After dragging through the last three days with a splitting headache and a fever that wouldn’t surrender to medicine, Bex had admitted it was time to go in to see her doctor. Only now that she was here—sitting on the exam table in her pencil skirt with the paper sticking to the back of her legs—a knot of dread bundled in her stomach.

In theory, doctors were supposed to help you get better. And sometimes they did—for sprained ankles and runny noses. But she had too many memories of hospital rooms—first with her dad, then with Sam—to be immune to the tightening of anxiety in her chest.

The exam table paper crinkled under Bex’s thighs as she shifted, waiting for her doctor to return. When a soft knock sounded on the door, she invited her doctor in.

Doctor Yamato pulled her wheelie chair closer to the end of the table, then sat and thumbed through her notes. “Here’s what I’m going to do, Bex. The symptoms you’re experiencing—the fever, fatigue, and weight loss—could be from a host of causes. It’s likely that you’re going through an especially tough time right now and your body isn’t handling it well.”

“But everything that’s happening in my life is good,” Bex said. She’d filled her doctor in on the adoption and on her nephew entering the world, not to mention the late hours she was pulling. The matter of her distance from Gabe, though, she’d kept to herself, along with the design competition she’d finished judging yesterday. She’d handed out a handful of reluctant high scores to designs that weren’t her own, and yeah, that wasn’t the best feeling in the world. But her shredded self-esteem was a little too embarrassing to disclose. Her doctor may have known how to heal her body, but she wasn’t going to be able to help her heart.

“Sure,” Dr. Yamoto agreed. “But good things can bring stress with them too.” She consulted her notes before flicking her eyes to Bex’s face. “Other illnesses could be at play, like mono or the flu. But you’ve mentioned you’ve had these symptoms for a while now.”

Bex nodded, her throat dry. “About a week.” She’d been so busy rushing around that she’d ignored the signs, but in the cold light of the doctor’s office, she had to admit they’d been around since even before last weekend.

Doctor Yamato’s face pulled into a frown of kind concern, and her Asian features softened as she studied Bex. “Given your family history, what I’m going to do is order a blood panel to rule out any larger issues and try to narrow down what’s going on here. I’m going to send you over to the lab now, and I’ll email you the results within a day or two.”

The moment Dr. Yamato stepped out the door, Bex’s shoulders caved. She hadn’t even needed to get undressed for the exam, and she still felt naked and raw.

She slipped down the hallway and called Gabe from the waiting room of the lab.

“I can’t make it over tonight,” she told him.

“You sure, honey?” Gabe’s voice rang so deep with concern that she pressed a hand to her mouth.

“Go enjoy your brother.” She didn’t want to need anyone, and she didn’t want to need him now. This had all been a terrible idea.

“Bex, is everything okay?” Gabe’s voice almost broke her.

“Yes,” she lied. “I’ll be fine.”

The phone rang the next morning just before Bex needed to step out the door.

“Bex? It’s Dr. Yamato.”

Bex found her voice. “Hi. What did you find out?”

She was so ready to hear the doctor say it was just the flu. But her doctor’s voice was somber. “I was hoping this would be an easy diagnosis, but you’re a bit of a puzzle. The test results from yesterday were inconclusive, so we need you to come in for another blood draw.”

Bex nodded numbly and coughed out, “Sure.” Her fingers tingled as she clutched her car keys, and everything felt distant and far away.

What her doctor meant was that she was trying to rule out cancer. Because even the vague, general symptoms she had listed yesterday could point to something way more serious than the flu. Sam’s illness had started with a fever that wouldn’t go away, after all, and Gabe had even told her that deep-seated fatigue could come from a person’s thyroid.

Fear spilled down Bex’s back with a chill. Her mouth went dry, and a high whine rang in her ears. “Yes, of course,” she heard herself say.

But after the second blood draw that afternoon, she sat in her car in the parking lot, unable to move. Despite whatever tests Dr. Yamato ordered, Bex already knew what they would say.

Cancer.

That’s where this was all pointing. The big black monster that had haunted her family, that had taken her father, that threatened Sam. It was coming for her.

That was the thing about having cancer in her life—sometimes she forgot about it because it was something she lived with, and then on other days life bitch-slapped her into remembering. Today, on the edge of Sam’s son being born, on the edge of all this new life, the disease reached a wicked claw into her chest and ripped it open.

Remember me. I am here.

She noticed. Her whole world spun dark.

Bex had spent her entire life not letting anyone in because bad things happened to the people who loved her. Devastating things. And sitting in the parking lot, falling apart, she realized for the first time that she was the bad thing they never saw coming. Letting Gabe love her was going to tear him apart when she died.

This was the truth, after all—she was going to die and leave him.

What had Gabe said earlier? You’re no good to anyone if you’re sick.

And it was true. She’d watched the disease drain her dad and deplete her brother. Caring for someone so sick—loving someone so sick—was exhausting and cruel. It killed you by slow degrees, and even after the person you loved was gone, you were still a shadow of who you used to be.

She needed to let Gabe go, or she was going to pull him down with her. She loved him too much to let that happen. Gabe deserved a life full of opportunity—a chance to be young and talented and to live his dreams. He did not need to cart around a dying girlfriend. And even if he wanted to do it, she wouldn’t let him. He deserved more.

Bex called Gabe from the parking lot of the doctor’s office, sitting in her car without turning the key in the ignition. She flipped down the vanity mirror and looked into her own eyes while the phone rang, steadying herself. She needed to do this.

“Bex. Did the appointment go okay?” Gabe’s voice was a hug she wouldn’t let herself feel.

“I guess. They’re doing a blood panel.” She peeled the band-aid off the crook of her arm a touch too soon, and blood welled, bright against her pale skin. Her stomach turned over at the sight of it, and she drew a shallow breath. “But I’m not going to be able to come to your show tonight.” Because I’m going to be breaking apart.

Gabe tried to reassure her, steady and confident like he always was. “I know you’re worried, but this will take your mind off of it.”

“It’s not that.”

His voice tightened. “Then what is it?”

A helpless puff of air left her lungs. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what Bex?” His voice hardened, closer and closer to metal as he noticed the change in her tone. Closer to steel.

It wasn’t fair to him to do this now. She clamped her lips around the words and chose new ones. “Nothing. Never mind. Go enjoy your show.”

Twenty minutes later, when Bex arrived home, Gabe was waiting on her front steps. He was heartbreakingly beautiful in a suit with no tie. He had styled his hair in the way she loved, and his dark eyes followed her without hesitation as she walked from the car to her front door.

“What are you doing here?” Bex opened the door and let them both in because she wasn’t sure how to push him away outside.

“I’m checking on you.”

Her heart squeezed, and tears burned her throat. “It’s ten minutes to opening time. You need to go to your show, Gabe.”

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.” He searched her eyes, unwilling to look away. But he needed to drop this and leave.

“I’m scared about my results, okay? But I’ll be fine. I just can’t face the world right now.”

Gabe dropped his keys by the front door and started to shrug the suit jacket off his shoulders. “Then I’ll face it with you from the couch.”

What was he doing? He couldn’t. “Gabe, no. This is your moment. You are not giving up your chance to go impress everyone just because I’m sitting at the self-pity buffet right now.”

“That’s not what I’m doing. There are more nights to go to the gallery. The show’s going on for another week. But if you need me today, this is where I’m going to be.”

“Your brother is waiting for you.”

“He’ll be fine.” Gabe took another step into the room. “I’m staying here.”

She hardened her voice. “I don’t want you to.” Didn’t he see?

Gabe’s voice came out pained. “We’re partners, Bex.”

But they wouldn’t be. And it was easier this way—safer for him—to end this before he got too hurt. She was a ticking time bomb, and eventually time bombs exploded. She was not going to ruin him.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be anymore.”

She was a yielding to smaller pain now instead of to something life-shattering later. Because theirs could have been a big love if she’d let it. And big loves left the biggest wounds.

Gabe reached for her. “What are you talking about? Why did you start changing your mind?” He gasped, bare pain etched on his face as he demanded answers. “Is this because of the job I took the other night? Is it because of my past?”

“No, of course not. It’s me, Gabe. I told you I’m not wired for this. For relationships. Everyone that gets close to me gets hurt. Being apart is better.”

“Not for me. And not for you either.”

He was right; she was better with him—freer, more fun, less in her own head. He’d shown her how beautiful the world could be, and she’d started to see it that way, too. But fear was a black curtain draped over the furniture of her life. Everything changed shape in the dark. Grew fangs.

Gabe took a hesitant step forward, stopping just shy of reaching out to her. “You keep saying that pushing me away is safer for me, but I think it’s only yourself you’re protecting, Bex. I think you’re scared that if you let someone in you could get hurt.” His voice wavered. “I get that you’ve been through a lot, honey, but I’m not out to break your heart.”

Too late.

Because that’s exactly what this was—her heart shattering, crushing. A huge space in her chest imploding. She was a bomb in a glass room. She was moon dust in outer space.

“This is what we need,” she whispered. She was fractured and fragmented, and she might never be whole again, but walking away from this was still the right thing to do.

Gabe took another step. If he touched her, it was going to ruin everything. It was going to tear down all her walls. “You don’t get to do this just because you’re scared, Bex.”

Her mouth filled with tears, and her lungs deflated like an empty bag.

“If you thought we weren’t compatible or that what we have wasn’t incredible, that would be different,” Gabe said. “You need to fight for this Bex. For me.”

But she couldn’t. And she couldn’t speak, too scared to open her mouth and beg for his forgiveness. She loved him too much to let him suffer for her.

“Look at me, Bex.”

She wouldn’t meet his eye.

“I’m willing to work at this. Are you?”

She shook her head. “No.” The tiniest, biggest word. The hammer pulverizing everything to dust.

Gabe’s face blanched, and his beautiful features tightened. “Jesus Christ.” He raked his hands through his hair. “Why today, Bex?”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s too late for that.” Gabe grabbed his suit jacket and stopped at the threshold of her door. “You said everyone in your life gets hurt. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy when you’re the one who pushes them away.”