Page 111 of Ghost Ribbon

“My heart is…” He swallowed hard, and the next words came broken. “Bad.”

Something inside me recoiled.

Not because I hadn’t known.

Because I had.

That was the unbearable part.

I had known.

And I had done what I did best when faced with something intolerable: I had built a wall around the knowledge and pretended it wasn’t there.

I pressed closer to him instead, my hands sliding from his face to the back of his neck, holding him like I could keep his head above water through touch alone.

“I’ll take care of your heart,” I whispered.

My own voice shook.

That, more than anything, might have terrified me if I had room for self-reflection just then. But there was no room. There was only Marco. Marco in front of me, crying, telling me that his heart was failing him.

“I won’t let anything happen to it,” It was a promise.

Impossible, irrational, arrogant, yes. All of those things. I knew that even as I said it. I knew I was making vows against biology, against time, against whatever cruel thing had built a fault line into his body.

I kissed his forehead.

Then I pulled him against my chest.

He folded into me and I wrapped both arms around him. My hand slid up and down his back in strokes while his tears soaked through my shirt.

He cried softly.

I had been a fool.

The first moment I saw him again some part of me had known. Not consciously, perhaps but the memory of that night in Italy had never fully left my body.

The possibility of his illness had stayed with me from the beginning.

But he looked healthy and I allowed myself the cowardice of denial.

Because I had been afraid of what I would feel if I went looking and found what I already suspected.

So I told myself his dizziness meant he hadn’t eaten. It was enough that I could tell myself the hand pressed to his chest was anxiety, not pain. Enough that I could believe the child in Italy had simply grown out of whatever had once made him sick.

I had seen the signs at the edge of my vision every time.

I had simply chosen not to center them.

And now here he was, crying in my arms, and I could not forgive myself for the luxury of that refusal.

I tucked his head under my chin and listened to his breathing.

Whatever was wrong with his heart, whatever was trying to kill him, I wouldn’t allow it. He was mine. He’d been mine since I was ten years old. No one will take him from me. Not his illness. Not death. Not the fucking universe itself. I’d burn every hospital to the ground and rebuild it if that’s what it took. I’d drag specialists from every corner of the world and make them fix what was broken inside him. I’d hold him like this every night until his heart learned how to beat the way it was supposed to.

Marco made a soft sound against my chest and clutched the back of my shirt with both hands, fingers bunching the wet fabric like he was afraid I might let go.

I never would.