Taylor ordered the food and then sat on the couch with his head in his hands. Bitterness was seeping into his heart, the disease attempting to steal his future out from under him.

Money, power, talent, connections. None of it mattered. The disease he fought against couldn’t be bought, sold, or traded. Bartered or deterred. His disease was set to destroy all that was good in him, all that was worth having, worth living. He would leave this earth one day too soon, but more than this world, he didn’t want to leave Jude.

THE FOOD WAS delivered and from the bedroom, Jude heard the rustle of the plastic coming from the kitchen. She didn’t hear Hazel though. He was eerily quiet and it bothered her, twisting her stomach in knots.

With her eyes open, she watched as he opened the bedroom door slowly and paused, his dark body silhouetted by the light from the kitchen. Her words got stuck in her throat. She so desperately wanted him to speak first, to tell her everything’s going to be okay. But as the bed dipped and she felt Hazel’s body against hers, she also felt more than his weight. She felt his burden. In the dark room, he sat there, not moving, not attempting to wake her. He sat there next to her drowning in his pain.

“Hazel?” She rubbed his lower back, but he didn’t turn. “Let me in. Please.”

“You have so much shit to deal with. You don’t need mine.”

“I want your… shit.” She laughed softly. “That sounds bad, but you know what I mean.”

He didn’t laugh, but whispered, “I do.”

Her hand continued to touch him. “Don’t hide things from me. Everyone hides things from me. To me, you’re honesty and trust. Please let me be the same for you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

She sat up. “You can’t. You won’t. Don’t you see? You heal me.” She had felt his pain before but when their eyes connected, she saw his pain for the first time.

“I’m going to die, Jude. It could be ten years from now.”

She could feel the weight of the universe through the tense muscles of his shoulders and she rubbed to ease them. A silence hung between them and she started to wonder if he would ever fully share his burdens with her. He had given himself so selflessly to her, to be the strong one for her. What he didn’t realize was that she could be that for him. She would be his comfort, his lover, his companion, and his wife for life. “It could be seventy.”

Sliding around, she was across his lap and caressing his neck when he said, “Tell me you’ll love me no matter what?”

“I’ll show you.” She kissed him as she pushed him back on the bed.

“I thought you were hungry?”

“I am,” she said, straddling him. “Ravenous.” And kissed him.

The Chinese food was room temperature when they wandered into the kitchen an hour later. They ate at the bar as the sun set. The apartment was peacefully quiet, both of them content for the time being.

With full bellies, they got up and cleaned, put the extra food in the fridge, and went into the living room. She sat on the couch, he at the drafting table. After picking up a ruler, he watched his hand as he pressed it to the paper, waiting to see if it would shake or not. It didn’t, so with a pencil in his right, he completed a line since his hands were cooperating.

Jude opened a book from the case and pretended to read, but when he wasn’t looking, her eyes were on Hazel. His glasses were on, his hair a mess, shirtless, boxer shorts, and like a god from ancient histories past, he was too good for this world. A cruel fate would reclaim him and one day she would be alone again. Alone didn’t bother her as much as his death did.

“Do you love what you do? Creating? Architecting?” she asked with a smile as she lay down lengthwise.

With a smile already on his face, he said, “I love what I do. It’s one of the few professions that uses both sides of your brain—the creative and the analytical. I can feed my moods.”

“What mood are you in right now?”

“Analytical.” Turning back to his house on paper. “I need order, logic.”

“How bad is it, Hazel? Tell me.”

He knew what she was asking, but it wasn’t that easy to answer. “Telling you means I’ve come to accept it and I haven’t. So I’m just going to keep working on this project.” He peeked over at her. “I’m sorry.”

Their conversations had been full of words like sorry and I love you. But she realized that sorry only came to be because the I love yous existed. She preferred the latter though she understood they must grieve through a process of guilt and gratefulness.

“You don’t have to be.” Jude, of all people, understood the power of denial. She just hoped his denial didn’t end in his death. She opened her book and picked up where she had left off a few days earlier.

The day had been exhausting for both of them, but they lay in bed together after midnight wide awake. They tried for sleep, but it was hard sought and restlessly eluded them. Finally Jude gave into reality. “I can’t sleep.”

“I can’t either. What are you thinking about?”

“What am I not thinking about?” She rolled toward him and asked, “Make me forget.”

“If one day you’ll help me remember.” He wrapped his arm under her neck and she moved closer. “I’m scared I’ll forget how to control my hands and draw, or sketch, or touch you the way I want, the way you like.”

“You’ll not forget, my love. If you do, I’ll be your hands. I will. You can teach me.”

“How to touch you?” he asked.

Jude moved on top of him, took his hand, and placed it on her breast. “Teach me everything.”

His hand squeezed and she closed her eyes, her body stimulated awake from his touch. Sitting up, he kissed her collarbone and felt her—the dip of her waist right before it meets her hips, the roundness of her bottom, and then back up to her firm breasts. Her body was a compass to his life’s journey and he planned to explore and conquer.

With his mouth on her skin, he tasted her sweetest valley and hills. His hands rolled over her stomach and between her legs, which opened for him like the petals of a flower. “You like this,” he whispered, then kissed the top of one of her breasts.

“I do.” She shivered under his words.

He lifted up until her eyes met his, holding her gaze while he moved down her body. He kissed her where the secrets she only shared with him were hidden, like treasures.

She smiled and let her mind and body relax back. Rain started hitting the windows and she turned just to catch the beginning of the storm outside. While her body was revered into its own brewing storm, she let her thoughts thunder toward tomorrow. Taylor straightened over her and thrust inside her, no patience for the weather inside or out.

The temperature rose in the room, their bodies melting from the heat. She reached above her, her fingers grappling for leverage. When she kissed his shoulder, she fell back, lightning striking. “Taylor!” she cried out as his own tornado ripped through him. “Jude!”

They watched the raindrops hit the window until they fell asleep in the early hours of a new day.

The storm got louder throughout the night, the sky lighting up from booming lightning. Jude woke up just before when sunrise should have happened. She moved to the chair and watched the weather taunt her as if it could predict her future.

When Taylor stirred, his arm reached out, feeling for her. She said, “Is it a sign?”

He opened his eyes and she was the first thing he saw, making him smile his sexiest, most peaceful smile. “We don’t need signs. We have love and truth on our side.”

“I was told by the doctors I can’t have children.” She just said it. Like his disease, this fact picked at her bones, eating her alive.

Taylor sat up slowly not sure if he should go to her or give her space. “Which doctors?”