Blake has slept in my bed…our bed…for the past week, and every night feels better than the last. The way he’s held me, made love to me, and whispered how much he loves me when he thinks I’m already asleep has broken down the walls I’ve tried to keep intact. I can’t even lie to myself anymore and say I don’t love him. Because I do. So much.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

But I can’t tell him yet. My heart and mind are still healing—and reeling—from my entire world being turned upside down. I’d already decided to make myself live with him until Kyle was settled into his new routine, but nothing more than that. I’d resigned myself to living in a loveless marriage for the sake of my child. When Kyle left home, it would all be over.

But then the Blake I fell in love with all those years ago had to make a reappearance. In the years we’d grown apart, I’d lost sight of who he really was and what he’d originally wanted out of life. For so long, I didn’t realize…I didn’t pay attention…to what not achieving his dreams did to his self-esteem. The man who tends to my every need, thoroughly satiates my body, and goes out of his way to earn his way back into my heart has accomplished his goal.

But is it too late for me say I love him? Have we missed our chance to be a happy couple? We married young, had Kyle young, and we had looked forward to still being young as empty-nesters. But so much has changed since the dreams of that young couple. So much that can’t be changed, regardless of how much we want to do just that.

All these thoughts swirl through my mind when Leigh walks into the room and sits down in front of me with her disapproving look firmly in place. “I bet Blake thinks you’re at work today, doesn’t he?”

“I am at work today,” I reply with a smirk.

“You know what I mean. Don’t be a smartass. Grace. Tell. Him. Then deal with this like adults. You can’t draw this out any longer.”

Unfortunately, she’s exactly right. That is what has kept me up most nights when he thought I was sound asleep. I don’t want to tell him, but I’m out of time to keep it from him any longer.

“He’s out of town at a conference until late tonight. He wouldn’t even spend one night away from me. He said he’s driving home as soon as the meeting is over. I’ll tell him tomorrow morning. Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a scout, so I don’t believe that.”

“Nurse’s honor, then.”

“You love him, don’t you?” She stares at me incredulously, daring me to even attempt to lie to her.

“I do love him, Leigh. And that makes it even harder to come clean.”

“Grace, like it or not, you owe it to him to be honest. Besides that, I’ll kick your ass if you don’t tell him.” She leaves me with her threat, even though we both know she’d be the first person to have my back.

Brent Evers, our hospital’s most handsome doctor, takes her seat a few minutes later. He covers my hand with his. “Come by and see me tomorrow when you get a break.”

I nod. “Until tomorrow, then.”

---

Leigh gives me the death glare when I step into the unit, but I ignore her and get back to work. By the time our shift is over, I’m so tired I can barely stand up straight. Kyle sent me a text to let me know he and Tracy had a double date with Wes and his girlfriend, so he wouldn’t be home until very late. As much as I love my son and love spending time with him, I’m inwardly thankful I’ll be home alone for several hours tonight.

I barely remember driving home, but somehow, I make it alive, and I’m now stepping into a hot shower. When I climb into bed, I’m asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow. I’m surprised I even feel Blake sliding into bed beside me, but his warmth feels so good against my skin he’s impossible to miss.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispers. “I’m home, babe.”

Before the darkness overtakes me, I hear him whisper into my hair. “I love you, Grace…until the end of time.”

The annoyingly loud blaring of the alarm pulls me out my deep sleep. I raise my arm, barely having control over it in my sleep-induced stupor, and slap at the offensive clock. I need the time my snooze button offers this morning. But the ear-piercing blare doesn’t stop. Fumbling in the dark, I try pushing different buttons, but nothing works to stop the noise.

Prying my eyelids apart results in something like needles pricking my eyes. I try to blink away the pain and focus on the clock. When I finally wake enough to make out the time on the display, I realize the sound isn’t coming from my alarm.

That’s the fire alarm.

When I reach over to wake Blake, I realize he’s not in the bed with me. What the hell is going on? I throw the covers back and fly out of the bedroom and down the stairs. When I turn the corner to rush into the kitchen, I find Blake at the kitchen table, ignoring the shrieking alarm and choking smoke. The empty griddle is on the stove, the burners are hot, and the cooking oil he used to coat the skillet is smoking, almost at the flash point of a full-fledged fire.

“Blake, what are you doing?” I shriek and run to the stove, grabbing the griddle before the hot oil burns the house down. After I turn the stove off and open the back door to air out the kitchen, I turn back to him. “Blake, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”

That’s when I realize what he’s holding in his hands.

The letter I hid under the flour.

Oh. My. God.

Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. I’m not ready to do this. Not now.

His hands shake, and when he looks up at me, I realize he’s shaking with rage. His eyes are narrowed into barely there slits. His handsome face is contorted in anger. But I know the calm timbre of his voice is a façade, shrouding the volcano simmering just beneath the surface.

“It was really late when I got home last night. I drove for hours to get back home to you, to hold you for as long as I could. You were knocked out when I got here, so I tried not to wake you when I slid into the bed with you. How stupid am I, Grace? The last week I’ve spent back in our bed after nearly a year of being out of it gave me a kind of hope I haven’t had in years. Hope that, finally, we would be a real couple—sharing everything, growing closer, getting better with age. I lay awake for hours after I got home, thinking about how much I love you. How much my heart has swelled with love for you over the past several weeks. How we seemed to have found our stride and, Grace, I’ve been ready to hit the ground running with that.

“So, I got up before your alarm went off to make you pancakes for breakfast. I wanted to do something nice for you before you leave for work today. I wanted to surprise you.”

He stands, the letter still gripped in his fist, and the volcano erupts. The calm veneer cracks, and he begins to shout. “But I’m the one who was in for the surprise, wasn’t I? All this time, I’ve done everything in my power to win back your love. I’ve played the whipped dog. I’ve been the loving husband. I’ve been the dominant lover. I’ve tried to satisfy you in every way I know possible. But this whole time, you’ve been keeping this in your back pocket, haven’t you?

“Let me guess, Grace. Your plan was to make me fall in love with you again. Completely and totally head over heels in fucking love with you, to the point I can’t fucking breathe without you. Then you use this as your ultimate ‘Fuck you, Blake.’ Is this your way to pay me back for Tammy? Because this is really fucking cruel, Grace. Here I thought you were beginning to love me again. I never imagined you were capable of going to such lengths to destroy me.”

He turns his back to me, but I can still tell he’s raking his hand across his face. His hand stops, covering his mouth. He leans against the back doorframe, staring outside into the darkness of the way too early morning. Silent. Hurt.

But he’s as far off the mark as east is from west when it comes to judging my intentions. He’s not thinking rationally—he’s reacting out of pain and fear, much the same way I reacted when I first found out about him and Tammy. Now that I’ve waited and he found out this way instead of from me directly, I’ll have a harder time convincing him otherwise.

But I have to try.

“Blake,” I say calmly. Yelling back at him right now will only escalate this further into a huge fight that I don’t have the energy for this morning. “Listen to me, and listen closely. You’re wrong about everything—about me, about why I haven’t told you about this, about me using it to hurt you. If you’ll just think about what I’ve done so far, you’ll understand.”

He turns and fixes me with a cold, expressionless stare. The warmth and love he gave me just yesterday are nowhere to be found now. Painful jabs stab my heart, and tears sting my eyes. “By all means, do explain. I’m all ears.”

“When I first confirmed you were cheating on me with Tammy, I went to the doctor. Even though you hadn’t touched me in months, I insisted he test me for STDs because I wasn’t one hundred percent sure how long you’d been seeing her. While I was there, I had my full yearly checkup to get it out of the way.

“He felt a lump in my breast during my examination.”

Blake’s face softens a little, barely enough for anyone else to see, but I do.

“Of course, he told me not to worry, a lot of medical processes can cause lumps. Still, he didn’t want to wait to check it out. So I had a mammogram. Then an ultrasound. Then a biopsy. With each test, I knew what the diagnosis would be before the results were ever given to me. What I didn’t know, and couldn’t have guessed, was that the pathology report would say it’s triple-negative breast cancer, though.

“Because it’s an aggressive form of breast cancer, and the treatment is also aggressive, I had to reprioritize everything in my life. I took a long, hard look in the mirror and realized there were things I had to change. The main thing was your relationship with Kyle.”

“I don’t understand.” Anger is now replaced by confusion. And a hint of fear.

“The day that letter arrived, confirming the type of cancer beyond a shadow of a doubt, was the day you were going to ask me for a divorce. My private investigator had already overheard your conversations with Tammy about it. If I had agreed to the divorce and just let you go, Kyle never would’ve forgiven you, Blake. When I’m gone, you’ll be all he has, and he’ll need you to be there for him.

“The only way I could convince you to stay at that point was for Kyle, because I knew you still loved him no matter what had happened between us. I knew you’d want what’s best for him. The nine months was for you and Kyle to reconnect not only as father and son, but as friends. I did that so he wouldn’t hate you for leaving me when I was dying of cancer, Blake. None of this was to hurt you—I’ve been trying to help you.”

“Nine months? Is that your prognosis? Is that all the time we have left with you?” The pain in his eyes is killing me inside. I wish I could take it away. I wish I could tell him I have years and years left to live. But the truth is…

“I don’t know how much time I have left, Blake. I’ve been seeing an oncologist. We’re trying to shrink the tumor enough to remove it surgically without removing my entire breast. We may not be successful with that, though, but I’ve had two chemotherapy treatments so far. My first one was when you came home from the snowboarding trip early. The medications knocked me on my ass—I had zero energy left to do anything. The second round was just yesterday.”

Blake sits down at the table. His gaze never leaves mine, but I can tell he’s having a hard time processing all the information I’m throwing at him. I’ve lived it for the past three or four months, and it’s still hard for me to process.

“Why were you so tired and losing weight before your first treatment?”

“Mainly stress. Waiting for the results of the tests and the biopsy had me on pins and needles. Worrying about the future and how I was going to handle everything really took a toll on me.”

“But I knew nothing about any of it.” His tone is rueful as he rakes his hands over his face.

“I swear, I was going to tell you everything today, Blake. When I first asked for the time and the promises, I had no idea our relationship would take such a turn. My only thought was of you and Kyle. That was also why I agreed to have Christmas with my parents—to put our disagreements behind us and make sure you and Kyle are set for the future.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The three envelopes I brought home Christmas night? They’re the legal documents for trust funds they set up for you, Kyle, and me. I took them to a financial advisor and invested the money so you two won’t ever have to worry about making ends meet again. Everything is taken care of, Blake. I don’t know why you’d think I’d use this to hurt you. I’m trying to help you by thinking of your future.”

His eyes drop to the letter he still holds in his hand. The letter confirming my biopsy results. The letter that effectively sealed our fate when the pathologist sealed the envelope with the findings inside.

“You’re thinking of and planning for my future,” he says quietly, “when you don’t even know if you’ll be in it.”

He folds his arms on the table in front of him then leans over, burying his face in the bend of his elbow. When his shoulders begin to shake, my heart shatters inside my chest like fine crystal dropped on a marble countertop. I rush to his side and wrap my arms around him. I know the hopelessness and helplessness he feels right now all too well. Time can’t help us to accept it either. Time is a luxury we may not have much of at this stage of the game.

But I give him several minutes to absorb what I’ve shared, what he’s read, and what it all means to our little family. For this small amount of time, I just hold him close to me and let him feel my touch. Rubbing my hand across his back. Running my fingers through his hair. Placing kisses on the side of his head. Letting him feel my love while he comes to terms with his grief.

Then he quickly turns, wraps his arms around my waist and squeezes me. He drops to his knees on the floor, still holding on to me. When he looks up at me, his eyes are bloodshot from his tears, but his love for me shines brightly again. “I should’ve been there when you had the first inkling something was wrong. I should’ve been with you through every test and procedure. You never should’ve had to go through this alone. I’m so sorry, Grace. Please forgive me. Swear to me you’re doing everything you can to fight this. Promise me you’ll never give up fighting to beat it, Grace. I can’t face the future without you. I don’t even want to try.”

“I’ve already forgiven you, Blake. I wouldn’t be sleeping with you every night if I hadn’t. I promise you, I’ll never stop trying or give up fighting this. But you have to accept there’s a possibility you will have to go on without me. You’ll have to be strong for Kyle. We’ll tell him together—and soon. The chemotherapy cocktail I’m on has basically a one hundred percent guarantee I’ll lose all my hair in the next couple of days since I just finished my second treatment. It’s not like I’ll be able to hide the side effects of the treatments any longer. I’d rather you both be prepared for the worst and hope for the best, and act normal until we know something for sure…one way or another.”

He nods solemnly. “I’ll be here for you every step of the way. There’s nothing I won’t do for you, babe. You’ll never have to endure a moment of this journey alone again.”