entire drive to the doctor’s office.
I cling to it as we ride the elevator to the fourth floor.
And I let it wash over me again as we enter the empty waiting room. It smells of disinfectant and artificial lavender, making my stomach churn, the way it always does in places where bad news lives.
An older woman with ruby red glasses checks us in, and we sit together under a window.
Vince’s shoulders are tight as he fills out the paperwork, his jaw locked. I spend the next fifteen minutes watching him instead of my phone, cataloging the signs of his illness the way I’ve learned to—whether I wanted to or not. How his fingers flex like the nerves are misfiring, how he shifts his weight every few seconds, and the heat pouring off him. Each symptom is worse today, more evident. It’s as though stress is an amplifier.
After turning in the clipboard, he slips away to use the restroom.
I pull out my phone and add a few things to the list I’ve been creating since December. Vince doesn’t know about the list. I’m not sure how he’d feel if he did. I started it after his stay in the hospital, as a way of looking for patterns more than anythingelse. It’s nearly forty bullet points long now, which doesn’t feel like enough, but hopefully it’ll be useful.
Has Vince been cataloguing his symptoms too? Or has he simply been living through them, drifting from one moment of relief to another?
If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to keep a list—a physical log of how frequently my body betrayed me. It would only make the fear worse. I’d want to forget it, try to pretend it wasn’t happening.
I give him a reassuring smile as he returns, tucking my phone away. I want so desperately to hold his hand but settle for wrapping an arm across the back of his seat instead.
“Remind me to call Declan after this,” he murmurs. “He wanted an update.”
“I will.”
I’ll be the one calling Declan. Vince is going to crash after this. I can already feel myself bracing for it.
The door opens, and a nurse steps out holding an iPad. “Vincent Mercer?”
Ice-cold dread washes over him. I can see it in his eyes.
I stand without thinking. There’s no discussion about whether I’m coming with him. I just do. Just like I did with him at his MRI. It’s what I’m here for.
The exam room is small. Too bright. The posters are intimidating and downright scary, portraying the exact future that Vince has been trying not to imagine for months, with canes and wheelchairs and invasive medical exams. He keeps his attention on the floor, expression blank, like he’s focused on a mission.
My palms are clammy when the doctor finally comes in. I sit up straighter, tugging my shirt. Vince barely moves.
Dr. Benson wastes no time opening Vince’s file. Before he starts, I pull out a small silver device from my pocket.
“I’m sorry, but do you mind if we record this? Just so we can revisit things later? Since this is Vince’s first appointment, I mean. I just thought it might be overwhelming.”
The doctor smiles behind his small spectacles. “Of course.”
Vince turns to me, expression completely blank. I can’t tell what he’s thinking as I hit the button and set it on the counter. Maybe I should’ve asked him about it.Shit, what if I’m overstepping again?
I chew my lip and rub my hands together.
The doctor goes over the MRI scan, his most recent bloodwork, and a million other things. A lot of it goes over my head, but there are some things I recognize from the dozens of articles I’ve read on multiple sclerosis—lesions, inflammation, progression.
Still, it’s one thing to read about the illness, and another to witness someone you love experiencing it.
Every symptom he describes, every possibility feels like a glimpse into the life Vince has been fearing. It physically hurts me to think about him going through spinal taps and other tests. Or losing his vision. Dr. Benson even said paralysis is possible in extreme cases. He talks about his future like it’s a checklist of appointments, gradual breakdowns, and general inevitabilities—and each thing seems to hit Vince harder than the last.
