Page 118 of My Best Years

But really, what do you say to a twenty-nine-year-old who was just diagnosed with a life-changing disease?

And I know that everything I want to say is all things that Dr. Sharpe discussed with him.

But I’m sure the doctor also told him that some patients with MS struggle more than others. Some don’t get the luxury of living a long and healthy life. Some patient’s condition progresses a lot faster than others, and that’s what fucking scary. The unknown. The thought of being out of control of your own body and its destruction.

“Callum…baby,” I stammer, trying to find the right words. “I…”

After what feels like an eternity, he picks his head up from the wheel and turns to look at me. A somber storm swirls in his blue eyes. When he blinks, a single tear escapes and rolls down his cheek. His brows pull together with worry as his bottom lip trembles.

He looks almost…childlike. Like how a kid would look to their parents when frightened.

I can’t hold back the tears brimming my own eyes. It fucking rips me apart to see him this way.

“Callum…” I lift my free hand and cup his jaw between my palms. He lets another tear fall as our eyes lock in an intimate stare.

“Come here,” he rasps, reaching below the driver's seat and sliding it back so there’s plenty of space between him and the wheel.

“Come here, Birdie,” he repeats when I hesitate. “I don’t want to talk right now. I just need you.”

His entire body trembles like he’s freezing.

“I… I need you,” he manages to say through labored breathing, like it’s taking all of his strength to speak through the panic.“Please.”

This time, I don’t hesitate. If this is what Callum needs, then he has me. I would rip my beating heart out of my chest if he asked for it.

Another streak of lightning explodes through the sky as I climb over the console and onto his lap. He wraps his arms around my waist as I straddle his hips. No one can see us through the heavy rain streaming down the windows. The dense clouds cover us in a blanket of darkness, hiding our shadows from the outside world.

It’s as if the universe created this moment for us. A blip in time where it feels like we’re the only two people on the planet.

“Birdie,” Callum’s hot breath blows against my lips. He leans forward, pressing our foreheads together before sinking his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck.

“What do you need, Cal?” I whisper. “Tell me, and it’s yours. Anything.”

“You,” he says in a pained tone. “I need you.”

“I need you, Birdie,” he croaks, lowering his hands to my waist. His fingers shake as he lifts the hem of my sundress and slides it up to my hips.

My cheeks grow wet with emotion when his Adam's apple bobs and a low sob cracks from deep in his throat. In all the years I’ve known Callum, I’ve never seen him break down like this. It’s devastating.

“I don’t know what to do,” he shakes his head. “I don’t know what to say.”

I quietly watch as Callum unbuttons his jeans and tugs the zipper down.

“I just want to be close to you right now,” he muttershoarsely before lifting his hips and sliding his jeans and boxers down his thighs.

My eyes don’t move from his face. I don’t look down to take in his body like I normally would during sex because that’s not what this is about.

Nothing about this is sexy or provocative. It’s so much deeper than that.

This is pure need. It’s urgently swimming to the surface to get a single breath of air before the waves pull you back under.

It’s clinging to your lifeline when you feel like you have nothing else.

It’s finding solace in your partner when nowhere feels like home.

It’s love in the most raw, real sense of the word.

“I fucking need you, Birdie.” Callum lets out a devastating whimper that wounds my soul.

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