Raven
The house is quiet when we step inside, as if even the walls have begun to understand that something has changed.
Sam moves ahead of me without saying anything.
I stand just inside the doorway for a moment and watch him reach for the cabinet, pull a pan from the stove, and open the refrigerator with the same calm focus he brings to everything.
There’s something unbearable about how normal he makes it look.
How he keeps life intact, all while I feel everything shifting beneath us.
It’s not a dramatic shift. I’m not stumbling or reaching for walls to hold me up.
I’m not falling apart in some cinematic way.
It’s smaller and more humiliating in a way.
It’s there in the half-second hesitation before each step.
In the way my body seems to renegotiate with me before agreeing to do what I ask of it.
“Sit,” Sam says, not looking at me yet as he sets the pan down on the stove. “I’ve got this.”
“I can help.”
He glances over, his eyes full of tenderness. “You can sit and rest,” he says.
On any other day I’d argue with him, but today I don’t have the energy for it. So, I do the only thing I can. I pull out one of the chairs at the kitchen table and carefully lower myself into it.
Sam moves around the kitchen quietly. Watching him doing something so domestic has always been one of my favorite things to do.
The familiarity of it should comfort me, and in some ways it does, but the other part of me is too busy riding the waves of nausea and trying too hard to ignore the heaviness behind my eyes from the strange depth of this new exhaustion.
I rest my hands in my lap and stare at the grain of the table.
This is what frightens me the most. It’s not the diagnosis itself. The terror from that shock has already come and settled.
This is different.
It’s the knowing and experiencing of what’s always been ordinary parts of life, afternoons in the garage and making meals together, that my body now struggles to keep up with.
Sam sets a plate in front of me a few minutes later, scrambled eggs with cheese and toast, one of my favorites, something I’ve eaten a hundred times without thinking, something that shouldn’t feel impossible now.
“Try a little,” he coaxes gently.
My eyes find his. I don't say anything. I don't have to.
It matters to him.
And maybe it matters to me, too.
Because eating dinner shouldn't feel like something I have to fight for. Because I want there to be ordinary things I can still do, even if they're getting harder.
I wrap my fingers around the fork and take the first bite. It goes down easily enough. Perhaps this afternoon was nothing more than an off moment, and I’m already on the other side of it.
The second bite takes more effort.
By the third, nausea bubbles low in my stomach, and I have to force myself not to react to it. To not set the fork down too quickly or close my eyes or let any of this show on my face.
I keep my eyes on the plate. I chew. I swallow. I tell myself to keep going.
Across from me, Sam says nothing. That almost makes it harder.
If he pushed, if he questioned, if he watched me with too much of that careful attention he’s been giving me lately, maybe I could deflect it.
I could get irritated and call him bossy and turn this into something playful and familiar.
But he doesn’t do that. He leans against the counter with his arms folded loosely across his chest and lets me have the silence.
I take another bite, smaller this time, and almost immediately regret it.
The food’s delicious, comforting, but my body’s decided it doesn’t want it there.
There’s something maddening about the distance between the two realities.
Between knowing I should eat and being able to eat are no longer the same thing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sam move. He doesn’t say anything. Just pushes off the counter and crosses the kitchen. By the time I set my fork down, he’s at the table. A small white pill appears beside my plate.
“You don’t have to force it,” Sam says quietly.
The gentleness in his voice makes something tighten in my throat.
“I’m not forcing it.”
The lie sits between us for a second, but he doesn’t call me on it. I hate him a little for that. I love him more for it.
Before I can think too hard about it, I reach for the pill and swallow it down with a sip of water, pretending it’s nothing. Telling myself it doesn’t mean anything. Like this disease hasn’t invaded my body and made itself real in a way I can no longer ignore.
I manage two more small bites before I know I can’t do another one without losing whatever fragile control I still have over my stomach. I set the fork down carefully, trying to make it look like a choice instead of a surrender, and lean back in the chair with what I hope passes for calm.
“I’m just not that hungry,” I say.
Sam watches me for a long moment, and in his face I can see the effort it takes him not to say all the things we’re both trying not to say right now.
“Okay,” he says finally
That one word nearly undoes me.
I nod and slide the plate a few inches away from me, just enough not to have to keep looking at it. The kitchen feels too warm, the smell of the food too overpowering.
Slowly, I push up from my chair, silently begging my body to cooperate with me. For a second, everything shifts. Not enough to knock me off balance, but enough that I need to take a few deep breaths as I wait for the floor to feel solid beneath my feet.
“I’m going outside for a minute,” I say.
Sam straightens from the counter immediately, and I hate that too, hate what my body’s teaching him to look for.
“I’m fine,” I add before he can say anything.
His eyes search my face, and I can almost hear the argument, but he decides not to make it.
“I’ll come with you,” he says instead.
A small smile catches weakly at my mouth. “I’d like that.”
He follows me out onto the porch, his hand settling briefly at my back as the door swings shut behind us.
We move toward the porch swing without saying anything, settling side by side, the wood shifting softly beneath us as it takes our weight.
The early evening air is cool against my skin, and for a moment I do nothing but sit there and breathe, drawing it in slowly, willing it to settle the nausea, the dizziness, the strange heaviness pressing through my limbs.
I press my hand lightly to my stomach and close my eyes. This is what I was not prepared for.
Not the pain or the fear. Not even dying, if I’m honest. Those things have all had names for a while now, and named things are easier to face than unnamed ones.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the way the disease would creep in and begin taking pieces of me in ordinary moments. The way a plate of food would become a battlefield. A walk across the kitchen would feel like a marathon.
I rest my head against his shoulder, and his arm comes around me, pulling me closer. His hand settles warm and steady against my arm as the swing moves softly beneath us.
For a minute, I let myself stay there, tucked into him, listening to the quiet creak of the wood and the steady rhythm of his breathing, letting it ground me in a way nothing else can.
But the space between what I can do and what I can’t is getting narrower.
I can feel it now, not as something distant or theoretical, but here, invading each moment.
Beside me, Sam doesn’t move. He just holds me like this is something he can fix by holding me tight enough.
My throat tightens, and I blink against it, forcing the tears back before they can fall, pressing my face into his shoulder so he won’t see as the reality of our lives hits me with a clarity so sharp it almost feels cruel that this is only the beginning of what he’s going to have to watch.
Not just today.
Not just this moment.
All of it.
Every step.
Every piece.
Neither of us is ready for how much harder this is going to get. That thought lands somewhere deep and immovable.
It’s not fear. Not for me.
For him.
Because I won’t be the one left here when it’s over.
He will.
The question comes before I can stop it.
What is it going to do to him?
Not the diagnosis or the way my body’s changing.
This.
The man I’m leaving behind.
I blink hard against the burn behind my eyes and keep my head where it is, tucked against his shoulder, letting the steady rise and fall of his breathing anchor me.
Sam’s arm tightens slightly around me.
I don’t move. I just stay here with him, letting the quiet settle around us, holding myself together the way I know I’m going to have to from now on.
And even as I do, I can feel it beginning to take shape. The choices I’m going to make, the things I’ll put into place before any of this gets worse.
I will not leave Sam alone when I leave.
Not if I can help it.