Even the warmth started slowly seeping away from her.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “It looks like we’re about to have a massive thunderstorm.”
Just as I said that a thunder boomed on the outside, shaking the entire house.
“You see.” I smiled, taking a hold of her hand. “Are you cold?”
“Nah.” She shrugged and kept looking toward the window. “I have an idea.” She turned toward me, that gleam back in her eyes, and even as pale as she was in that moment, she still looked like the most beautiful person I had ever seen.
“Oh, no.” I laughed. “I know that look in your eye. You’re thinking about doing something very stupid, aren’t you?”
“Not exactly stupid, no. But, I’m not sure if you would be up for this.”
“Just spit it out, Soph.”
“Well, remember my bucket list?” As if I could forget. Most of those things she wrote there were things that we wouldn’t get a chance of doing—skinny dipping, visiting the Grand Canyon and Colosseum, seeing the Northern Lights. All those were things she needed to travel for, and her doctors explicitly said that she wasn’t able to travel long distances anymore.
She got tired simply from walking lately, not to mention flying or climbing.
“I do.”
“So, it’s raining.” She looked at me expectantly.
“So it is.” I frowned. “Where are you going with this?”
“Noah.” She slapped my thigh and smiled. “Dancing in the rain? Remember?”
“Fuck.” I dragged my hand over my face and stared at her. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? It’s freezing outside, and you haven’t been feeling very well.” And you might only have one or two months left to live, I wanted to say, but bit my tongue at the last second. “I just don’t want you to catch a cold or—”
“Noah,” she murmured and climbed on top of me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “I wanna dance in the rain, and I wanna dance with you.”
“Fuck, don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” She pouted.
“With those puppy dog eyes, and… Yes, that. You know what you’re doing.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She grinned and leaned down, pressing her lips to mine. “Come on. I want to dance with you.”
And I wanted to dance with her, but the fear gripped my lungs, pushing my anxiety to the forefront. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to prevent her from getting even worse, and while I wanted to go out and give her everything she wanted, I was terrified that this little excursion could cost us.
“I don’t know. What if—”
“Noah,” she warned. “If we go through our lives only thinking about what-ifs, we will never get to live at all. And I wanna feel alive. I wanna feel happy. I want the rain to wash away everything from me. Please,” she pleaded. “I wanna do this with you. I can do it alone, but—”
“No, absolutely not.” She could slip and fall down, hurting herself even more. The other day, she almost fell down the stairs. Apart from her headaches and general weakness, her vision was getting worse, dizzy spells started appearing, and one of us tried being with her at all times. “Get dressed.” I sighed.
A high-pitched squeal escaped through her mouth, and before I could react, she threw herself at me, tackling me down on the bed.
“I love you. I love you. I love you,” she kept chanting, kissing my cheeks, my eyes, my nose, and then my lips.
Fuck, this is what I wanted for her.
Happiness. Pure fucking happiness.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her as close as possible to my chest, inhaling the sweet scent of cinnamon and vanilla lingering on the strands of her hair that were tickling my nose.
“I love you, too,” I murmured into her hair. “But we’ll only go out for ten minutes.”
