Page 132 of Remember Us This Way

“It means . . .” I start, my bottom lip trembling. “They’ll make me comfortable—”

“Don’t fucking say that,” he demands, lifting his head and looking straight into my tear-filled eyes. “There has to be another option, something else we can do. I’m not ready to lose you, Zo. You’re my whole fucking world. You promised you wouldn’t leave. I can’t lose you.”

“Noah—”

“Please,” he begs, gripping my waist so tight that his fingers dig into my fragile skin. “Please, Zoey. For me. Fuck. Don’t give up on me like this. I need you to keep fighting.”

I crush myself back into him, my arms pulling him in even tighter as I curl my face into the curve of his neck, breathing him in. “I’m not giving up,” I promise him. “I want to have another fifty years with you. I want to take your last name and build a life with you. I want it more than you’ll ever know, and it’s that vision that’s allowed me to get this far, but every day, this disease kills me just a little bit more. I don’t have what it takes to survive more treatments. I’m not strong enough, not anymore. Believe me, if I had what it took to push through and fight this, I would do it without question because I’m terrified of having to leave you, but I’m out of time. I’m going to die, whether we’re ready for it or not, and when that happens, I want to do it right here in your arms, not in some hospital, filled with drugs that are only making me feel worse. I want to live what little time I have left, and I want to do it right by your side.”

He shakes his head, taking my face and lifting it from his shoulder, his dark eyes lingering on mine. “This can’t be the end, Zo,” he murmurs, leaning in until I feel his lips brushing over mine. “I can’t lose you.”

“I’m sorry,” I cry, tasting his tears on my lips. “I’m so sorry.”

“What am I supposed to do without you?”

Not knowing what to say, I don’t respond. Instead, I crush my lips against his and kiss him deeply, letting my emotions pour out of me. Letting him feel how deep my love runs for him. How terrified I am. How crippled I am by the fear of having to leave this world and leave him behind. How I’m grieving for the life we won’t get the chance to live together, the children we’ll never have, the marriage we’ll never get a chance to screw up.

Noah kisses me right back, and I feel his overwhelming despair and agony with every swipe of his tongue over mine. When I finally pull back, we’re both panting, and I tilt my forehead against his, content to just sit here with him until the end of time.

“How much . . .” he starts before pausing and clenching his jaw, needing a second to get the question out. “How much time do we have?”

I shake my head, and he reaches up to wipe the tears off my cheeks. “I don’t know,” I tell him. “We’re going to see Dr. Sanchez tomorrow and see what she has to say, but I . . . I can’t see this going on any further than a few months. Two, maybe three if we’re lucky.”

Noah closes his eyes again, and I can almost hear the rapid beat of his heart right through his chest. “Are you going to be in pain?”

I shake my head again. “No, I’ll be okay . . . I think,” I murmur, my fingers pushing up through his hair, almost as long as it was before he shaved it for me. “They’ll make me comfortable, but it won’t be long until my organs start shutting down, and when that happens, we’ll be on the home stretch.”

“Fuck, Zo,” he breaks. “This isn’t how this was supposed to go. We were supposed to have it all.”

“I know,” I murmur, trying to soothe him the same way Mom had done for me downstairs. “But it’s okay. Fate has other plans for me, and when the time comes, I’ll be going home to Linc. I’m not going to be alone, and I won’t be sick anymore, and even though I won’t get to be in the warmth of your arms, you know I’m always going to be with you. No matter what, wherever you go, I’ll always be right here, watching over you.”

Noah holds me tighter, and as his world burns to ashes around us, he lifts us off the edge of the bed before laying me down on my pillow and following me right in, not letting me go for even a second. He curls me right into his chest and pulls the blankets up, making sure I’m always warm and have everything I could possibly need. “I love you more than life, Zoey,” he tells me. “I’m going to be right here, right ’til the end, and I swear, I’ll never let you go.”

54

Noah

Over the past three weeks, I’ve watched her deteriorate, watched as she slowly began to slip away. It’s the most excruciating thing I’ve ever had to suffer through, but I’ve held myself together, knowing just how much she needs me. I won’t allow her to fall, even if it means giving up everything I am in order to protect her.

Zoey James is my whole world. I breathe for her, and when she’s gone . . . I don’t know if I’ll even be able to breathe at all.

Most of the time, she can barely get out of bed or stay awake long enough to listen to Hazel’s stories, but she pushes through it, wanting to soak up every last second of the time she has left, and that includes senior prom. I really don’t know how this is going to go, but when she stood before me, clutching my hands, and asked if I’d be her date to prom, how could I possibly resist the chance to make her smile?

She’s been so excited about this, searching for the perfect dress and forcing her mom to video chat her through a million different stores to pick it out. It’s kept her busy and happy, but I worry about the crash on the other side. It’s as though getting to prom was a milestone for her, but what happens after that milestone has been met? What keeps her motivated to hold on then?

Dread fills my veins, but I push it aside. My only goal is to see her smile as much as possible before the inevitable end.

I stand outside her house in a black suit with my jacket open and the top few buttons of my shirt left undone. I know how she gets a kick out of seeing me all dressed up like this, and because it’s her prom—maybe the only chance she has left to do something like this—I went all out. I’m even going to knock on the door and wait for her father to help her down the stairs before putting her corsage on.

If we’re doing this, then we’re doing it right, and I’m going to show her the best night of her life.

Glancing down, I make sure I have everything, not wanting to be that dick who accidentally leaves the corsage in the back of the car and then has to make an ass of himself by running out to grab it. I pat down my pockets. Phone, keys, and wallet are all there, but what does it matter? The only thing I truly need is Zoey.

Then raising my fist, I knock on the door and hear my mother’s familiar tone coming from within the house. “Awwwwwwww, what a big cutie. He actually knocked on the door for a change.”

Great. I was expecting a lot of things tonight, but for some reason, I hadn’t prepared for my overbearing mother. She’s about to make the next hour of our lives a living hell with all the photos and gushing. Though, maybe one day soon I might want all of these photos and be desperate to lay my eyes on Zoey’s beautiful face, even if it’s only through the screen of my mother’s phone.

The door opens a moment later, and I glance down to find Hazel with her father quickly creeping in behind her. “Ewwww,” Hazel says, a smirk pulling at her lips. “You look like one of those try-hard dudes out of a bad mafia movie.”

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