Bryan s I sat on my couch and thought about my life, there was a certain
A part of me that was a little jealous. Drew and Anna were doing wonderfully. Their relationship was getting off the ground, and things were going well. Anna was working hard toward her low-cost legal service community outreach, and Drew was almost done with his tattoo parlor. Hailey’s art gallery was more successful than ever at this point, and I had simply stalled. Yes, I loved my construction business. I’d built it from the ground out. But the more I thought about Ellen’s proposal, the more I realized construction wasn’t what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life.
But unlike the people that surrounded me, I had a really hard time accepting that.
Not only that, but I still felt like Hailey was hiding something from me. Anna kept giving me these looks whenever I was around her. I couldn’t really read them, but they seemed to be a mixture of sorrow and pity. Like there was a secret she was in on that I had yet to figure out. Hailey was acting more erratic than ever, and it seemed like every time I put my hands on her body, she seemed to be a bit thinner. Not by much, but it made me wonder if she was getting into a lifestyle that was pressuring her to look a certain way. She was trying to balance the great deal of publicity that came from my brother’s art showcase, and part of me was starting to wonder if someone was pressuring her to change her appearance for some reason.
Then, I started thinking about the box in my pocket. I’d picked up the perfect engagement ring for Hailey a couple weeks ago. I’d passed by a jewelry store while thinking about how best to propose to her, and it was there, sitting in the window display with no one to claim it and no one to love it. The white gold band was littered with chocolate diamonds, and right in the center was a canary diamond surrounded by stones of onyx. It reminded me of the beautiful color scheme we’d originally picked out for her art gallery, and I went in and purchased it on the spot. Now, I just had to come up with the perfect proposal. Yes, I felt Hailey was hiding something from me, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to marry her. She was encouraging about this job with Ellen, and she’d supported me during a time in my life that I’d thought was going to swallow me whole. She held my hand through some of the roughest dinners with my parents, and she kept me going when I was done and tired with the race. If she had a secret, I had to trust she would eventually tell me. After all we’d been through, there wasn’t a damn thing in this world that woman could tell me that would make me run in the other direction. And that was why I wanted this proposal to be perfect. With everything she had given me, she deserved the best. I thought about taking her on a nature walk and proposing to her while the sun set, or even taking her on a walk on the beach this summer right where her art gallery is. I thought about proposing in the art gallery during one of her rush hours, where all her patrons and customers could witness the spectacle. I thought about cooking up a nice romantic dinner at my house for us and proposing via candlelight, and there was even a part of me that was entertaining the idea of flying her to Ireland and proposing to her on the cliffs of the Aran Islands. I knew she wouldn’t go for something like that, but it was romantic. But, before I could conjure any other perfect proposal scenarios, there was a rapid knocking at my door. I jumped off the couch and went striding for it, wondering what in the world the franticness was all about. Had something happened at work? Was something wrong with Drew’s tattoo shop? Had something happened to Hailey? I ripped the door open and saw Hailey standing there, but she wasn’t standing for long. She threw herself at me, lunging for my lips, and it stumbled me backward into the house. She kicked the door shut with her foot while her lips devoured mine. Instinctively, my arms were around her back while she peeled my clothes off. Shirts and shoes and underwear were tossed in every other direction. Her fingernails scraped across my back with a fury as we fell to my carpeted floors. I could her heat and taste the passion on her tongue. I could feel the goosebumps rising in every inch of skin I touched on her while her bare legs wrapped around my body. She was dripping wet for me, and the idea pulled a groan from my throat that she heartily swallowed with her lips. Her body was humming for me, and I wasn’t about to deny the woman I loved what she obviously wanted. I slid into her quickly, watching the pleasure roll over her face. I dove into her depths while her hips rose to meet mine, our lips tangling up in one another’s while our eyes screwed shut. She was moaning and whimpering, her hands clawing at my back. She rolled us over and sat on my hips, bouncing furiously with her hands planted on the swell of my chest. She bounced on top of me, and I watched her beautiful body swell with a wonderful, youthful glow. Her head was thrown back in ecstasy as I reached up to massage her beautiful breasts, and then, I had her on her back again. I thrust into her quickly, feeling her entire body trembling in my wake. She gripped my forearms so tightly, I knew there would be crescent-shaped bruises there in the morning. But I didn’t care.
All I cared about was her scent swirling around my head. All I cared about was her clammy skin warming against my body. All I cared about was the full-bodied blush that was creeping all along her curves. I bent down and drew one of her nipples between my lips as she whispered my name like a luscious prayer. Her hands raked through my hair, pulling growls from me that stiffened her nipples further. I gathered her up in my arms and stood, barreling us both into a wall. Islammed into her, hoisting her body up the painted wall while pictures fell to the floor, and I shook the walls with my thrusts while she cried out with pleasure. “Bryan! Yes! Just like that, please!” I bit down into her neck just as her body finally released. I thrust deep and hard, pressing my hands onto the wall as I pinned her between my chest and my home, a home I wanted to create with her and fill with our children, one I wanted her to come back to and find me with dinner already made after she’d had a long day at the gallery. I wanted to paint every surface of our home with her scent time and time again while we both grew old and gray together. She clung to me while she shook, and the force of her climax triggered mine. I slid into her one last time, burying myself as deep as I could get while I sucked at that patch of skin on her neck. She moaned and quaked, her body pulling me deeper into her while it massaged from me every ounce I had to give her. I could feel our arousal dripping down my thickness, coating my skin as I slowly peeled her back from the wall. I dropped us both to the rug in my living room, our chests panting for breath while a sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead. For a little while, I simply lay there and watched her. I watched how long it took her to recuperate from our moment of passion. I clocked how long it took her to catch her breath. I watched how quickly that beautiful, youthful glow drained from her cheeks, leaving behind an almost gray tint to her skin that made her look sickly. She opened her eyes, those eyes I’d come to know as two sparkling suns guiding me through this life. Except they weren’t sparkling. They weren’t even lit up enough to guide a rat to its food. I raised my hand and cupped her cheek, feeling the cold sink back into her skin. I smoothed my thumb over her protruding cheekbone, and all I could think about was how she was deteriorating in front of my very eyes. I was losing the one thing I wanted to keep a hold on more than life itself, and I had no idea why. It made me was to scream and cry at the same time. “What brought this wonderful surprise on?” I asked. Her eyes connected with mine before she drew in a deep breath. “I just wanted to experience life, I guess.” “Well, you can always experience it with me,” I said, grinning. “What prompted this particular desire tonight?” “I want to live a bit more before I have to face death,” she said. Face death? What in the world did that mean? I felt my brow furrowing as her fingertips moved to smooth out the lines on my forehead. Her touch was so soft, so delicate and childlike like she was exploring me for the first time. Or maybe trying to memorize me. “Hailey, what’s going on?” I asked. “Bryan, I’m so sorry,” she said, whispering. “What are you sorry for? What’s going on?” “Please, don’t be mad at me,” she said. “Mad at you for what? Hailey, you know you can talk to me. You know you can tell me anything.” I saw tears rise to her eyes before she closed them, and in that moment, I felt as if I was two seconds away from losing the one thing I wanted more than anything in this world. And when she answered me, I was right. “The reason I shaved my head wasn’t that I had an artistic whim,”
she said as she opened her eyes.
“Okay? You know I don’t care about your hair.” “You should because I shaved it to hide the fact that I’m going through chemotherapy.”