Chapter 121 You can't know
“Ryan,” I say quietly, holding them out. He looks at them, then at me. And I can already see that resistance settling back in, more defined.
His body is uncooperative, but right now, so is he. And I don’t blame him for it. Still, I keep my hand steady. He shakes his head just slightly, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I said no.”
The words aren’t loud, they don’t need to be. I inhale slowly, like I’m trying to create space for both of us inside a moment that suddenly feels too tight.
“I know,” I say, softer this time. My hand lowers just a fraction, but I don’t pull it back completely. “I heard you.”
He turns his head away, his cheek pressing against the cold, white tile of the wall. “Then why're you still holding them out?”
The question isn’t an accusation, it’s a plea. It’s the sound of someone who has run out of ways to say "enough".
“I know how hard this is,” I start, my voice thick with a useless kind of empathy. “I know it feels like—”
He shakes his head again, cutting me off. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, as if he can’t bear to look at the medicine or the man forcing it on him. “You don’t,” he says, the words coming out in a low, exhaled breath. It’s not cruel or defensive. It’s just honest. “You can’t, Michael.”
He lets out a sound that’s halfway between a laugh and a sob. “You’re watching a house burn and thinking you understand the heat. But you aren't the thing being consumed.”
He finally opens his eyes, and they're bloodshot, shimmering with a defiant kind of grief. “You can't tell me you know how hard this is while you're standing there with a body that still works.”
I feel the sting of it because he’s right. My health is a wall between us that I can’t climb over. It makes my encouragement feel like an insult. There’s a limit to what I understand. A line I can get close to but never cross. I can see it. Measure it. Anticipate it. But I can’t feel it the way he does. I don’t know what it’s like for his body to turn against him in real time.
“You’re right,” I whisper. I set the water and pill bottles down on the vanity, giving up the high ground. I move closer and just sit there on the floor with him. “I can’t know. I’m just... I’m the guy who's terrified that if I stop throwing water on the fire, I’ll lose the only genuine home I’ve ever had.”
The silence in the bathroom is absolute, I don’t know if he’s listening. Or if he just doesn’t have the energy to respond. He watches me like he’s waiting for the push....for the part where I turn this into something persuasive, something that corners him into compliance.
“I know you don’t want to take them again,” I say, carefully. “And I hate that this is what it comes down to. That I’m sitting here asking you to do something your body already rejected.”
There’s something hollow about that reality when I say it out loud. Ryan’s gaze flickers, less guarded for a second. I take that inch. Not pushing, just meeting him there. “But it’s just about trying again. I’m not going to force you, but I am going to ask you.”
My eyes hold his. Not pushing or retreating.
“Will you try?”
He shifts slightly, not toward me, but not away either. Somewhere in between. And I stay there, in that space. Close enough to reach him, even if there are parts of this I never will.
“I can't,” he finally whispers, so low I have to lean in to hear him. “I'm sorry, but I'm too tired, Michael.”
I hate that I have to choose between respecting what he wants and doing what might keep him okay. He pulls his knees toward his chest, a defensive curl that makes him look smaller than I ever thought possible. I realize then that I’m not just fighting the cancer anymore, I’m fighting his dignity. I’m asking him to trade the last of his autonomy for a few more hours of nauseous, hazy survival.
I glance over at the pills. To the doctors, they're a protocol. To me, they're a lifeline. To Ryan, they're currently the enemy.
"Just one more time? If not for yourself, then for me?" I whisper, my hand reaching out and wrapping around his nape. "Because I'm selfish...because the alternative is doing nothing. And I don't know how to sit in a room with you and do nothing while you disappear."
He closes his eyes, a single, frustrated tear escaping and tracking a slow path through the gray pallor of his cheek. He doesn't say yes. He just sits there, broken and beautiful and fading, listening to me force him to stay a little longer in a world that has become so unkind to him.
We don’t speak for a long time. Time stretches differently here. Not in minutes or seconds, but in breaths. In the quiet shifts of his body.
Then he speaks, and his voice has a flat, hollow quality to it. A tired cadence that I fear is becoming a new origin point. I find myself praying this isn't the baseline from now on, that this isn't the sound of him finally settling into the role of the defeated.
"I don’t like how much I'm relying on you," he admits.
I still. The honesty of it is like a cold draft in the small room.
“Why?”
He shakes his head slightly, his temple rubbing against the tiles. "Because it feels like I don’t have a choice."
I let my hand slip away from his nape, giving him the space he’s silently asking for, but I shift closer until our knees are touching. I know what he means, and I hate that he feels it. I need him to know that while I’m holding the glass, I’m not holding him captive. "You always have a choice, Ryan."
"Doesn’t feel like it."
I reach down and find his hand, the skin dry and papery. I gently pull until he unwraps his arm from around his legs, and I lace our fingers together, forcing a connection he’s too exhausted to initiate. "Then choose me anyway," I whisper. "Forget everything else. Just choose to stay here with me."
He watches me with a look I can’t decipher. It’s too clouded, a turbulent mix of gratitude, resentment, and a bone-deep weariness that no amount of serotonin could fix. He glances at the pills, then back at me. "Can I try a bit later?" he asks, his voice cracking. "I just... I can't right now. Everything's too loud."
"Of course," I say, nodding immediately. Because this is him still trying, even if it’s delayed. I start to stand, reaching for his underarms. "Let’s get you to bed—"
"No," he says softly.
I settle back down, my weight sinking into the tile again. I watch him close his eyes. His expression tightening just slightly...barely noticeable but enough for me to catch it. Like something inside him shifted wrong. Pain. A quiet and secret spike he clearly doesn't want to admit is there.
"I just want to sit here for a bit," he murmurs, his grip on my hand tightening just a fraction. "Quietly."
I give a slow nod, leaning my back against the wall and pulling his hand into my lap.
“Okay.”
We sit there in the bright bathroom. And this time, I don’t reach for words or solutions. I just sit beside him, close enough that if he leans, even a little, I’ll be there.