The Brookes came to visit me again. I told them things weren’t looking good, but I didn’t go so far as to say I was dying. I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t know how I could excuse myself, for the pain they’d feel when they lost me just like they had lost their son. Thinking about it too much made me want to sob, so I pushed it back.

I couldn’t hide things from them that well.

“We really should be paying you for tutoring Bella,” said Mr. Brookes, a deep frown on his face. “It’s a valuable–”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “My old job has to pay disability. I won’t have to worry about money.”

“You’ll need to get a different job after you recover,” said Mrs. Brookes. She talked about future plans, about the stories I’d be able to tell when this was all over.

Bella and her father didn’t say anything of the sort. They knew what I wasn’t saying. Bella herself was crying, her tears falling down onto the mask she still wore. Her mother glanced at her, and looked away without registering anything.

“Get well soon, Milo,” said Mrs. Brookes. “We’ll grill burgers when they release you, okay?”

“I’d love that,” I said. “Right after I get home, I’ll come knock on your door.”

“I look forward to it,” said Mr. Brookes, his voice just slightly too loud, just slightly too deep. “Do you want us to stay here with you, for now?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, I do want to see you again soon, but for now I think I just want to sleep and think about things. Make new plans.”

“Make plans?” he asked.

“Yeah, this illness means I’ve got to change my plans,” I said. “It can’t be helped.”

He nodded. “We’ll be back to visit soon.”

“Thank you.”

“Just call, and we’ll be here in a flash,” added Mrs. Brookes. The Brookes were standing to leave and gathering their coats.

“Wait, Bella. Can I talk to you for a minute?” Her parents stopped on the way to the door. “I’m so sorry, but–”

“We’ll be outside,” said Mr. Brookes. He took his wife’s hand. “C’mon, dear.”

Bella stood there, still slowly crying. There was something I needed to settle with her.

“What are you sick with?” I asked. Not because I didn’t already know, nor because I wanted to make accusations. I just had to start the conversation somehow.

“It’s not important.”

“It’s hanahaki, right?” I asked. She stared and sniffed. Finally, she nodded.

“I didn’t want to say anything, given your own struggles…” she said. “My doctor said I’ve got a normal case of it. It’s not like I’m–” she sniffed again. “I’m so sorry, Milo.”

“It’s okay. On the bright side, now you’re an expert on dealing with that illness.” Now that I knew I was dying, I didn’t want to waste any time. “Is there someone you want to confess to?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking away.

“Bella, you’ve got to ask them while you have the chance.”

“I… it’s stupid, you’ll think it’s incredibly stupid.” If she was attracted to me… well, I would think it was unfortunate, but not stupid. I tilted my head, to encourage her to go on, but she didn’t.

“Try me,” I said.

“I’m sorry, I can’t say it while you’re…”

“I’m dying of sarcoidosis,” I said. “Not hanahaki.” She began to cry harder, and I regretted being so direct about it. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s the hanahaki that’s deadly,” she said.

“Either way, I want to know.” She dropped her hands to the sides and looked at the ceiling, before jerking her gaze back down to meet mine.

“I will explain, but you’ve got to promise not to hold it against me.” I had no idea what that could mean. Maybe it wasn’t me who was causing her hanahaki, after all? The thought that it wasn’t me made me incredibly sad, for some reason. That she might have come to love someone, and not told me anything about it–that I wasn’t close enough to her for that–would be devastating.

But I wanted to know.

“Very well,” I said. “No matter what you say in the next few minutes, I won’t hold it against you.”

“I don’t want to be better, okay? I know how that sounds to you–and I’m sorry–but getting rejected will destroy my feelings. Getting treated instead might leave them intact… so I’m trying to tough it out.”

“Getting over your feelings is the point,” I said. “I mean… your feelings are going to have to resolve themselves somehow.”

“I don’t want that to happen.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Whatever can be destroyed by the truth, should be.”

“You don’t get it. My feelings are true on their own. It’s not–I can handle being rejected, of course I can. I just can’t handle my feelings rearranging themselves automatically…” she wiped at her eyes. “Humans evolved to take rejection well, because they had to… but it’s like dying, you know? To have something you care so much about pulled out of you, not by doctors or whatever, but by…” Her words failed her.

I sort of knew what she was saying. I was familiar with the feeling that my body was doing things without my permission. Long nights at the office where I fell asleep; when I ran out of breath while running; when seeing other people smile meant more to me, than knowing I’d helped people with a donation. Sometimes I felt like me and my body weren’t on the same page.

I felt that way a lot, actually. My body was attacking itself at that very moment, and I had no way to stop it. And she felt that her natural reaction of moving on after being rejected would be the same: an attack that she didn’t want to bear.

“My parents are waiting,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Bella. I need a minute to think.” She pulled at the mask that was on her face. “There are tissues, if you want them.”

Bella took a tissue. She removed her mask, and turned away to cough. If anything came out, she threw it in the trash without letting me see.

I could empathize with Bella. On the other hand, I actually had no idea how she was feeling, at all. She was worried about getting over her feelings, and didn’t mind being sick? Her feelings were trying to protect themselves. They were betraying her. My feelings sometimes betrayed me, true, but they never plead for me to not do the obvious thing and destroy them.

Destroy them. I flexed one of my hands. My body was destroying itself. I wondered if I’d asphyxiated part of my mind, in just the same way. But that wasn’t the question I was trying to answer; I was thinking about Bella.

Maybe other people went around having emotions that would forestall their own defeat, whatever the means. But that wasn’t me. I wasn’t sentimental; if rejection led to me losing an emotion, I should let that emotion go, right?

Even then, while I was dying… I was upset at losing a huge future I had imagined, but I also just felt an overwhelming need to make the most of the time I had left. I felt oddly at peace. As though a work deadline I had agonized over was tomorrow, and I’d already done just about everything I could–now there was some finishing up to do. A presentation to prepare, invites to send. I might die at twenty three, but all that meant was that I got twenty three more years than the vast majority of possible humans.

To make myself sick to preserve a desire for romance that would never even occur, would have been insane. Whether the other person was dying, or uninterested.

To me, my own romantic success ultimately didn’t matter as much as any of my other endeavors. It was like romance was a small, new plant, in a garden full of trees I’d prioritize above all else… mighty trees… except the things I had built up were all withering away. My job, my charity, my volunteering, my health.

And I was still fighting. I would not give up, just because all my endeavors went up in flames. I’d find new endeavors. Before, I thought I would only get a short human life. Now I only had a few months–but I wanted to accomplish something anyway.

The least I could do is help my dear friend.

Bella had dried her tears. I was glad she’d said something to me about her hanahaki. I was grateful. It might be wrong to force the issue, if her preference really was to be sick instead. And yet…

Bella wanted to keep her unrequited love, to save it before the flames started. That just wouldn’t do, I thought, not if she was in love with me.

I wanted to respect her wishes, I really did. But I cared about her too much to not say something here. I was not afraid of the consequences. The Brookes were one of the last things I had left, true, and if I asked Bella out I might ruin my relationship with them. Then I’d have nothing, and my life would be well and truly ruined. But so what?

And I was probably going to die. Really, in the face of that, did I need to be on good terms with my neighbors?

Bella’s health was important to me. Consequences be damned, I’d ask her out, and if I was wrong I could go be miserable, and she could decide what to do about her feelings for this mysterious other person. I might not be able to recover from such a loss. But honestly, I didn’t have much left to lose anyway. And if she was sick for me, well, we’d have it out now. That way my death wouldn’t keep her sick forever.

No, I could feel the note of discord. Deep down I wasn’t motivated for Bella’s sake. I knew that, because this wouldn’t protect her health. She’d lose ten percent of her lung capacity, like everyone else, and move on in a few months anyway. Her health wasn’t actually at stake, but I was still going to force the issue.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Why?

I looked at Bella’s beautiful, crying face, half-hidden by a mask. Her eyes were so dark, and sometimes I felt like I’d never seen inside them, despite all our long conversations.

I fucking knew why.

I knew why I kept wanting to spend time with her, even if someone else was my girlfriend. I knew what I really wanted, what was pushing me to cause her pain right now instead of letting her go hurt herself on her own. I knew what plant I’d put in my garden, when all the others had died.

I was dying, I was selfish. No more time. I had thought about it enough.

“Bella,” I said. She looked up at me. I exhaled, and thought of a way to say it. “I wish I were the person you were sick over.”

“Why would you want such a thing?”

“So I could cure you,” I said, intending to sweep away all the complications. “By dating you, of course. I’d ask you out immediately, and not regret it for a second. Not to get better,” I said, putting out my hand with my palm up. “Just because I’m in love with you.”

“Oh.” She blinked, looking away. “I… well…” She came over to take my hand, and I felt tension leave my body. I’d been right.

“Bella, do you want to go out with me?” She met my eyes, and quickly nodded. “It was me, then.”

“You aren’t… just to make me feel better?”

I laughed at her. “Sorry, sorry. Not at all, Bella. This is entirely selfish of me. It’s to make my life better. If I wanted you to feel better, I’d just go die alone.”

“That’s awful!” she said. She didn’t let go of my hand.

“Sorry, but it’s the truth. I’m asking you out for my own sake, even though I don’t expect it to be easy for you at all.” I sighed. “I am sorry, though. I care about you immensely, of course I do, and I think I probably would sacrifice our relationship for your health–but it wouldn’t accomplish anything, would it? I’d be happy for you to reject me, to test the possibility of you getting better–sorry, this is all coming out wrong–what I really want is the possibility of finding happiness with you.” I edged forward in my bed. “I would pay the cost for a chance at a happy future. Whatever that cost is. However long the future is. I’m sorry I’m causing you pain.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It was you, of course it was you! Who else could it be?” She was starting to cry again. “I thought you might reject me, and the… only person who loved you would stop caring right before you died.”

“Oh.” Maybe I would have deserved that, maybe not. “You wanted to be there for me that badly…”

“Yes. However I could.” She took a sharp breath. “I still want to be there for you. I was so foolish, I thought I’d just recover from hanahaki before I met up with you again.” That explained her distance from me since her fight with Emma. She didn’t want me to know she was sick, but she hadn’t known I was almost out of time. That still left some questions, though.

“Why didn’t you ask me out before Emma and I started dating?” I asked. “I didn’t ask you because… well, I was in denial, but I was also waiting for you to do the obvious thing. We talked about people I might date. You could have easily put yourself there.”

“That’s what I was waiting for you to do,” she said. “You left me off your list… so I thought… I wanted you to be happy, of course. Even if it wasn’t with me.” We had wasted a lot of time dancing around each other. I wasn’t about to waste any more.

“Why don’t we be happy together?”

“Of course,” she said. “Of course, but it’s…” she looked around the hospital room.

“It’s just in time.” I leaned forward in the bed to embrace her, and pulled her back down with me. She ended up lying on the hospital bed next to me. I wasn’t all that strong, anymore, but I could fall down while holding someone.

I held her close. We didn’t say anything for several moments.

“This is nice,” she said. “My parents are still waiting out there, though.”

“I guess,” I replied. “Well, you already know all the ideas I have for dates. You’ll have to pick one, when I get out of here… or maybe we could brainstorm a few more?”

—

In the hospital, with my laptop, I tried to decide how to spend the rest of my life. I did it at night so that nurses would be less likely to interrupt me. I wanted to be able to cry about it, should I feel the need.

My plans were well and truly fucked.

I could technically go back to work if I wanted. I’d spend the rest of my life earning a small amount of money for charity. That plan was doubly foolish; my disability payments gave me freedom to do other things, and any amount I earned would be dwarfed by my own cost to the medical system. Striving toward a career makes the most sense when you will be able to reap the benefits for multiple decades. That was why I had worked my butt off, before; a small raise in pay now, would be a huge increase to lifetime earnings as increases compounded. However, that was only true if you had a long lifetime ahead of you.

Working just wasn’t a good investment anymore. Also, I wanted to spend more time with Bella.

Doing charity work wasn’t a realistic goal for me. Most charity work is manual labor, where the funds to pay actual laborers are lacking; I was too unhealthy for that. I spent a few minutes trying to brainstorm ways I could do mental labor for good, instead. Being a consultant or writer for a non-profit would appeal, but I didn’t have enough time to get in contact with new organizations. The endeavors of charities would take time to understand, time that I didn’t have. I needed things with shorter timescales–like tutoring for free. I wrote it down, but the only person I really wanted to tutor was Bella.

Getting exercise seemed a lot less important, suddenly. I was already in the spiral. On the other hand, I could go on walks with…

The only thing I was certain of, was that I wanted to spend more time with Bella.

What I needed otherwise was a short term way to have an outsized impact. There were a few threads to pull on, regarding that problem. I could try to earn money fast–should I go to a casino, maybe? Rack up debt? I threw out those ideas, because some part of me was still hoping I’d survive. I wouldn’t want to saddle my future self with immense debt.

Most safe ways of making money fast simply didn’t work. Very many people were utilizing them, or attempting to utilize them such as they existed. If I were going to do something extraordinary in a few months, it would result from an extraordinary quality unique to me.

This kind of reasoning was somewhat suspect. “Assume I do something important and unlikely–what explanation is most plausible?” Approaching a problem from the other side might lead to insights, though, so I gave it a shot. Three years from now, whether I survived or not: what would having done something impactful look like?

I still had no idea what to do.

What I ended up doing was browsing old files on my computer and wondering if I’d accidentally wasted my life. I found bits and bobs; dreams I’d decided to write down, earlier versions of the planning spreadsheet, folders with ideas for fiction stories in them.

I found an awful lot of ideas for fiction. I considered it. Sometimes novels went big, and earned a lot of money. Most people wouldn’t stake several months on writing because the chances of success (at least financially) were so slim. It would be better to make career investments. Not for me, though.

Also, writing was one of my few strengths that I could still put to use. It was not exactly a unique strength of mine, but a relatively rare one.

I perused my old novel ideas, and thought about telling them to Bella while we walked along the river. I thought of her reading a book I wrote, after I had died… it might keep her company in my absence, even if it wasn’t a financial success.

Writing a novel would be exciting and new.

The more I thought about it, the more it appealed. I made a new spreadsheet, to decide which of my ideas I might bring into reality before I lost the chance. Once it was complete I sent it to Bella to ask for her thoughts.

My chances of success would go way up with her help, I realized. Two heads are better than one, as they say. As my health declined I’d probably rely on her more and more.

—

The Brookes came to visit a few more times. Bella told her parents that we were dating. They seemed to approve, or at the very least they were willing to tolerate it for several months.

Before I left the hospital, I was informed that the next time I came in would likely be the last. I was extremely unlikely to leave after another surgery, even if I survived it.

Dr. Dominic told me that if I did not come back when my symptoms recurred I would die outside of the hospital, instead. He did not tell me which path to take. He was silent not for utilitarian reasons like saving hospital resources, I was sure, but because he wanted me to make the decision for myself.

It was true that I might live in the hospital for some months. That would require an intense regimen of antifloral medication or immunosuppressants. However, respiratory failure was an inevitable part of my future. I was going to die either way. Some part of me thought that it would be better if I died far away, and the hospital didn’t waste resources trying to save me… but science would learn from my demise, so perhaps the cost was worth it.

I’d better just get as much done before then as I could. That did mean going to the hospital at the right time, to extend my life.

I went ahead and signed up to be an experimental subject for a lung transplant. I was an ideal candidate; young, previously-healthy, and with impending lung failure. It would buy me a few extra months if I were lucky.

I did get some consolation when I learned that my job would owe me an entire year of disability leave, due to my unexpected illness, and that the insurance was on the hook for all of my tests and the standard treatments. Hanahaki wasn't covered, but I was being killed by an autoimmune disorder. I hadn’t quit my job when they’d asked and now they were paying dearly.

“Good. Fuck ‘em,” said Gavin, when I told some of this to him. We were chatting online and playing Bloomcraft one more time, before I quit the game to focus on other things. I hadn’t stated I was going to die. It wasn’t something I felt I could lay on my friend, just yet. “They owe you.”

“Agreed,” I said. “So I’m going to try to make the most of my time off.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I was thinking I’d write a novel.”

“What?” he said. “Really?”

“Why?” asked Anna.

“Because I want to,” I said. “That’s all the justification I need, I think.” There were many reasons I wanted to, but all my complicated thoughts about it were another thing I didn’t think I could just lay on them.

“That’s a bit random. I thought you’d be looking for new jobs, or tutoring, that kind of thing.”

”I mean, I’ve always wanted to write a novel. I enjoy writing, and sometimes I have these ideas that distract me from other endeavors. I’ve got like twenty different novel outlines all sitting on my computer.”

“That’s a lot!” said Gavin.

“But you’ve never written a novel,” said Anna.

“Writing out all the major plot points, and maybe one or two key scenes, is enough to get it out of my head,” I said. I shrugged, which was kind of useless since we were in voice chat. “I think I’ll make one of those novel ideas into a real story while I have the chance, though. The hard part will be choosing which.”

“So you’re what, just going to spend a year writing?” asked Anna.

“I’ll probably tutor a bit too. I can’t devote one hundred percent of my time to any endeavor.” I preferred to have many things going at once, maybe too many, so that I would always be excited to make progress when I switched between them. Having only two things to focus on–Bella and writing–would be a major change of pace for me.

“Your illness is pretty serious, huh,” said Anna. “What did you say it was called?”

“Sarcoidosis,” I said, with some trepidation.

Anna would likely look it up and spill the beans to Gavin. I considered messaging her to cool it, so I could tell him in my own time. On the other hand, I didn’t have much of my own time left. I decided right then to just put it out in the open.

“It’s a very serious illness,” I said. “More than…” It was hard to be open, even now. “More than you might think.”

“How serious are we talking?” asked Gavin. “Like, cancer?”

“In combination with hanahaki, which it exacerbates, probably worse. Only a few dozen people get it per year.” I heard rapid typing from both of their connections. I facepalmed. “I’m really sorry to be so blunt about it, guys, but I’m basically dying.”

I explained to them that I probably had less than a year left, and that I was trying to spend my time as wisely as possible. They were horrified, and asked if there was anything they could do. They made much more vehement promises to help however they could than the first time I’d had hanahaki, but that only made sense. The window of time was closing more than we’d realized.

“Actually, I do have a favor to ask,” I said.

“Anything,” said Gavin.

“We're going to have a barbecue. You should come meet Bella and the Brookes. By the way, I’ve started dating Bella.”

“That’s a mean thing to do,” said Anna. “Especially so soon after Emma.”

“Shut the hell up,“ said Gavin. “Also, a barbeque? Jeeze, you ask for such lofty things!”

“Well, I know that you guys are busy–”

“We’ll be there, man. Of course we will.”