Until the Last Breath

His hostility disappears and in an instant his eyes are filled with both agony and guilt—guilt that he shouldn’t feel.

“No.” He marches forward, standing above me. “Why would I forget about you? How can I forget about someone like you, Shannon?”

“You’ll have to one day.” I look up into his watering eyes, trying to fight the ache in my chest, but of course I feel everything. I hurt for him because I don’t like to see him upset. I don’t like to think that he’ll have to live without me. “I’m…I’m going to die, John. Don’t you see that?” My voice cracks when I speak. It’s unintentional. I don’t want to cry. Not right now, but I can’t not cry with him. He’s my husband—my everything—and the fact that this is happening to him guts me. It’s not his fault, yet he constantly blames himself.

John’s red-rimmed eyes line with tears and he tries reaching for my face, but I turn away, sinking back against the hard hospital bed.

“Shannon…” His head drops and shakes. “Babe, please don’t talk like that. Anything can happen. A miracle—a chance. You can still fight this. You’re the strongest woman I know.”

“Can you just turn the lights back off, please?” I can’t take his encouraging words right now. We both know there are no miracles coming my way.

“No. I know what you’re trying to do and I’m tired of it. You can’t hide from me. You’re still beautiful to me. You’re perfect.” He pulls my hands away before I can shield my face with my palms. Running the tips of his fingers along the soft spot behind my ear, he whispers, “You’re gorgeous, babe. My beautiful wife. Don’t ever tell me to forget you.”

My lips press thin, my eyes flashing hot. “John,” I whisper.

“Yeah, babe?”

I’m going to crush him. That hope in his eyes? That faith? It’s already crushed, and I know it. “I. Am. Going. To. Die.” I utter each word slowly. “Why haven’t you accepted that yet?”

Slowly, John’s large hands pull away from me and he stares long and hard, looking at me from the top of my head and down to my chin.

I know what you’re thinking. That was wrong of me to say. I shouldn’t have said it. I agree that I am hard on John, but only because he deserves better than this—going through the depressing life-altering experience of watching his wife wither away on a hospital bed.

He’s a popular chef in North Carolina who has received many, many rewards and helps run a top-rated restaurant in the heart of Charlotte, but he’d rather spend his precious time in the hospital with a dying woman, slowly losing his grip on reality and even his creativity.

I shouldn’t be so unfair. I mean, I am his wife and if he was the one dying, I wouldn’t dare leave the hospital for a second, no matter what kind of career I had, but I’m stubborn and I admit, I can be a bitch sometimes, especially when I’m depressed. I lash out at the people I love when I’m unhappy and that is one thing I hate about myself.

I just want a better life for him. If I’d known this was going to happen to me, I never would have agreed to marry him, and he could have invested his time elsewhere.

Though it seems unfair, it’s simply because I love him.

There’s nothing I want more than for him to get back to work, go back to what he’s so passionate about. Keep building his life. I’ve told him plenty of times that it’s okay to go to work during the day—that I’ll be fine with the nurses and doctors around.

He paid for the best, after all, but he refuses. He says that he could lose me at any given moment—which happens to be true—and if I do end up passing while he’s not around, he’ll regret it for the rest of his life.

While I’m in the midst of my thoughts, John is walking to the door.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“I need some air.”

The door flies open and is shut in an instant, the slam making the inside of my chest rattle.

I blink my tears away, watching that god-awful greyish-green curtain on the door flap before it finally settles.

What’s worse is he left the light on, leaving me to stare into the mirror across from me. I study my frizzy, dark, split-ended hair, the glazed over look in my dark-brown eyes. The way my lips pout, as if I want him to come back right away and forgive me—well, I do, but he needs space and I don’t blame him.

I lift my hand and run the tips of my fingers across the widow’s peak that meets at my forehead. It’s the best part of me in my opinion. It suits me, the way it’s directed at my features, enhancing what’s left of me.