Chapter 102 The mind is a greedy thing
Good days should feel like victories. But sometimes they carry their own kind of sadness.
Because good days remind you of what life used to feel like all the time. Or, in our case, what it could feel like if things were just... different. If one variable was removed. If one diagnosis had never been spoken out loud.
They remind me how bright and normal everything could be without the cancer. Without the constant undercurrent of 'this might not last' threading through even the softest moments.
Like yesterday morning.
We woke up tangled together, sheets twisted around us, his arm half-thrown over my chest like it had landed there in his sleep and decided to stay. And for once, just once, he wasn’t nauseous. No quiet grimacing. No slow, careful movements.
Just normal.
We made breakfast together. Nothing elaborate. Eggs slightly overdone because we were talking instead of paying attention. Toast that he insisted on cutting diagonally for no reason other than it tastes better that way, which I argued was objectively untrue.
We played with Ember. We sat at the table and worked through a crossword puzzle, arguing over answers like it mattered, like there wasn’t anything bigger waiting outside that small, contained moment. Then we walked around the block. Slowly, just movement for the sake of it. And later, we ended up back on the couch, him tucked into my side, a book open in his hands while Survivor played in the background...again.
Always again.
And somewhere in between all of that, I caught myself thinking....So this is what it would be like.
Not in a wistful way.
Not even in a painful way.
Just noticing. Observing a version of life that felt so natural it was almost disorienting. And the strangest part is, even with everything. With the illness. With the uncertainty. With the quiet fear that never fully leaves, this is still the happiest I’ve ever been.
I don’t want to change anything.
Not the circumstances. Not the version of him I have. Not the way we’ve learned to exist inside something that was never meant to be lived in comfortably. Because this is what we were given, and this is what we choose to take.
But the mind is a greedy thing. It doesn’t know how to just have something and leave it untouched. It always reaches further, even when it’s already full. You get the job you’ve been working toward for years, and within weeks you’re wondering what the next step is. The promotion, the recognition.
You fall in love...real, consuming, undeniable...and instead of just feeling it, part of you starts calculating permanence. Will this last? Can this become something bigger? Something safer?
You finally arrive somewhere you thought would satisfy you, and instead of settling into it, your mind starts scanning the horizon for the next place to go. It’s almost instinctive. This quiet refusal to stay still inside something good.
And I hate that.
I hate how easily my thoughts start drifting into that space, into what if it were all different. Because I remember what he said. That he didn’t want me to resent him one day. The idea had felt so foreign at the time, so completely misplaced that I almost dismissed it outright.
But he hadn’t been worried about resentment in the obvious sense. He’d been worried about something quieter.
That I’d start comparing.
That I’d start imagining a version of us untouched by all of this, and that somehow, that imagined version would begin to feel more real than the one right in front of me. So I made a conscious decision not to give those thoughts the space to grow. To catch them early. To let them pass through without settling. Because the moment you let them linger, they start rewriting things. They start convincing you that what you have isn’t enough simply because it isn’t perfect.
And I won’t do that. Not to him. Not to us.
I think about our vow, it always sounds so simple when we say it. Almost noble. But I’m starting to understand it better now.
Living without regrets sounds heroic until you realize it mostly means choosing things that might break your heart. It’s the kind of thing people say when they want to feel certain about the way they’re moving through the world. But in reality, it’s something else entirely.
It’s acceptance that some choices will lead to heartbreak.
That some endings will come no matter how carefully you move.
That some people will matter more than they were ever meant to.
And you choose them anyway. You choose them knowing all of that. Because the alternative...distance, hesitation, self-protection...feels worse. Feels emptier.
I look at Ryan sometimes and I realize that
Love, real love, isn’t built on fireworks or grand moments or even permanence. It’s built on repetition. On choosing again and again and again. On waking up beside someone and deciding, yes, still you.
On staying when things get hard. On leaning in when it would be easier to step back. On holding onto something fragile without trying to reshape it into something indestructible.
And for him, there’s no hesitation in me. No second-guessing. No quiet weighing of options.
I’m always going to choose him.
I’m just stopping by Knight & Rowe to collect the last of my things and formally hand over the work I’d been handling. Jenny already packed everything. I made sure she had another job lined up before any of this went through, because I know how my father operates. Clean cuts. No consideration for what happens after.
Ryan insisted on coming with me. Even though today isn’t a good day.
I can see it in the way he’s sitting...too still, like movement costs him something. The faint tension in his jaw, the way his hand presses subtly against his side every now and then, like he’s checking something that won’t quite settle.
He told me it’s tolerable.
That he’s learned the difference now, between what’s too much and what he can push through. I hate that he’s had to learn that at all. He’s also paler than usual. There’s a kind of washed-out softness to his skin that wasn’t there before, and he hasn’t eaten anything yet, which sits wrong in my chest in a way I don’t voice.
But I’m watching. Not in the suffocating way he warned me about. Just enough to know when something shifts. When something tips too far.
His parents arrive tomorrow. So he said we should stop by the store to stock up on groceries. Because his mum will want to cook. Because if she opens the fridge and sees what’s actually in there, she’ll worry.
And then, after a beat, he added....
“She’ll worry anyway.”
But there was something softer behind it. Something that almost sounded like he didn’t mind that part. I pull into the parking lot and cut the engine. For a second, neither of us moves. Then I turn slightly, looking at him properly.
“I’ll just be a few minutes,” I tell him. “My assistant already packed everything and sorted the rest.”
He nods.
I lean over before I can think too much about it and press a kiss to his cheek. His skin is warm, but there’s a faint dryness to it, something that lingers just long enough for me to notice before I pull back.
“Text me if you need anything.”
Another nod.
I hesitate for half a second longer than necessary, then I step out of the car. As I walk toward the building, I catch myself glancing back once, just to make sure he’s still there.
Still okay.