I knew we could never really be the way we had been. He was right, this had changed us. I knew him better than I had ever known a lover. I loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone. And in five months, he had become such a huge part of my life, I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.
“I’m so sorry. I had intended that to last much longer.” He fell heavily on me, the sticky latex condom on his flagging erection pressed against my thigh when he withdrew.
I kissed his cheek and laughed, breathless. I reached up in the darkness to run my fingers through his hair, forgetting for a moment that it was gone. I dropped my hand to his back, as if I’d intended to do that all along.
As much as I would have liked to drift off to blissful sleep in his arms, I’d jacked up my sleep schedule enough that it wasn’t possible. So, I let him doze and disentangled myself when I felt too sweaty and warm.
Being on the other side of the induction chemotherapy was exhilarating. It meant we were almost done— or at least, that’s what I let myself believe. I knew that after the transplant, we had up to a year of recovery. But right now, it felt like Neil had reached the crest of a particularly bad hill, and even if it weren’t all downhill from here, at least it plateaued for a moment.
I settled down at my computer in the library. My piece about Neil’s cancer was still open in the word processor, as it had been for days now. Somehow, news of his remission pulled some kind of plug in me, letting words pour out onto the page. I’d intended to write a brief personal essay on the subject, but soon it had sprawled out to five-thousand words, then six, and no signs of stopping.
There was too much I wanted to include. I went to Neil’s office. I’d spent a little time trying to contain some of the horrific clutter, but I’d barely made a dent. Still, I knew where I’d put legal pads and pens, and I grabbed one of the former and handful of the latter before racing back to the library.
By the time the sun came up, I had outlined a book. A memoir about the past five months of our relationship, with room to add more after the stem cell transplant.
I blinked in time with the cursor on the screen. Could I do this? Could I write a book about how my life had changed since I’d gotten together with Neil?
Who the hell would want to read that? I scolded myself. Look at me, I have a rich boyfriend and I lost my job in the stupidest way possible, and now all I do is sit around his house in my pajamas most days.
But I wasn’t going to write it for anyone else. I would write it for me, because I needed to. If anyone else wanted to read it— or pay me for it— that would be an added bonus.
Neil had told me that the details of his life that had gotten mixed in with mine were fair game. So I decided not to tell him about the book. I could see so many ways that my motives could be misconstrued, if he mentioned it to anyone. I didn’t need Valerie or Emma thinking I’d stuck it out with Neil just for an opportunity to flex my journalist muscles and reap a big payday.
Bleary-eyed and in sore need of coffee, I promised myself I would do just one last thing and then go straight to bed.
I opened up my email and typed out a message to India Vaughn.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The stem cell collection process was a walk in the park compared to the chemotherapy Neil had just gone through. After his initial two weeks off from pretty much anything medical, he started on a ten day regimen of injections that boosted stem cell growth. Neil had learned to give himself the shots at home, and aside from the occasional stabbing femur pain, they didn’t seem to bother him.
During that ten-day course, he went into the hospital for another minor outpatient procedure to install an apheresis catheter. The port he’d had for chemo had been convenient, but it wouldn’t work for the transplant.
After he’d taken all the cell-growth serum and his catheter incision site was healing properly, they started sucking out his cells. He went into the hospital every morning for four days and napped while they pumped his blood into a machine that separated his stem cells and returned the rest. Then we’d come home, rest, and spend the evening together. It was nice. It felt normal. At least, more normal than we’d been in a long time, and about as normal as visiting a hospital every day can feel.