I read and re-read what I’d written before continuing.
When Neil and I started dating, I had no idea he was sick. It’s not the type of thing you tell someone on a first date. His cancer - chronic myelogenous leukemia - can be managed for years without chemotherapy. It just happened to pick two months into our relationship to demand more attention.
My boyfriend has spent more time in a relationship with cancer than he has with me.
I stopped. I almost closed my laptop. This was far more personal than I had planned on getting. And it was painful. I didn’t want to think about this stuff, when I had to deal with the reality of it.
Shut it down, Scaife, I told myself. I was either going to end up crying or binge eating by the time I was done. Would whatever I wrote be worth putting myself through the emotional pain?
I hadn’t been so great at avoiding emotional pain so far, I reasoned. And it wasn’t like emotional pain was necessarily a bad thing. Maybe I’d been trying too hard to take everything in stride, when I really needed more cathartic meltdowns.
Cathartic meltdowns that Neil does not see, I warned myself. I hadn’t wanted to argue with him tonight, but it hadn’t seemed like something I could have put off. And now that I knew how difficult it was for him to think of me mourning him, I couldn’t burden him. When he was better— since I was in the rare frame of mind where I actually believed he could get better— then I would tell him how scared I had been, how the thought of losing him kept me up all night and made my guts all twisty.
Okay, maybe some of that was my nocturnal coffee consumption.
I was still hard at work when the clock on the mantel startled me with three loud tolls. I was more surprised when Neil came in just a few minutes later.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said wearily. When he sat on the sofa, the corners of his eyes pinched. His muscles were always achy at the beginning of week three, or so said the notes I had made about him.
Another note I’d made was “exhausted, can’t sleep.” I’d stayed up with him through a few nights like this already.
“What are you working on?”
“Um.” I squinted at my screen. I’m working out my issues over your potentially fatal disease. “An article about... living with someone who has cancer. But I want to finish it first and see what you thought about it. I don’t want to over-share personal stuff.”
“All right. I’m listening.” He lay back on the couch. He’d come downstairs wearing just his pajama bottoms. Chemo bloat had given him a little pot belly, and though no power on earth would move me to point it out to him, I secretly found it adorable.
“You’re half undressed. Are you coming down from a fever?” I stood and went to his side, despite his annoyed muttering.
“No, I just got warm. You’re changing the subject on purpose.”
“Oh, I was not.” I rolled my eyes. “Look, it’s not finished yet. I promise, I’ll show it to you when it is. But I don’t even know what I’m going to do with it.”
“I’m sure you’ll find somewhere to sell it. You’re a very good writer, Sophie.”
I looked up. “When have you read anything I’ve written? I never wrote a full-length piece in Porteras.”
“Oh, um… Can I say, for this one very small, but very embarrassing infraction, that I would like to forget I mentioned anything? Just this once? I will never ask for this favor again.”
Whatever it was Neil was ashamed to admit to me, it had to be good. This was the man who’d fucked me like a beast and made me ride home with no panties on our first date. What could he possibly be embarrassed about?
He was so going to tell me.
I didn’t have to ask. I just folded my arms across my chest and pursed my lips, and he said, with a heavy sigh, “All right. I googled you and found some articles you’d written for your college newspaper. I realize that this technically qualifies as stalking you. But my motives were pure.”
“And those were?” I shifted, tightening my arms a little, pushing my boobs up slightly.
He laughed, clearly relieved at my silliness. “Curiosity. Burning curiosity, probably born from my need for total control.”
“You’re making my job so easy on this end.” I couldn’t pretend that I’d thought what he’d done was all that bad. “Everyone Googles the person they’re fucking. It’s why you get their names.”
“Did you Google me?”
“I did. And you’re a knight?” Finally, an opening to ask about that! “It’s kind of intimidating to find out your boyfriend is a knight from Wikipedia.”