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Finn was a dreamer. He wanted to believe nothing would change, and as much as I wanted that to be true, I knew better.
“Come on.” He guided me toward the blankets in front of the fire, which sat on top of a tarp to keep dry, and the food was laid out on two platters. “Let’s eat.”
“Did you make charcuterie boards?” I couldn’t hide the humor in my voice. These were far too fancy to be made by a man.
“Lila had them put together at the restaurant.” He held up the champagne and the sparkling water, and I pointed to the water. I’d been feeling more tired than ever, and trying not to let anyone know how I was feeling was exhausting. Carl had texted me on my way home tonight that he wanted to meet me tomorrow morning to go over the results. I had a pit in my stomach because the fact that he didn’t just say everything was fine meant that it wasn’t.
But I wasn’t about to ruin one of my last nights with Finn. He was flying out to Tokyo the day after tomorrow. I’d just have to make up an excuse to sneak away tomorrow to find out what was going on.
We clinked our glasses together. “Happy New Year, Miney.”
“Happy New Year. I don’t think we’ve ever spent a New Year’s apart, now that I think of it,” I said, thinking back on all the ways we’d brought in the new year.
“Yeah, last year was pretty epic being in London.”
“It was. And we had a few wild ones in college,” I said, and we both looked away at the same time as the memory of the year I’d been diagnosed with cancer was a memory I didn’t like to think of often. Finn had given up his New Year’s to sit with me during chemo treatments that year. Carl had been away at school, and Finn had always been there.
“Yep. I can’t imagine ringing in the new year without you.”
“Thanks for spending one of those at an oncology center with apple juice and my mom, dad, and Olivia pacing around and crying. That couldn’t have been much fun for you.”
“Are you kidding? My parents ended up coming and smuggling champagne in for your parents, and Liv was on the phone the entire time with that guy who desperately wanted to date her.”
My head fell back in laughter as I piled some salami and cheese on a cracker and handed it to him. “Um, the fact that she sits on a call for hours telling someone that she doesn’t want to date them is madness.”
“That’s when you decided to cut back on your classes and pursue acting, huh?” I asked, because I’d always known that as much as that time in my life changed me in many ways, it had also changed Finn.
“Yeah.” He looked up, his eyes locking with mine. “I think the thought of losing you had me going out of my mind. I guess that’s when I decided that life was short, and I needed to make every day count.”
I nodded. “I get that. I felt the same way. Like I had this second chance, you know?”
“It’s interesting, right? How people’s perspectives change when things like that happen. When you’re faced with the really hard stuff—the way you choose to process it.” He cleared his throat, gazing off at the water.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, your first thought when you were diagnosed was the concern about how it would affect you having children. I mean, you’d mentioned that you wanted to be a mama one day over the years, but it hardly came up much before that time. Once you got sick, it moved to the forefront of your mind. But for me, I’d never thought about it much until then. But seeing you sick… Knowing that the outcome might not be what we wanted… It did something to me, Miney. I decided that moving forward, I’d make a conscious effort to never let myself love anyone the way that I loved you in that moment. Obviously, I love my family, and I can’t take away the people that I already loved. But the thought of kids or loving even more people—I didn’t want to ever feel that way again. And then a few years later, my dad got sick. Fuck. It’s much easier to keep things casual, you know?”
“Loving people always comes with risk, Chewy.” I swiped at the tear rolling down my cheek. “That shouldn’t stop you from living. From loving.”
“Yeah. Well, I think some loves are impossible to run from.” He winked.
“Thanks for being there with me every step of the way.” I tried hard to swallow the enormous lump in my throat.
“Always. And we made the best out of a tough situation, didn’t we?”
“We sure did. We were playing that Hollywood game where we picked names out of a cup and had to describe them to one another. Even though I swear you let me win because you missed too many easy ones.”
“Please. Do I strike you as a guy who would give a win away?”
Not to anyone else, but to me, yes.
“I think you would always give me the win.” I reached for his hand and squeezed it.
This mix of fear and hope weighed heavy on my heart.
And it wasn’t fear of all the things that I should be nervous about at the moment. That my test results could possibly mean the cancer was back.
That I would need to do rounds of chemo again.
