Chapter 185 It's everything

Chapter 185 It's everything
That night, I only slept for about three hours before Ryan woke me with a gentle tap against my shoulder.
I came awake instantly, the way I had learned to over the past few months, my body going from asleep to alert before my mind had even caught up. For one disoriented second, I didn't know where I was. Then I saw Ryan sitting beside me, there was a breakfast tray between us.
I blinked at it. Pancakes. Fruit. Coffee. Then I looked at him. "Where did these come from?"
Ryan gave me an offended look. "Excuse me?"
I just stared at him. "I made them."
"You made these?"
He smiled, the corner of his mouth lifting. "One of the eggshells basically disintegrated into the batter, but I personally think the added crunch gives them character."
I chuckled quietly as I pulled the tray onto my lap, still feeling the remnants of sleep clinging to me. "Did you eat?"
"Yes."
"What about your—"
"I took my medication."
I nodded, then I ate while Ryan watched me. Not casually, either. He watched every bite with an attention that would've been unnerving if I hadn't recognized it.
He'd spent so much time telling me that I watched him too much. Asking if he had something on his face. Asking if there was some particular reason I'd decided to stare at him while he drank his tea, read, ate, breathed.
Now I understood, maybe this was what it looked like from the other side. I ate every pancake, every piece of fruit, and I drank the coffee. Because he'd made it. And because, for once, I wanted to let him be the one who made sure I was okay. I wanted to ask how he was feeling. He still looked too pale to me, even sitting there in the soft morning light.
But I didn't, because we were in Hawaii. We were supposed to be on our honeymoon. Ryan had made me breakfast in bed. And in a little while, we were going to walk down to the beach. So I let myself have that.
We took our time getting ready. Ryan had apparently decided that we needed to look like people who had come to Hawaii specifically to be photographed looking like people who had come to Hawaii. He wore loose cream linen trousers, a soft long-sleeved shirt in a muted blue that he kept insisting was too warm for the weather, and white sneakers. He'd rolled the sleeves to his elbows and perched sunglasses on his head that he said made him look ridiculous.
"They make you look good," I'd told him.
"They make me look like someone's divorced uncle."
"You look handsome."
He'd narrowed his eyes at me. "You're biased."
"Severely."
I packed what we needed into a tote instead of the backpack that had, over the past few months, become less of a bag and more of a portable emergency department. The tote was one I'd found in the guest room while we were cleaning for his parents. Across the front, in glittery lettering, it read: Keep a little room for wonder.
I'd laughed when I'd first found it. Ryan had defended it by saying it was inspirational, so I'd washed it. Now I filled it with water, snacks, sunscreen, his medication, tissues and a few other necessities. The camera remained around his neck.
When Ryan saw it, he smiled. "You brought my cheesy bag."
"It's practical."
"You called it cheesy."
"I'ts grown on me."
The sun was already out by the time we left. It was the good kind of sun, the kind that warmed your skin without making you feel like you were being punished for having one. We walked slow enough that neither of us needed to pretend we weren't. Our hands stayed linked between us. And somehow, without either of us saying it, the pace felt right. There was no destination we had to reach quickly. Just a path, the sound of distant birds, and Ryan's thumb occasionally brushing against mine.
When the beach finally came into view, I stopped, so did he. The ocean stretched out in front of us, impossibly calm beneath the morning light. The water was almost glass near the shore, pale where the sun touched it and deeper farther out. There were only two other people in the distance, small enough that they looked almost incidental against all that blue.
For a moment, neither of us spoke, Ryan just stood there, taking it in. His light hair moved slightly in the breeze.
I looked at the water, then at him.
"It's your favorite shade of blue."
He turned toward me, then looked back at it. He didn't answer. He just stood there for another few seconds, and I watched something in his shoulders loosen. Something I'd spent months striving to give him. Peace. Even if it was only temporary. Eventually, he turned toward me.
"Thank you."
I shook my head. "For what?"
"For bringing me here."
"It's nothing."
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he smiled, small and unbearably sincere. "It's everything."
And I didn't know what to say to that, because it wasn't...not really. Not compared to all the things I wanted to give him. All the places I wanted to take him. All the mornings I wanted him to wake up feeling completely healthy. All the nights I wanted him to fall asleep without pain. All the futures I wanted to put in front of him and promise he'd get to have.
This was just a beautiful beach. A morning. A few hours we had managed to steal from everything waiting for us. But Ryan was looking at it like I'd handed him the world. So I squeezed his hand. And I didn't tell him it wasn't enough.
I let it be everything.