Sex, Not Love

“Yeah.” I locked eyes with Anna. “Have a good night.”

Chapter 36

Hunter

I couldn’t sleep.

The unsettled and jittery feeling inside my gut wouldn’t go away. In the seven years since Jayce had died, I’d never once debated my decision not to get tested. I knew what knowing, what waiting for it to happen, had done to my brother. And in case I’d softened, if I’d forgotten a single moment of the agony he’d suffered, I sat up in bed and opened my nightstand to relive every last painful reminder. Slipping the letter that was always with me from my drawer, I flipped on the bedside lamp. It was long past time for a re-read.

Hunter,

This morning it took me three tries to get cereal to my mouth. My hand shook so bad that each time it reached my lips, there was nothing left on the spoon. But on the third try, I managed to keep a little on—only to nearly choke to death because the muscles in my throat can barely manage to swallow anymore.

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

I don’t have much left other than my dignity. I need to take it with me and not leave it behind with my bed-wetting and need for spoon-feeding like an infant. This will hurt you, but I know you will also understand why I needed to do it.

My last prayer said on this Earth will be that you are spared.

In case you are not, I don’t have much advice to give, other than to tell you things I wish I could’ve changed. I wish Emily would never have known about my diagnosis. I blame myself for her miscarriage because of how upset she was for so long. Then I pushed her away by telling her I hadn’t ever really loved her. But I did. I just couldn’t put her through the years I was about to face. Sometimes when you love someone, you have to let them go for their own good.

Live life, little bro. Don’t spend it dwelling on your diagnosis like I did. Time flies whether you’re enjoying life or not. The choice is yours.

Forgive me and move on.

Love, Jayce

I read that damn note a half a dozen times. Normally when I did that, I focused on his pain—I’d needed to justify what my brother had done over and over in my mind to accept it was for the best. But this time, I was stuck reading one passage over and over.

Live life, little bro. Don’t spend it dwelling on your diagnosis like I did. Time flies whether you’re enjoying life or not. The choice is yours.

I’d always interpreted don’t dwell on your diagnosis like I did to validate my decision not to get tested. What was the point of knowing, when there would be nothing I could do to prevent the onset of the disease? Why live life waiting for a death sentence to begin, when I could move on instead?

Only…

For the first time in my life, I pondered whether I was even living. Sure, I had relationships—sexual relationships—a job I loved, and a few close friends. That had always been enough. But was I moving on and living my life or was I just existing and waiting for a fucking symptom to occur anyway? I hadn’t wanted to know so I could choose to live every day like it was my last and not have that life chosen for me. Yet if I could choose how to spend my la

st day here on Earth, I’d want to be with Natalia. So was I really accomplishing what I’d set out to do?

I reread the end of the letter again.

Live life, little bro. Don’t spend it dwelling on your diagnosis like I did. Time flies whether you’re enjoying life or not. The choice is yours.

I’d equated not dwelling on my diagnosis with not finding out. I’d thought not knowing had been what kept me from planting roots all these years. But suddenly, I realized roots had already been planted, and a strong vine had grown and wrapped around my heart. It wasn’t the uncertainty of my health that had kept me blowing in the wind, it was that I hadn’t found the one who made me want to weather a storm, allowing those roots to burrow in deeper.

Natalia was the one. I’d loved Summer. She was my first love. But she hadn’t been the one. Maybe we were too young. Maybe I’d always thought of her as my first love because deep down I’d known she wasn’t my last.

Natalia—she’s my one.

I fell in love long before I was willing to accept what it was.

What would change for me now if I took the test and found out it was positive? Would I go back to mindless fucking between two consenting adults? How is that any different than trying to move on without finding out now?

Don’t spend it dwelling on your diagnosis…

She wouldn’t even have to know I’d taken the test if it was positive.

But what if I took the test and found out it was negative?