Chapter 50
Nate slept through the entire evening and well into the next morning.
I stayed awake to monitor his breathing and pulse all night.
He was feverish around dawn, so I gently woke him to take some Tylenol.
He tried to refuse, but I wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer.
When he finally agreed to take the Tylenol, he could hardly swallow it.
Still, he gave me that sweet smile, thanked me, and went back to sleep. His heartbreaking moans, as he fights his pain in his sleep, tear me apart. I just want to make him comfortable. I want to make him feel safe, the way he always has for me.
He filtered in and out of consciousness for most of the afternoon. He was able to keep down some stew, but not without complaining about the earthy taste. It’s the most I’ve been able to get him to eat, so I am hoping that’s a good sign.
He let me wash him up a little, enjoying the warm cloth as I cleaned his body. He made some very inappropriate comments the lower I got, which means he has to be getting better. He is going to pull himself out of this, and by next week we will be laughing about the whole ordeal.
He tries to be so strong for me when he’s awake.
He makes jokes, kisses my hands as they feather over his face.
He even asked me to play a round of ‘Go Fish,’ a game we found in a child’s suitcase months ago.
He enjoyed that game often over the last several months, even though I always win.
He tried so hard to stay awake, but he fell asleep after playing for about ten minutes.
When he woke up an hour later, he swore I knocked him out on purpose so that I could cheat.
I roll my eyes and smile at the memory. He’s still my Nate. He’s just really, really sick right now. But he will be okay. He has to be. I’m not in denial. I’m just rejecting the norm. We have never done things the conventional way.
Our love isn’t ordinary.
We don’t fit into the realm of predictability.
Which means Nate won’t succumb to something as trivial as a blood infection.
But we wouldn’t be true soulmates if life came easy for us.
We’ve made it through every trial and tribulation we’ve been presented so far. We will make it through this one too.
I leave our shelter late in the afternoon. Nate fell asleep a while ago, and he will likely sleep the whole time I am away. I head down the familiar paths in search of anything that can help eliminate the bacteria Nate’s body is trying to fight off.
Hours pass and I come no closer to finding any sort of medicinal plant that can fix what’s been broken.
A damn plant isn’t the solution! I need antibiotics.
I need saline. I need a fucking hospital!
My earlier resolution starts to fade as a bleak sense of hopelessness sinks into the pit of my stomach.
He’s septic. There is no denying it. His blood is riddled with deadly bacteria with no way to stop it. It’s destroying his organs and attacking his tissue, and pretty soon every part of him is going to start failing. His kidneys, his heart, his brain—all gone.
The thought strikes terror into my heart. My confidence is deteriorating into nothing but fear. I am in denial. I deny everything I know about sepsis. I pretend I’m ignorant as to where this is headed, because I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to admit that I’m losing him.
Life wouldn’t be that cruel. I have to believe that. Not after everything we’ve already been through. We deserve our happy ending. We deserve to live the rest of our lives loving each other.
“After everything you put us through. Everything we’ve suffered!
” I yell toward the sky, talking to God, to fate, to whoever the fuck is in control of our destiny.
“Don’t do this,” I plead. “Don’t do this to us.
I promise, I’ll love him forever. We’ll take care of each other forever.
Just please…” I cry out, gasping for air as I begin to hyperventilate.
“Please don’t take him from me. We passed.
We passed all of your tests. We beat the odds.
We found our way back to each other. You can’t do this to us.
” My words are garbled as I bawl in earnest. My nose is so stuffed, I have to take in breaths through my mouth.
I’m tempted to just let myself run out of air. To chicken out and escape the pain I know is coming.
But I won’t leave Nate.
I won’t give up.
I gather myself, once again motivated to find some kind of miracle treatment.
Maybe his body will be able to fight it.
He is moving around more. Eating more. That feels like the opposite of getting worse.
But just in case his body can’t fight it, I will find something to take the poison from his blood.
Even if I have to suck it out myself. Because the alternative will destroy me.
It should have been me.
That damn cat was gunning for me. Why did he have to push me out of the way? Why did it have to be him? I’d rather die a million times over than have to watch him leave me. The thought alone is enough to bring me to my knees in agony.
I take a deep breath and venture off the paths we’d cleared all those months ago. I will do anything to keep Nate with me. Is it selfish or selfless, I don’t know. All I know is that our souls are tethered together in a way that can’t be undone, and I’m not ready to say goodbye to us.
We jump together.
With renewed purpose, I continue my search deeper in the jungle. Regions we’ve never been, stretches that aren’t safe to search. It doesn’t matter what danger lies ahead. I won’t give up on him, just like he didn’t give up on us.
I make it back to camp as the sun is setting.
Even with the faint light from the fire, I can see how pale Nate is.
He visibly shivers as he struggles to turn to his side, closer to the warmth of the flames.
He hasn’t heard me return yet. The heightened senses we’ve gained here are already abandoning him in his feverish state.
“Nate, baby. I’m here. Let me help,” I whisper, careful so that he doesn’t hear the fear in my voice. I need to stay strong for him. If I stay strong, he will be strong. If he stays strong, his body will fight this. I can’t… I can’t think of any other outcome.
I refuse to.
Nate’s eyes connect with mine, and even through sickness I can see all of his love reflected in them.
“God you’re beautiful,” he says with that half smirk that melts my heart. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I whisper, but my face remains stoic. I can’t find joy in anything right now. Not even our banter.
He lifts the blanket, inviting me over. I walk across the shelter, our home, and crawl into bed beside the man I love.
The man who’s dying right before my eyes.
I let those words float around in my head for several minutes before finally letting them in. Finally admitting the truth.
Nate won’t survive this.
My piercing sob echoes between the stone walls. I can’t control it anymore. My body shakes with the force of them. Deafening, thunderous sobs pour out of me as the love of my life holds me in his arms. In arms that will never hold me again.
He’s dying.
His cracked lips caress my forehead, trying to bring me comfort.
Lips that will never kiss me again.
I can’t. I can’t do this. It hurts so bad. The truth flays me wide open, leaving nothing but grief in its wake.
“You shouldn’t have been on that plane,” I whisper, my voice hitching at the end. I wish more than anything that we could turn back time.
He cups my face with more strength than he should have left.
“If I had a choice, I would get on that plane every goddamn time. One thousand times over, Pip.” He breathes heavily through his words, as if he’s not getting enough air in his lungs.
“I would do it again and again just to end up right here with you on this island. Our island.” His voice is weak, but his words are strong.
“Even though this is the very worst thing I would have wished for you, these were the happiest months of my entire life. I will never regret getting on that plane, because that would mean regretting you.” His breaths stutter between words, his struggle to speak becoming more apparent.
He’s talking to me like he knows he’s dying. My shoulders shake as my cries pick up again. That’s the most I’ve heard him speak in days, but his words are full of goodbye.
I’m not ready. I’m not ready to say goodbye.
God, I’m going to miss the sound of his voice. His touch. His heart and soul. His love. I can’t do this. I can’t survive without him. I don’t want to… I don’t want to do it.
“Look at me, baby,” he wheezes, “I would choose this time with you, no matter,” wheeze, “how short it is,” wheeze, “over an entire lifetime without you. Every single,” gasp, “time. Because now I get to leave this world knowing what it feels like to be loved by you. I promise you…I’m one lucky bastard.
” His voice is weak as he struggles to breathe, but his message is clear.
“Please don’t leave me,” I plead, my voice thick with tears.
“I don’t want to, baby.” His sad eyes show me the truth of that declaration. He would never want to leave me behind, but he knows he is going to.
“Promise me you won’t leave.”
His eyes mist, and he looks at me with so much pain, so much sorrow. He wants to promise me. He wants to give me anything I want. But this is beyond his control.
“You know I can’t do that.”
“I can’t live without you, Nate. I don’t want to even try!” I cry out, the thought more brutal than anything I’ve ever suffered.
“You have to, baby. You have to keep living, keep lighting that bonfire,” wheeze, “you have to get off this island and live the life we were supposed to live together. Promise me.”
“I can’t.” I gasp. “I can’t do that. I can’t make that promise.”
It’s a promise I denied him when we were teenagers. A promise I never thought he would ask of me in our real lives. A promise I still won’t grant.
He looks at me for several seconds, nodding when he sees the resolution in my eyes.
“If you can’t stay for you…stay for me.” A tear trickles down his cheek as he utters the same words I spoke to him nearly nine years ago. The words he spoke to me when asking me to come with him on this trip. To give our love another chance.
I take his face between my hands and lean forward, kissing his once-soft lips. I burrow my head into his shoulder and avoid giving him the acknowledgement he needs from me.
I’ve never lied to Nate. I’m not going to start now.
“I don’t want to say goodbye.”
“Then…let’s not say…goodbye,” he stutters, winded and gasping for air. “Let’s just say…goodnight. I’ll be waiting…for you…no matter how long it takes.”
He gathers me in his arms, and I hear the quiet hum of a song I’ve grown to love. He’s too weak to sing it, having used all of his energy on our conversation, but he tries to comfort me with it anyway.
It’s okay. This time it’s my turn to comfort him. I pull back and look into his eyes. He gives me a small smile, his exhaustion evident. I run my fingers down his cheeks, nose, head, and he nuzzles against them as I caress him tenderly.
Then I begin to sing through my tears.
“Wise men say…”