Theme song:"The night we met by Lord Huron*
"The cruelest thing about love is that it never learns to let go gently."
— Mira
---
The doctors didn't say it out loud, but I heard it in their tone.
Palliative.
That word hit harder than "terminal." Maybe because it sounded so polite, like dressing heartbreak in a tuxedo.
Elian didn't look surprised.
He sat in that stiff hospital chair like it was a throne he'd grown used to, hands folded, legs crossed, as if cancer hadn't been slowly rewriting every page of his life behind his back.
But me?
I broke.
Not loudly.
Not in front of him.
I held it in like a dam stitched with trembling thread.
I smiled. Nodded. Thanked the doctor.
And then excused myself to the hallway, where the cold tile wall met the heat of my grief.
I cried.
Hard.
I cried for all the mornings he wouldn't get to see.
All the sunsets we hadn't chased yet.
All the plans he stopped making long ago while I kept pretending we had time.
---
When I came back into the room, Elian looked up at me like he knew.
But he didn't say a word.
He just opened his arms.
I climbed into them like it was the only place I remembered how to breathe.
"Hey," he whispered, brushing my hair back.
"You shouldn't have to hold me like I'm the one falling apart," I managed.
"But you are," he murmured. "And so am I."
---
We left the hospital the next morning.
Not for good, just for a few days.
A pause. A gasp between storms.
Elian asked if we could go to the coast.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I want to remember what it feels like to be nowhere."
"…You mean peace?"
"No. I mean freedom."
We took the train, packed light.
Two changes of clothes, his meds, and my heart somewhere between my chest and his bag.
The ocean welcomed us with wind and salt and wide, silent sky.
We rented a small beachside cottage. It creaked when we walked, like it had been waiting for someone to fill it with memory.
That night, we lay on the sand. The stars came out like they missed us.
"Elian," I whispered, "what scares you most?"
He took a long time to answer.
"I'm not scared of dying," he said. "I'm scared you'll forget how I loved you."
"I won't."
"You might."
"Elian—"
"Promise me," he said, turning toward me, his hand trembling slightly in mine.
"When I'm gone… you won't close yourself off. You'll still watch the stars, even if I'm not under them with you."
My throat clenched.
"I'll do more than that," I said. "I'll live enough for both of us."
He smiled, eyes glistening.
"Then maybe this isn't the end. Maybe we just... change skies."
---
The next morning, he collapsed on the bathroom floor.
And I realized something no one warns you about love:
How much it hurts to carry someone who used to carry you.