The Plight Before Christmas(102)

In between anger and tempted to fling myself at him, I shake my head. If I thought our breakup hurt, it was nothing compared to the knife’s edge of the words pouring out of his mouth. Empathy and ache fill the entirety of my body as he looks through me, his face solemn as if he’s trapped in that time while telling it.

“I was finally getting strong enough to start thriving, a word so foreign to me I had no idea what it could feel like. My health had greatly improved by senior year, but that was short-lived because my mental health was deteriorating. I’d spent two years outrunning what happened, avoiding it, my anxiety ramping up because I wasn’t numbing so much. I’d found a pathetic sort of stride and convinced myself that my routine was close to living.” He looks over to me. “And then you crash-landed into my life.”

His lips lift in a faint smile. “I knew, the minute, hell, the second that I saw you, something good had finally happened to me.”

I cover my mouth, doing my best not to ugly cry and falter.

“Bee, please don’t. Please don’t.”

“I’m not,” I say furiously wiping my eyes. “N-n-no fuck that, it’s impossible, sorry. You can’t come at me with this and expect me to be okay. I. Am. Not. Okay. P-please don’t stop.”

“Okay…,” he clears his throat. “With you, I sort of played into the Casanova thing because I couldn’t deal with what happened. It was like coming out of a horrific murky war into a clear day. It’s impossible to explain the mind space I was in. But I didn’t tell a soul. Not a soul. I didn’t want that life to be the one I had—and outside of being sick—I had no idea who I was.”

“So much makes sense now. Jesus, Eli, this is why you got irrationally angry when you got sick and refused to let me take care of you?”

He nods. “I was pissed at my body, that my parents’ death seemed cruel and senseless, at everything—and at times, I took it out on you. It wasn’t fair, so when I felt that way, I retreated. Fuck, I hate this…”

“You can tell me.”

“I know,” he swallows, “still isn’t easy. It took a hundred hours of therapy to get here. But you…you,” he shakes his head. “You gave me a reason to smile again without forcing it. School, running, and my routine were all background noise, something I did to get by until the next scan. My eyes were always on the clock. I felt sentenced—like I was just waiting. But you…” he smiles again, and my chest constricts. “You gave me something to look forward to. But I was still battling it. I was still so far in my head. Not only that…it was hard for me to give you what you needed emotionally…and at times, it was hard physically.”

He scoffs bitterly. “Along with the other fun side effects of recovering from rounds of chemo, I was blessed with occasional ED. My junk wouldn’t function properly for years, fucking years after my last round of treatment. There I was, supposed to be at my sexual peak, and I couldn’t get it up at times for my drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend.”

I gawk at him as the pieces begin to click.

“I know what you might’ve thought, but you were so fucking wrong, and I didn’t correct you. The truth is, I wanted you twenty-four seven. Every minute of every day, but my body refused to grant me the privilege of acting on it—even after all the misery it had already put me through. Even with that curveball from hell, I was feeling better physically, but I just couldn’t get there mentally. It was always coming back. My time was running out.” He blows out a breath. “And while I loved your demanding nature, you had expectations. So many expectations. It was written in your DNA. The cruel part was—in my mind—I wasn’t going to live long enough to try. Even years into remission, I fully believed it was coming back. That combined with the fact that I was sterile by age twelve, I couldn’t stop robbing you of the dreams I saw in your eyes.”

“Eli—” I choke.

“Whitney, you were ready, so ready to start your life, and I was still just surviving.” He exhales again, running a hand through his hair. “You and I weren’t anywhere near the same place. So, when you took that pregnancy test…I made the decision to end it then and did it in a cruel way to deserve your anger. I thought it would be easier for you.”

Anger and understanding war in my chest as I think of all the times he let me feel rejected. He reads it easily.

“I couldn’t tell you. You wouldn’t have left me, and I needed you to because you were the only thing that kept me from bottoming out. I had to bottom out Whitney. I had to bottom out to decide to live and get the help I needed. For me, not for anyone else, for me.” His stare bores into me. “I didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t have left me, Whitney.”

I grapple with his reasoning, knowing it’s the truth.

“I know how selfish that is. The way you looked at me, fuck…it made me feel like I was superhuman, and after being sick half my life, that look meant everything to me. I lived for it. I clung to it like a lifeline.” He pauses, his voice filled with the emotion shining in his eyes. “I wanted to be the man you saw. I would’ve given anything to be him for you.”

Concern mars his beautiful face as I slip into a shuddering puddle of tears. His voice is filled with gravel when he speaks.

“Burying my parents was hard but pushing you away and watching you leave was just as painful. As much as I missed you, to me, we couldn’t have a future because I didn’t have one. I considered you my first love and tried to keep it in that respective drawer. Until one day, I decided to live. As the days and months passed, then months became a year, and then two, and the scans kept coming back clear, reaching out became a foolish notion. Like…how could you possibly think of me that way after so much time apart? But it didn’t matter because I carried you with me anyway, and every single year on my birthday,” he nods toward the book in my hand, “open it.”