I Have Lived and I Have Loved - Willow Winters Page 0,199

about was disappointing you. I knew you needed me, but I couldn’t get to you. I was lying on that floor, refusing to fail you. So, I used every fucking scrap of strength I had and clawed my way out of there. Using only my arms, I pulled, pushed, and struggled to gain each goddamn inch. Knowing that this was going to be how it went.” She moves to my side, and I brush away her tears. I touch her blonde hair, memorizing the way it feels in my grasp. I touch her face, wishing I could go back in time. “I couldn’t get far before my arms started to ache. My hands weren’t closing like I wanted them to. I was weak, because that’s what this disease has made me.”

“You’re not weak,” her feathery voice rebuts. “All of this could’ve been avoided, Eli. Tonight could’ve been so much easier if you told me you were having symptoms instead of lying to me.”

“You only knew me as Eli Walsh, the singer, actor, and man who could give you the world. I’ve lived this scene before, Heather. I watched it with Penelope, so go ahead and make your exit so we can go back to our lives!”

“No.” The single word is steel, and it stops my pity party in its tracks. “Don’t you dare make me out to be like your ex. I’m not her. I’m not running away. I’m still sitting right here, trying to understand!”

“Why?” I yell. “Why bother?”

“Because I love you!” She’s on her feet at my side. “That’s what you do when you love someone!”

I shake my head and smother the hope that tries to claw its way through. “What if I don’t love you?”

I push the lie out of my mouth, needing her to have a seed of doubt.

Heather’s eyes narrow, and she grips my face in her hands. “Say it to me again, Ellington. Tell me you don’t love me. Look me in the eyes and tell me that.”

One tear falls from her beautiful eyes, and it kills me. No matter what happens from this moment forward, I won’t lie to her. I can’t hurt her like that, because it would be like cutting out my own heart.

“I can’t.”

Her hands move from my face to cover her own. “You can’t lie to me anymore, Eli. If we’re going to do this together, we have to be honest.”

“Do what?” I ask.

“If we’re going to fight this. I need to know what all of your disease means.”

I had so many brilliant reasons why I should keep this from her, but all of them seem ridiculous now, except this last one. The one I feared more than anything, that she’d look at me like this. Heather’s eyes are no longer filled with fear or anger, now it’s resolve. It’s the same way she looked at her sister.

I love her more than anything in this world, and I won’t be another thing she has to care for.

She’s done it her whole life, and it won’t be how we live.

“I won’t do this,” I say. “I won’t become a patient to you. I can’t.”

“What?” she gasps.

MS doesn’t have a guidebook. I don’t get to predict my outcome, and I won’t burden her. I knew the day I found out about her sister that I should’ve stopped pursuing her, but I’ve never been able to stay away. She needs to know the truth of what this means for us, but I cannot be the man she pities.

“I’m not your sister, Heather. Don’t you get it? Don’t you see that I want to be the one who takes care of you!” I yell, frustration rolling off me. Her body goes ramrod straight. I watch the anguish spread across her face, her shoulders slump, and her jaw drop. I say the dumbest thing I could. “Just leave.”

Her eyes meet mine, and then Heather does the one thing I both wanted to happen and prayed wouldn’t . . . she turns and walks out the door without a word.

I’ve just lost her.

Agony like I’ve never felt before engulfs me, and I fucking deserve every last bit of it.

Chapter 26

Heather

I lean against the wall outside his door, struggling to catch my breath. I can’t believe he said that. Of all the things that have come out of his mouth, nothing has ever hurt me like him bringing up my sister.

I’ve never looked at him like that. I loved my sister, I cared for my sister,