knees.
I startle and freeze, before my body jumps into reaction mode. I throw back the blanket and rush to his side, dropping down next to him. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?”
I try to get a look at his hand but he pulls it back, his gaze fixated downward.
“I’m fine.”
I press my lips together and sit down with my legs crossed. And then I wait.
He wasn’t supposed to find out today, and definitely not this way. The least I can do is follow his lead. He deserves that.
When his head slowly lifts after a few minutes, his eyes are glassy, making my own water in response. He wordlessly shakes his head like he’s still in denial. Then he pulls me onto his lap and holds me close. As close as anyone has ever held me in their life. Like his life depends on it.
I’m positive this must hurt his hand, but he doesn’t complain.
I lace my hands around his neck and he slouches forward, adding his weight to mine.
My whole world slows down when he places his head on my chest. He doesn’t move or say anything, but my heart stutters.
This man.
This moment. This gesture.
After a long time of utter stillness, he touches my hips and beckons me to stand up.
Once he stands in front of me, he takes my hand and leads me to the bed.
His hands go to my waist and he lifts me onto the mattress before grabbing the hem of my shirt. He lifts it only a couple inches before he stops, looking at me. Waiting.
We didn’t get to the part where I was completely naked as we devoured each other. And I’d felt so . . . complete. But now . . .
“I need to . . . can I?” His eyebrows draw together in an anguished expression.
Since there’s no way I can push even a single letter past the knot in my throat, I nod and lift my arms above my head.
Inch by inch Noah uncovers my skin alongside my weaknesses. But if there’s one person in this world I want to see me completely the way I am, with all of my defects and imperfections, it’s this man.
There’s not an ounce of fear in my body over what he’ll think of my scars. One of the things I’ve learned is that no matter how perfect or imperfect your body is from the outside, if the inside doesn’t work, no amount of outer perfection will help, especially when it was all an illusion to begin with.
But I’ve also learned that my diagnosis has a severe impact not only on my present but also on my future. And that’s what scares me the most. That’s what stirs my decisions and what dictates how I live my life.
Having ripped away a life that I was once so sure of. What I once thought was an absolute, a sure thing, incapable of imagining a different scenario like the one I’m living now.
Noah tosses the shirt aside, and his hands settle on my bare thighs as he stares at my naked chest.
I straighten my spine and give him this moment. He deserves it. Heck, maybe we both deserve it.
I stay strong and upright even as I watch Noah’s face fall, as the worry lines on his forehead deepen, and his breathing speeds up.
He blinks a few times before averting his gaze to the floor. But not before I see the pain in his eyes, the pure devastation before his lips press together and he covers his mouth with his trembling hand.
Then he climbs on the bed beside me, still avoiding my gaze. “Can we lie down for a bit?”
His voice cracks at the end, which unravels something inside my chest.
His emotions mix with my own, my memory of when I first found out and how I reacted, how my parents reacted. It was so similar, the shock on all of our faces. The paralyzing panic and inability to process the info properly, the unwillingness to accept any of it.
“Of course.” I climb toward the top of the bed and lie down on my back, holding my arms open toward him. “Come here.”
And he does.
He lies down beside me and places his head right on the long scar on my chest that starts under my neck and goes all the way down to just past the end of the sternal bone under my breasts.
Right on the heart that beats for him like it knew him all along, like it