Page 78 of Guarded Knight

Only Gabriel has seen it all.He’s seen me at my ugliest. Blotchy from coughing, clamped on to nebulizers, thinner than a broomstick with stringy hair to complete the witch look…

And he doesn’t run for the hills.

Just like I said in the bar, it’s what we should all be looking for in a person. Not someone who wants us to be perfect.

Suddenly, the backs of my eyes prickle. This is so unfair. I wish I could reach inside his chest and massage his heart the way he does my lungs and take away all his pain. Clutch my fingers around that trauma in there and tear it out, shred it until it’s gone.

But it’s still there. He’s not mine. This probably didn’t change anything, even though I want it to.

But if there’s one thing that washes the tide of disappointment and pain out, I know better than anyone from moments when my mind spirals into how unfair life can be, it’s gratitude.

“Thank you, G. That feels really good.”

“Anything for you.”

I twist my body to gaze into his eyes. “I’d do anything for you, too. You know that. Right?”

His hands stop mid-motion, like I’ve knocked the wind out of him. His eyes search mine, wide and unguarded, as if I’ve said something he doesn’t know how to hold.

“I’m okay. Really. Come lie down with me.” I pull him down on the bed beside me, and he slides his tall, strong physique along mine, and we lie in loaded silence.

I want to ask him what this all means.

What will happen tomorrow?

Can we survive just being friends after all this?

But this moment is so tender I don’t want to ruin it, so I pretend, like so many times before in this life of mine, that tomorrow will never come. That all that matters is now.

It’s all we actually ever have anyway.

His arm is draped over me, and he continues to run soothing fingertips along my back. My chest is still tighter than usual, but I don’t care. It just reminds me that I’m still living.

Which, as always, reminds me ofnotliving.

Every breath I take has always been laced with the question of how many more I’ll get. That’s the thing about cystic fibrosis, every laugh, every kiss, every good day is shadowed by the possibility it could be the last. I usually keep the sad part of my reality tucked away behind cold truth or humor, but with him here, his heartbeat under my cheek, it feels different. Like maybe I’m finally strong enough to say what I really feel about my future.

“I remember the first time I talked to someone about death.” I wrap my arm around his strong chest and enjoy the beat of his heart against my skin.

My face is buried in his shoulder. He probably doesn’t want to think about me dying right now—I don’t either—but something about being wrapped up in him makes it feel less raw. Like he’s the mirror that reflects the realest me, the me who can’t hide anymore.

“When was that?”

“I was about eleven. I was in the hospital for two weeks…”

“I remember that.”

Of course he would. He came to visit with his mom and those gorgeous cookies I love. They were the only thing that tasted good to me in all that time.

“You probably don’t remember I shared a room with another kid, funny enough, one with sickle cell anemia. And we got to talking in between her family visit and my mom going down to the cafeteria.

“I told her about cystic fibrosis and what I had. She told me about sickle cell anemia and what she was in for.” I laugh lightly. “We were two angsty cell mates. And it all felt pretty normal until she said she would probably die before she has grandchildren. It was such a grown-up thing to say, coming out of her mouth. She was probably only a year or two older than me.”

The memory hits hard and stops the world, even all these years later.

“Then she asked me if I was going to die young, too. Even though I knew it, that thirty was a number I’d had in my head since I was able to use the internet, it was the first time I said it out loud to someone. Yes. I was going to die young. Yes. I, too, would not have grandchildren. Hell, children even.”

He curls his arm tighter around me, pulling me into his chest like he wants to shield every part of me, past and present.