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I pull my shirt over my head, shucking my jeans before I plant a knee into the mattress. Gold catches my eye as I snag her ankle, lifting it.

She's worn this anklet for over a decade now. It hasn't tarnished. It hasn't broken. It's clung to her, this promise between us—the promise of him. His love—of my acceptance of it.

I slide my thumb over the engraved words. He loves you. They're my words. It's my promise. My acknowledgment of all that they were. Of all that I claimed.

It's my promise to him, in a way. To do right by all that he loved, by all that he created.

I lift her ankle to my lips, pressing a kiss to the gold plate that sits hot against her skin.

My eyes find hers to see her brows are knitted, and there's confusion in her eyes. Questions she doesn't ask linger on her lips.

Like a breath held too long under water, the words rip from my lungs on a wheeze. “He loves you.”

Her breath hitches, snagging in her lungs as I begin a slow trail of kisses from the gold at her ankle, up the length of her inner calf, thigh, to that space between her legs. I hook my fingers into the band of her panties, my eyes fixed on hers as I slowly pull them from her hips, down her legs, to toss them on the floor with the rest of our clothes. Then I kiss her there, too. I kiss her until her hitched breath turns sharp and choppy with need—need for me.

I don’t close my eyes as I watch her body begin to flush beneath me. Slender fingers curl into the blankets, lips parting, eyes shuttering. She’s exquisite on my tongue, a feast for my eyes—and I commit every shard of this moment to memory where it roots like splinters of glass forever imbedded in the open wound of my desperate soul.

When she unravels beneath me, I climb the length of her body with more slow, tender kisses. Her pulse flutters in her throat beneath my lips, and I linger there, my own heart syncing with the rhythm of hers as though it hopes to live on eternally right here, sewn to hers.

Behind my eyes, tears swell. Desperation and rage wage war in my mind, fed by love. Grief eventually dominates them both, however, when her hands sink into my hair and she breathes, “I need you inside me, Tate.”

I push out of my boxers, sinking into the warmth of her and rooting myself in the only home I’ve ever truly cared to want.

I make love to my wife, the mother of my children, soft and slow, deep and tender, until we’re both spent.

I pull her close in the aftermath, memorizing the rhythm of her heart beating against my own, falling into the bliss of her sweet melody. For the first time since hearing the words I’ve feared deep down for months, peaceful sleep tugs at me, pulling me under wrapped in her. And for a moment—for one selfish moment—I wish for death to come for me like this. I wish for it to be peaceful. For it to be soft and warm.

For it to smell and feel like her.

43

EVERYTHING

OCTOBER 2021 – 32 YEARS OLD

Istare down at Owen’s keychain in my hand as I sit across from the oncologist.

“Are you sure you can’t operate?”

He shakes his head, a grim expression pinching his face. I’m certain he’s sat across from plenty of patients, having this same conversation. I wonder if it ever gets any easier to tell someone they’re dying.

“The location of your tumor alone makes surgery incredibly risky, but the fact it’s spread as it has makes it impossible. I’m sorry, Tatum.”

“You can extend my life by around six months if I do chemo and radiation?”

“Best case scenario, yes.”

“But while I’m undergoing treatment, I’ll be sick, right?”

He nods. “It is difficult on the body.”

“But you can manage my current symptoms? The swelling in my brain? The pain?” I ask. “With the steroids and anti-inflammatory medication?”

“We can significantly improve your pain levels, yes.”

The fear in Owen’s voice rings between my ears. I hear that word—weak.

I don’t want to be weak in front of them. I don’t want them to remember me frail and fighting for a few months, when I could have lived the remaining months with them strong and vibrant and alive.