Page 113 of Ghost Ribbon

I ignored it.

Missed appointments. Skipped checkups. Delayed follow-ups. Told myself I was busy, that classes mattered, that money mattered more, that my mother’s health had become the priority because she was sick too now and I couldn’t stand the idea of the family drowning twice at once because of me.

So I chose not to spend money on my own body when hers was already demanding so much.

I couldn’t do that to them again. So I let things slide.

I let the dizziness become normal. I let the chest pain become background noise.

Then Alexei handed me that check. One hundred thousand dollars.

And after that, especially after I started coughing up blood, I went back to doctors. I let them examine me and tell me what I already knew somewhere in the sickest part of myself.

It was getting worse again. Manageable, for now.

But there was a good chance that love, if anyone ever made the mistake of giving it to me, would become grief.

That was why I couldn’t let Alexei say it.

He couldn’t love me.

Not because I didn’t want him to.

God, that was the worst part. I wanted him to in all the selfish, rotten, aching ways a person could want something. I wanted it desperately enough that when he looked at me with that terrifying softness, I felt my whole body lean toward him like a plant leaning toward light.

But he couldn’t.

He was too beautiful.

Too alive.

Too much for me in every way.

He could have anyone. He could have someone strong. Someone healthy. Someone fearless and bright and whole.

He didn’t need a sick boy. He didn’t need someone like me.

And yet he had said it.

Three words.

In three languages.

I love you.

Ti amo.

Ya tebya lyublyu.

I fell asleep in his arms crying last night. He held me while I cried. And I hoped he hadn’t.

If he had been cold, I could have hated him. If he had been cruel, I could have built a wall.

I would have understood it.

What I didn’t understand was his tenderness.

What I didn’t understand was Alexei Morozov standing in my hallway drenched in rain, crying with me, telling me he loved me.