Page 120 of The Sound Of Us

I’ve relapsed. My cancer came back. I must start treatment immediately. I may not make it this time. I don’t know how long, but I’m not expected to live past my mid-thirties.

I am now twenty-eight.

My hands shake. There’s not much more of the letter left. Only a thousand apologies for being sick. A thousand more reassurances that he’ll understand if I want to end our relationship.

I don’t read half of his martyr-style ending. I get to the end, where the only thing that matters has been penned.

I don’t have forever, Eli. I have only now. And what little of me is left belongs to you. Even when I’m nothing but a distant memory, I’ll belong to you. You are the only person in this whole world who has loved me the way I’d wished to be loved. Even when I can no longer share in your breath, I’ll love you. I’ll love you now, in this moment, enough for a hundred lifetimes.

I’m sorry.

The lump in my throat causes enough pain to travel to my temples.

Axel trembles on the couch, his eyes still cast downward. It’s only when his tea ripples that I realize he’s crying. His tears fall into his tea, disturbing the calmness of the deep brown liquid.

I gently remove the tea from his hands and set it on the coffee table. He folds his hands on his lap. I close my hands over them, stilling them. Finally, he looks at me. “I’ll fight, Eli,” he says, his tears falling from his eyes and onto our joined hands. “I’ll fight so hard, you’ll see. I’ll try hard to live. I’ll be brave and I’ll fight like a warrior right till the end, I promise.”

His anguish that I would leave him is unbearable. My tears join his, mixing and creating one tiny river between our clasped fingers. “We’ll fight,” I correct him with my voice. His eyes lift to mine.

“I—I can stay?” he asks. His question so sincere, his relief so heart breaking it makes me want to kill Frank over and over again. One death for a man like Frank is not enough.

I hand him his letter. He gives me a quizzical look and then inspects his letter. When his fingers slide over my alteration, he doesn’t throw his arms around me with joy like I’d hoped. Instead, he drops his head to my lap. His shoulders shake violently. I can do nothing but soothe him with my hands along his back. Bending, I kiss the top of his head while he cries and cries.

His cancer is only an announcement of what we all must face one day. Axel gets an announcement where the rest of us have to guess.

Nothing, not even this, can destroy what we have. Our truth was borne from lies and deceit. And sometimes, that’s just how it must be.

I have no regrets.

Chapter 62

Axel

He does nothing more than hold me. I never knew that just the presence of a person could have such a devastating impact on the walls that had seemed to have built themselves around me over the years.

On the outside, my body shakes with this terrible acceptance that I’m safe. Inside, my soul is calm and at peace and I feel this innermost part of me trying to reach out to my confused and still-scared nervous system. Pepper’s head perks up, but she goes back to her treat when she finds that I’m okay.

A war finally declared over. Enemies of my soul—pain, sadness, fear—retreating. And my ally next to me, an unshakeable rock. I’m free. I’m finally free to think for myself. The war is over and now it’s time to sort through the debris. To pick up the broken pieces and begin to build again. To separate the truth from the lies, the ‘me’ that I am from the ‘me’ I had to become to survive a life with Frank.

I’d fought a war I hadn’t even known I’d been in. I fought my enemy while I fed him every ounce of myself, and he ate and became so strong with my kindness, my compassion, my endless supply of second chances, he almost destroyed me with everything good about me.

But I’m still here. Almost broken, but not quite. Almost driven mad, but not quite. Almost dead, but not quite.

When I finally lift my head from Eli’s lap, the tenderness I find in his eyes becomes the first piece of my new life that I pick up. The first remnant of my war for true, authentic love. I’ll start rebuilding with this tenderness that I’d never known existed before Eli.

He bends, pressing his lips to mine. My face is wet with tears, but I feel better for them. My tears finally have a place to rest—right here between Eli’s palms. He honors them, where Frank not only caused them but shamed me for them, too.

It may seem like I’d broken my marriage vows to be with him. That I’d betrayed my husband to be with Eli. And that’s true. But it’s also true that I’d broken a dangerous cycle of abuse and this was the only way to do it.

And it’s also true that Frank had broken our vows first when he laid his hands on me. It’s also true that Frank had betrayed me first when he’d destroyed my spirit little by little every day. He may have even cheated on me during our marriage, but I’ll never know for sure, and anyway, who am I to judge?

Eli signs. “Let me take you home.”

Home? My heart thumps unexpectedly. Joy mixed with dread. Pushing through the confusing feelings and the opposing ideas inside my head of happiness and fear, I nod.

Eli wipes my tears with the pad of his thumb, and then signs, “You look very handsome today.” He trails his fingers over the material at my shoulder and then down the outside of my arm.

“It’s Ben’s prom suit,” I blurt.

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