Chapter 112 Present continuous
There are a number of tiny, insignificant and frankly dumb things that have been getting under my skin lately. Not the obvious ones like the diagnosis or the slow betrayal of my own bones. Those sit too heavy to feel like irritation. These are smaller. Petty, almost.
They change by the hour, but at the moment, I’ve decided I hate the future tense. It feels so presumptuous.
"I will go."
"We shall be."
Like the universe is making promises it hasn’t earned the right to make. Like it’s issuing quiet ultimatums and expecting me to nod along politely, as if anything about tomorrow is guaranteed. I don’t trust it. I prefer the present continuous.
"We are going."
There’s something honest about it. It admits movement. It acknowledges uncertainty while still insisting on momentum. It doesn’t claim arrival, it just says we’ve already begun. And you can’t stop something that’s already happening.
Michael definitely had his reservations about this trip, despite being the one to suggest it. Ideas are easy when they live in your head. They’re safe there. Contained. The moment they start becoming real, when they turn into coats and car keys and actual distance from the nearest hospital, they grow teeth. I could see the doubt in the way he watched me put on my shoes.
He’s terrified the pain might return suddenly. I’d spent the morning assuring him I was fine...tired, marrow failing, a bit translucent around the edges, but fine.
I promised him that if I felt even the slightest flare of that familiar, white-hot agony, I’d speak up. No stubborn silence. No pretending. He eventually conceded, though his eyes remained wary.
My parents arrived not long after, just like I’d predicted. And I spent the first twenty minutes trying to broadcast "normalcy." I plan on using today to hopefully convince them I'm not made of glass. And I use the word hopefully because I no longer trust my body to follow orders.
That’s another thing illness does. It strips you of a belief you didn’t even realize you were carrying. Most people grow up thinking their body belongs to them. That it’s obedient. That it will follow instructions without question. Move when asked. Rest when told. Heal when something goes wrong.
Simple and reliable....until it isn’t. Until one day it becomes something foreign. Something unpredictable. A separate entity entirely that you have to negotiate with instead of command.
You stop living in your body and start living around it.
Mum is really excited, which I wasn’t expecting. She’d arrived prepared to scrub baseboards and hover over my breathing, but when the trip was mentioned, her face lit up. There was a flicker of shock on my father’s face, a momentary glitch as they tried to reconcile the image of their sick son with the "normal" world. But then Mom swung into action, pulling together a picnic of chicken salad sandwiches and sliced apples.
Now, we’re in the car. Michael has the heater humming, and my mum is animatedly describing the trip she and her friends have been planning. There’s a lightness in her voice when she describes it. Sand and sun and ocean air. A version of the future that sounds almost believable when she says it.
I listen, I respond when I’m supposed to. But mostly, I watch Michael’s profile as he weaves through Seattle traffic. One hand steady on the wheel, the other occasionally adjusting something without breaking rhythm. His attention splits cleanly between the road and the conversation. There’s something about it that feels incredibly attractive.
Not in a loud way. Not in the obvious, physical sense. It’s quieter than that. Something about competence, about presence. About how easily he occupies space without overwhelming it.
I try to think of the last time the three of us, me and my parents, went somewhere together. I come up short. Which feels wrong. It shouldn’t be this hard to remember something like that. But that’s the thing about people. About us.
We drift.
So subtly we don’t even register it while it’s happening. We blame schedules, distance, exhaustion....life in all its convenient complexity. But when you strip all that away, it usually comes down to something much simpler.
Choice.
Or the lack of it.
It’s the choice to make the phone call, the decision to plan the day, the refusal to let the silence become permanent. Because connection doesn’t disappear all at once. It fades in the spaces where no one decides to reach. In the calls not made. In the plans postponed until they quietly become impossible. Not absence, just inaction.
We get there eventually. Kubota Garden. According to Michael, it’s a Japanese garden. He says it like that should mean something specific. And the moment I step out of the car, I realize it does. I watch him reach into the backpack, which is technically mine, though he’s claimed the weight of it, and pull out a bottle of water. He cracks the seal and hands it to me with a look that brooks no argument “Drink,” he says. “You need to stay hydrated.”
I take it, the plastic cool against my fingers. I drink more than I expect to. Nearly half the bottle before I lower it. He takes it back immediately, like this is a practiced routine. Closes and holds onto it. I know he’ll be urging me to finish the rest within the hour.
Mum steps closer, zipping my jacket all the way up to my chin with a small, satisfied smile. Like she’s sealed something in place. “Better,” she says.
And then we head in, even before we fully cross the entrance, I can tell I’m going to like it. There’s a quiet to it. Not silence exactly, just an absence of noise. The kind that settles over everything gently.
Then we’re inside, and my lips part slightly. It’s beautiful. Not in an overwhelming way. It doesn’t demand attention, it earns it. Soft green stretches in layered textures...moss, shrubs, trees that arch overhead like they’ve been growing with intention. Curved stone paths and a pond that reflects the sky.
I reach out without thinking, my fingers curling around Michael’s arm.
"Oh, Ryan, look at that bridge!" my mother chirps, already reaching for her phone. "This would be wonderful for some Facebook pictures. The girls back home will love them!"
I turn to Michael. He’s already staring at me, his head tilted slightly, a small, knowing smile on his face. Not showy, just quietly pleased with himself.
"Thoughts?"
I don’t think....
"I love you," I say.
The words aren't a response to the garden, but they’re the only truth I have that fits the scenery. He chuckles softly, a warm sound, and shifts his hold to link our fingers properly. Fingers threading through mine with intention, holding on like it matters.
We start walking and it feels like a dream. There's other people around...scattered, distant...but no one speaks loudly. No one disrupts the atmosphere. It’s like the place itself teaches you how to exist within it. Quietly and carefully. And somewhere between one step and the next, I realize that fog that’s been sitting in my head all day is gone. Just drifted like it was never meant to stay here in the first place.
It's replaced by the sharp, vivid clarity of the present continuous.
No declarations about tomorrow. No quiet bargains with a future that doesn’t belong to me. Just motion. And maybe that’s enough, because whatever comes, whatever shifts or breaks or disappears, it won’t be able to take away the fact that this is already happening.
"We are walking."
"We are breathing."
"We are here."