Chapter 110 I'm still here
His lips part, a flicker of that familiar instinct crossing his face. He looks like he’s about to ask if I’m sure, but he catches himself. He swallows the question. Instead, he just nods and retreats to the table, pulling a chair out and turning it around to face me. Then he sits and just watches.
"Did they say anything about how long they’re staying?" I ask, my voice tight. "It wouldn't be logical to stay too long. There’s no timeline for when this ends. They have lives back home."
Michael lets out a short, dry scoff. "I doubt your parents are prioritizing logic right now, Ryan. Logic is for people who aren't watching their son fight cancer."
The word cancer hits the soapy water like a stone. Suddenly, I’m furious at the dishes. There’s a stack of three plates left, and they feel like a mountain. They feel like they’re mocking me, intentionally draining the last of my strength just to prove they can. I don’t respond. I can’t.
I stay quiet, scrubbing a saucer with a ferocity that is entirely disproportionate to the task, wondering where this sudden bolt of anger came from. My emotions have been ping-ponging all day. Gratitude, exhaustion, fear, and now this hot, senseless prickle of rage.
Michael doesn't push. He just stays there, a silent witness. The silence stretches until the last fork is rinsed. Soapy water finally draining away with a gurgle that sounds far too lonely. I move slowly now, drying my hands with a deliberation that feels like I’m trying to keep my skin from falling off. I let out a deep, shaky breath that shudders in my lungs, then I finally turn back to him.
Michael's still watching me. He hasn't moved an inch. His gaze is unblinking, stripped of the pity I saw in my mother's eyes and filled with a gravity that makes my throat ache. I swallow hard, my mind frantically searching for a way to pivot back to the "not so bad" version of myself, but I come up entirely short.
The syllabus is empty.
Michael blinks once, his eyes never leaving mine. He reaches out one arm, his hand open and waiting in the space between us.
"Come here," he says.
I hesitate for a couple of seconds, not sure why. Then I move toward him, drawn in by the gravity of that outstretched hand. When I’m close enough, he reaches out and circles my wrist, his grip firm and warm, and pulls me into the narrow space between his knees. With a steady, practiced strength, he guides me to straddle him, his hands sliding under my thighs to guide me down until I’m sitting on his lap.
It’s a jarringly domestic, yet profoundly intimate position. Even after everything we've already done. This...sitting chest-to-chest in a brightly lit kitchen with the smell of dish soap still on my skin feels more exposing. I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks, a flush that feels entirely too young for a man with my medical history.
"You’re getting heavier," Michael murmurs, his voice a low vibration I feel in my own ribcage.
I huff softly, my gaze darting toward the darkened window. The blue of his eyes is doing that thing again. That piercing, sharpness where he isn't just looking at me, he’s reading everything.
"That’s rude," I say, trying for a defensive edge that doesn't quite land. "And factually incorrect. If anything, the scale is trending in the other direction."
He doesn't take the bait. His hand begins to gently move up and down the length of my back, tracing the line of my spine. He leans back against the chair.
"I don't mean your weight," he says quietly.
I finally force myself to look at him. We stay like that for a long, heavy beat, the only sound the clock on the wall ticking away seconds I’m suddenly desperate to keep.
"Stay with me," he says suddenly.
I blink at him, confused. My arms, acting on a reflex, reach up and tangle behind his neck, my fingers brushing the soft hair at his nape. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here."
"That's not what I mean," he counters.
I pull back just an inch, studying the faint lines around his eyes, the set of his mouth. "What then?"
He exhales slowly, a sound that carries the weight of the entire day. He reaches up, stroking my cheek with the back of his hand, his knuckles cool against my currently feverish skin. "Don't disappear into your head," he whispers. "You’re getting heavy with thoughts, Ryan. I can see them settling."
A silence follows, thick and suffocating. There's something terrifying about being known this deeply. About having a man who can track the movement of your internal shadows before you’ve even named them. And there's something even more terrifying about the possibility of one day losing the person who holds the map.
My voice softens, thickening with a knot of emotion I can’t quite swallow down. I force a small, brittle smile....the one I used on my mother, though I know it won't work here. "I do that a lot recently," I admit.
"I know," he says, his thumb brushing lightly along my jawline, tracing the bone as if he’s trying to memorize it. He looks at me with a raw honesty that makes my breath catch in my throat. "And I hate it."
"Why?" I whisper, the word barely a breath.
His gaze locks onto mine, his pupils dark and focused. "Because I can’t follow you in there," he says. "I can hold your hand... read your eyes. But I can't reach you when you're three miles deep in your own thoughts. So come back to the surface. Stay where I can see you."
The air in the kitchen is cooling, the steam from the sink long gone, but the heat between us is stifling. I feel like a specimen and a lover all at once.
"Is that why you do it?" I ask. "Why you keep looking at me like I’m about to evaporate? Like I'm a ghost you’re trying to keep from fading?"
Michael doesn’t blink. He doesn’t offer the easy denial I’m half-hoping for. "I’m just paying attention. There’s a difference."
I swallow hard, the dry ache in my throat making it difficult to breathe. "That’s not what it feels like."
"What does it feel like?" His tone isn't clinical. It’s a genuine question.
I hesitate, my fingers tightening in the hair at the nape of his neck. "It feels like you’re memorizing me. Like you’re taking inventory before the lights go out."
The silence that follows is absolute. I listen to the ticking clock marking the very seconds we’re discussing. Michael’s fingers flex slightly against my thigh.
"Maybe I am," he admits. He doesn't look away. "I don’t want to forget anything."
I flinch, my gaze dropping to his collarbone. The weight of being "documented" is too much.
"I’m still here."
He reaches up, his hand firm as he angles my chin back up, forcing me to meet that piercing blue gaze. His expression is softer now, the observer stepping aside for the man who is simply, desperately in love.
"I know you’re here," he whispers, his thumb tracing the curve of my lower lip. "That’s why I’m looking. Because I can."
The fight goes out of me all at once. The anger at the dishes, the stupid anxiety about my parents' hotel bill. It all collapses into a singular, bone-deep exhaustion.
"Tired?" Michael asks, his voice dropping an octave.
I just nod, my forehead dropping against his. He shifts slightly, guiding me to tuck my head into the hollow of his neck. I fit there perfectly, my nose pressed against the warm skin of his throat, smelling the faint scent of the soap he used and the familiar combo of his scent.
It feels awfully comfortable. It feels warm and safe in a way that the rest of the world hasn't felt since yesterday.
My parents are blocks away in a sterile hotel room, probably staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out if they should have cried or laughed more. And I'm here, being held by a man who refuses to give me the easy lie.