Chapter 65 Death is Abstract
Ryan had gone in for another blood test this morning.
He’ll have to do them two, maybe three times every week from now on. Numbers tracked. Levels monitored. White cells counted like they’re fragile currency. It sounds clinical when you say it like that. Like a manageable routine...but it isn’t.
Between that and the chemo, which officially begins tomorrow, his life is about to orbit the hospital in a way that feels obscene. Appointments penciled in. Side effects anticipated. Energy rationed. Time measured in lab results and infusion chairs.
Today hadn’t ended well.
He’d asked if he could keep teaching. And the doctor had given him that careful look physicians perfect over years of delivering bad news gently. ‘Unlikely’, he’d said. ‘Maybe a lesson here and there. If you’re feeling up to it’.
A lesson here and there. As if teaching were a hobby. As if it weren’t the spine of him. I’d watched Ryan’s face when the words settled. He didn’t argue, but something shifted. Because knowing you have cancer is one thing. But rebuilding your life around it is another.
We’re at my apartment now because I’d told him I had to quickly pick up documents for the Vivienne Hansen project. The truth is that I’m stretching myself thin, trying to carve time into obedient shapes. If I work late.....If I plan everything now....If I get ahead of the deadlines. Then maybe I can buy us hours. Hoard them. Protect them.
Time as currency.
Time as defiance.
Ryan had then said, almost offhandedly, that he was curious about my place. So I’d asked if he wanted to see it. He’d said yes. He packed a small bag. Slipped a reluctant Ember into her carrier and we came here. I remember the way he stepped inside.
He didn’t comment at first. Just stood there, turning slowly, taking everything in with that assessing, curious gaze of his. Like he was reading a room the way he reads a person, searching for what’s real beneath what’s arranged.
The clean lines. The muted palette. The glass. The steel.
He cleared his throat. “I’m going to apologize in advance,” he’d said carefully.
“For what?”
“For this.”
He gestured vaguely around him. “You’re a little vain,” he decided. “And possibly pretentious.”
I’d stared at him as he pointed at the sculptural lamp in the corner. The abstract art piece above the console. The shelving that looks curated.
“These,” he said. “These are not you.”
He turned back to me, narrowing his eyes playfully. “Did you hire someone from a luxury design magazine to build you a personality?”
I’d felt something defensive rise in me. Then he smiled....softened it.
“I mean,” he added, stepping closer, “...it’s very impressive. Just a little intimidating.”
Now we’re lying on my couch. Ember has claimed the space near the large windows, her body stretched toward the skyline. She seems deeply satisfied with the view. Ryan is tucked against me. We’re watching another episode of Survivor. My arm loops around his waist.
I press my face lightly into his hair when he chuckles at something on the screen. I memorize the sound, the way it vibrates through him and into me. He's quieter than usual tonight. Every now and then he shifts slightly, and I tighten my hold without thinking. I don’t know how to build my life around appointment schedules and the quiet terror of side effects listed too casually.
I don’t know how to be strong in the right way. But I know that if his life is about to orbit a hospital, then mine will orbit him.
“It’s not permanent,” I tell him quietly. “You’ll teach again. Properly. Full timetable. A room full of fleeting attention spans. Half of them mentally composing TikTok scripts while the other half ranks the memes they could’ve posted.”
He doesn’t answer. The silence stretches a little too long, and I feel the way he goes inward sometimes. Like he’s stepped behind a door only he can see. I wonder how deep he is right now. Whether he’s counting something. Calculating something. Or if he’s just bracing. Then he speaks.....
“I’ve never actually been to a funeral before.”
The sentence lands strangely between us. I frown slightly. “What did we agree on about the pessimism?”
“What’s pessimistic about that?” he asks.
Then he shifts in my arms, slowly turning until we’re face to face. His head rests on my arm, eyes searching mine in that quiet, unnerving way he has.
“I had the chance once,” he says. “When my cousin died.”
His voice is calm. Too calm.
“I didn’t go.”
I brush my thumb along his cheek, the gesture casual enough to pass as nothing but affection. He looks paler tonight. It could be the illness....It could be the weight of it.
“I told my mum I had a job interview,” he continues. “I didn’t.”
“Why?” I ask softly.
He exhales through his nose. “I hardly knew him. He moved to Canada when I was young. I met him a handful of times after that. The conversations were courteous. Structured.”
He searches for the right words. “We exchanged updates and accomplishments. Then we’d retreat to opposite sides of the room.” His eyes flicker slightly, distant.
“If I’d gone to the funeral, I would’ve had to rearrange everything. Cancel commitments, shift deadlines....figure out who'd take care of Ember. It would have disrupted my schedule.”
“And then there’s the atmosphere,” he adds. “The choreography of grief.” His gaze sharpens. “The genuine sadness. The people who loved him in ways I never did. And the other kind, too. The rehearsed condolences. The tears from people who barely knew him but felt obligated to produce something appropriate.”
He swallows. “I didn’t feel compelled by it.”
The admission hangs there. I feel something twist in my chest. He’s watching me carefully now. But there’s something fragile beneath it. The faintest fracture.
“It was probably better,” I say, brushing my thumb along his cheek again, “to opt out than to go and pretend you cared more than you did.”
It sounds reasonable, but Ryan slowly shakes his head.
“My mum called afterward. A few days later.”
His eyes drift somewhere over my shoulder, unfocused.
“She mentioned, very casually, that not many people showed up. Said he wasn’t that close to people.”
He smiles then. It’s small and sad in a way that feels almost embarrassed. His eyes glisten faintly, not quite tears, just a thin sheen of something held back.
“Can you imagine how sad that must have been?” he asks softly. “For the few who were there. And for the one who’s passed?” He exhales, then adds, “I wish I’d gone. If not for him, then for whoever was actually impacted. The people who lost something real.”
His fingers slightly tighten on my waist before loosening again.
“People rush to see a newborn. They line up to hold someone who’s existed for days. Someone who hasn’t done anything yet. Because it’s hopeful. Because it’s bright.”
His gaze returns to mine. “But death...” he shakes his head slowly. “Death makes people shrink. They step aside. They avoid it if they can.”
He shifts slightly closer. His voice thinning just slightly at the edge. “They’re both transitions. But we only illuminate one of them. And maybe that’s why the end terrifies us so much. Because we’ve hidden it away for so long it feels monstrous instead of human.”
I don’t know what to say, so I pull him closer instinctively and brush a loose strand of hair from his forehead before asking, “Why are you thinking about this right now?”
He tilts his head back slightly, a slow, crooked smile spreading across his face, then he laughs softly. “Does it scare you?” he asks, teasing but not quite. “That I’m talking about it....thinking about it?”
I blink at him and he adds, “Because if it does, then you're proving my point.”
I let that settle, the words rolling over me, and I say, factually, “People celebrate life because it’s tangible. It can be touched, seen, measured. We can hold it, record it, pass it along. But death is abstract. It terrifies us because it’s the one thing we can’t control.”
He hums softly, as if letting my words sink in, then he turns towards the screen again without saying a word.
When the episode ends, he finally says, “I’m going to keep teaching.”
There's a quiet finality in his voice, almost like he’s staking a claim. I let the vow hang between us, letting it settle, letting it mean something.