“I’m going to make love to you, Nevaeh.” He rubs his thumb along my bottom lip. “Every day for the rest of our lives if I have it my way.” His words cause my body to freeze. Luckily, he doesn’t notice.
“Okay…”
“But first I’m going to make you my wife.” He rolls onto his elbow. “Marry me, Angel. I’ll book us a flight to Vegas and we’ll be there in a few hours. Make me the happiest man in the world and become my wife, and then I promise I’ll make love to you, the way it’s supposed to be, as your husband. Every goddamn day for the rest of our lives.”
Tears pricks my eyes. Ethan wants to marry me. He wants to be my husband…for the rest of our lives. Emotion clogs my throat. Can I do that? Can I marry him? Would that be selfish? He’s been through so much. Losing his baby, his fiancée and mom leaving… would marrying him make me a horrible person?
What if I’m honest with him? Would he understand? Would he still want to marry me? He deserves to know the truth. To go into this marriage knowing all the facts.
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I’m sorry. I can’t marry you.” Tears slide down my cheeks.
“What? Why not?” he asks, hurt evident in his tone.
“Because you deserve better than me.” I choke out a sob, and he sits up, pulling me into his lap so I’m straddling him.
“I deserveyou,baby. What’s going on?”
“I-I haven’t been honest with you,” I admit, closing my eyes in shame at what I’ve kept from him.
“What is it? Whatever it is we’ll deal with it together.”
Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes back up and, looking him in the eyes, I tell him something nobody knows. “I’m going to die.”
His eyes widen in horror and shock, then his brows dip low in confusion. “Nevaeh, you’re going to have to give me more than that. You have my mind wandering to every worst-case scenario. We’re all going to die eventually. That’s how life works…”
“I have a Meningioma tumor. It’s why I get dizzy and lightheaded… have frequent headaches.” I swallow the golf-ball-sized lump in my throat. “I was diagnosed a few years ago. I fell and hit my head and my mom insisted I go to the hospital. When they ran tests, they saw it. Because I was over eighteen, I told them I didn’t want anyone, especially my mother, to know.”
Ethan grips the curves of my hips and squeezes. “Okay, but with all the medicinal advancements, it’s curable, right?”
“At first, the doctor’s recommendation was to keep an eye on it. It was small at the time. He told me if it grows, we’ll go from there.”
“And has it?”
“Yes. When I started experiencing all the symptoms I was told to watch out for, I made an appointment. Dr. Phillips ran new scans and confirmed it. I need to have surgery.”
Ethan releases a harsh breath. “Okay, so that means it’s curable, right? They’ll go in and remove it. When?”
“I haven’t scheduled it.”
“Why?” he asks slowly.
“I haven’t even lived,” I cry. “There’s a chance I could die during the surgery. A chance they won’t be able to get it all. A chance I’ll need chemotherapy, radiation… It feels like I’m finally beginning to find myself. I’m finally starting to live, and it’s all going to be taken away. What if through it all, I lose myself again?”
“But if you don’t get the surgery, you’ll die,” he growls.
“I know but… I haven’t lived enough, yet, Ethan. I’m only twenty-four years old. I haven’t gotten married or had kids. I haven’t even skinny-dipped! I have so much I want to do. What if I die before I can do any of it?” Sobs rack my body, and Ethan pulls me into him for a hug.
“Your list,” he whispers. “It’s not just a bucket list. It’s literally the list of things you want to do before you die.”
I nod into his neck, sniffling back my cries. “I made it when I thought I would have more time, but then the tumor grew so fast and now I’m not going to have enough time to do everything on my list.”
“When did the doctor say you need to schedule the surgery?” he asks quietly.
“As soon as possible.”
“Fuck,” he curses under his breath.
Framing my face in his hands, he looks me in the eyes. “Marry me, Nevaeh.”
