It’s me. It’s him. It’s us.

We’re everywhere.

Big. Small. Black and white. Captured in photographs. We’re together.

Like we always should have been.

The room is lit only by small Christmas lights. The light casts just enough light to guide the way. It’s like my hope—there’s just enough to keep me alive. But Colby is looking further ahead than I am. He’s getting me to glimpse our future beyond the tomorrow that may never come.

Colby ushers me farther into the tiny apartment I shared in college with Ali and Holly so he can close the door behind us. “Take your time looking around, princess. I’ll be right back.” Dropping a kiss on my shoulder, he leaves me to wander amidst our memories. Soon, music starts playing and the wet hits my eyes.

I’m lost in love over this man.

I stop in front of a picture of me and Colby that Holly must have taken when I was a freshman and he was a junior. If I remember correctly, a five-pound bag of flour had just exploded all over the kitchen. It had gone everywhere within a good eight-foot radius, with me being right in the middle of the blast zone. I study the picture now with a woman’s eyes. Colby’s expression as he brushes flour off my face while I’m laughing up at him causes my heart to clutch in my chest.

Ten years later.

“I think that was the first time I realized I was falling for you,” his deep voice says from behind me. A cool champagne flute slides over the base of my neck and over my tattoo. “I never forgot what it felt like at that moment to know you were everything, and the likelihood of us was next to nothing.” Handing me the flute, he assures me, “It’s nonalcoholic.”

“Part of me wishes it wasn’t,” I admit.

The side of his mouth kicks up sadly. “None of us are ready for this week, sweetheart.”

Putting the flute on the nearby window ledge, I step closer to him. “It’s not that. I was such a blind fool. I wasn’t strong enough to see, Colby. Your love has always been there. These”—I spin in a circle—“show me how much you love me. How much you’ve always loved me.”

Putting his flute next to mine, he adds, “How much I’ll always love you, Corinna.”

Suddenly frightened, I need him to understand. “Colby, if something happens…”

“Hush. Tonight’s not about that. Tonight’s just about love.” Lowering his dark head, he ferociously kisses away the idea that something could happen to me during surgery in just a few days.

His hands soothe away the hurts of the past.

His lips sip away my fear of the future.

His body becomes my safe harbor, his body my anchor.

His “I love you” as he thrusts into me my benediction, my prayer.

As we’re wrapped in each other’s arms on a ratty couch he’d had brought into my old apartment, I’m at peace.

I know he’s awake behind me. His hands can’t stop touching me, smoothing up and down my skin, snaking over my hip.

I’m still shaking between the aftershocks of our lovemaking and the emotional upheaval in my system. Knowing someone’s always loved you and seeing the evidence of it are two very different things.

Tonight, I wasn’t just given my reason to live; I was shown why I’m afraid to die.

I need him to understand.

“Colby…” I start as I turn onto my back.

“Take tonight for us, Corinna. Tomorrow’s coming soon enough for everything else.”

We’re running out of tomorrow, I want to yell. But in this sacred place, a place he built out of the love he has for me, I can’t. I just can’t.

“Okay,” I acquiesce. “Tell me what we’re going to do with all the photos,” I ask instead.

“I thought we could hang them up during your recovery. We’ll find frames for them and put them around the house,” he says easily, but his eyes are studying me waiting to see my response.

To make sure I know he’s not giving up. And he’s not going to let me either.

I gulp in air so I don’t burst into tears. “Okay.” I have no control over anything else that’s about to happen, but I can promise I’ll fight.

I don’t think I understood how tight his body was until it relaxes against mine. Pulling the blanket over us both, he whispers, “Get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.”

That’s an understatement.

I have to report to the hospital tomorrow morning.