Chapter 49
ELIJAH
She's lying back against the pillows, her face paler than I've ever seen it, while I sit at her bedside, one hand brushing her hair, the other clutching hers like it's my only anchor to sanity.
For the past hour, I've been nodding and making all the right faces as Sam tells me everything—how cancer has stalked her since she was eight, how she beat it twice already, and how it's back for round three with a vengeance. Her body isn't responding to treatment. They're talking transplants. National registries.
Medical terms that sound like a foreign language but translate simply to: Sam is dying. And I'm sitting here trying to look strong when my heart is splintering into so many pieces I'll never find them all.
This is Sam. Samantha fucking Westbrook.
My best friend's little sister. The little devil who used to follow me around. The girl who once declared at ten that she would marry me someday, while I laughed it off. The woman who slowly, methodically, deliberately worked her way into every corner of my life until I couldn't imagine a world without her in it.
And now they're telling me there might be a world without her in it?
No. Fuck that.
This is impossible.
We're in 2025, for Christ's sake. Hospitals have robots and shit. There are cures for everything. There has to be something they haven't tried, some treatment they haven't considered. Some miracle waiting in a lab somewhere.
Did you forget what she just said? The voice in my head sounds suspiciously like my dad's—pragmatic, unflinching. Her body isn't responding. The medicine isn't the problem; it's that her cells won't listen. They're rebelling. They're at war with themselves. All the technology in the world can't force her body to accept what it's determined to reject.
I run my thumb across her knuckles, trying to process this reality that feels like someone else's nightmare. I've spent years building walls around myself, promising I wouldn't end up like my old man—destroyed by love and its inevitable loss. Love is just pain with a pretty face. That's what I've always told myself.
And now, now that I've finally let someone in, now that I've fallen so completely that I can't remember who I was before Sam, now I'm told that she's being taken away? That the first real love I've ever allowed myself might be snatched from me before we even get started?
There's a raw, jagged hole opening up inside me—a void expanding with each heartbeat. It's consuming everything: hope, future, sanity. My mind keeps rejecting what it knows is true. Not Sam. Not her. Not when I just figured out that she's everything. My everything.
I bring her hand to my face, press my lips against her skin, then hold her palm against my cheek. My eyes are burning, vision blurring with tears I refuse to let fall.
"Now you understand why I have to push you away..." she says, fresh tears escaping down her cheeks as her voice breaks.
"I honestly don't understand," I tell her, my thumb catching a tear on her cheek.
Sam sniffles and lets out a heavy sigh that seems to come from somewhere deeper than her lungs. "Because I can't bear to make you watch me die, Eli. Because loving someone with an expiration date is the cruelest thing I could do to you."
Her fingers tighten weakly around mine.
"Because I don't want you to waste what could be years of your life on hospital rooms and chemo appointments and emergency visits at three in the morning. Because I've seen what this does to people who love someone like me—it hollows them out until there's nothing left but grief."
"Sam..."
She shakes her head, cutting me off before I can speak.
"I'm trying to protect you," she says softly. "Even if you hate me for it someday."
For a moment I just stare at her, trying to make sense of the logic she thinks is saving me.
"But you didn't stay away three years ago."
Her brows knit together in confusion.
"When the cancer came back," I continue slowly, "You didn't disappear from my life. You still sent me cards. You still sent me messages every single day. You didn't keep your distance then, Sam. Even when you were sick." My gaze locks onto hers. "So what's different now? What's changed between then and now?"
Her eyes close briefly, her long lashes casting delicate shadows on her hollowed cheeks, and when she opens them, they're filled with a resignation that terrifies me.
"The difference is that I didn't expect a third time, Eli. I thought I was done, that after beating it twice, I'd earned my freedom. But this relapse..." She gestures weakly at the hospital room around us, the lights casting a sickly pallor over her already ashen skin.
"This one taught me that this disease is part of me. It's not going away. Even if I get remission again, it'll be waiting, lurking, ready to come back. And each time it does, my chances get worse." Her voice breaks. "I refuse to drag you into a story when I already know the ending. When hope dries up—and it does, Eli, it does when you've been diagnosed again and again—there's nothing left but pain. So the only logical choice I had was to push you away before you fell any deeper. Before it was too late."
I shake my head, a bitter laugh escaping my throat. "Sorry to break it to you, sweetheart... but that ship sailed a long time ago. I'm already hopelessly in love with you."
Sam's face crumples as she presses her palm over her eyes, tears streaming steadily down her face. "Eli, you don't understand. I am sick, very sick. I am dying!" Her voice rises, desperate and raw. "And you're only going to end up in pain if you choose to stay, and I am not going to let you do that."
She looks at me with pleading eyes, wide and glassy with tears, begging me to save myself from the inevitable heartbreak.
My hand reaches for her face, wiping away tears even as my own begin to fall. "Just like your mom said, it's not your decision to make. It's mine."
I hold her gaze, my eyes boring into hers, making sure she hears every word as they fall from my lips with the weight of absolute certainty.
"And what I want is to stay with you."
I take a deep breath. "Look, I know why you think I can't handle this. I've spent years running from pain, from commitment, from anything that could hurt me. But seeing you again, realizing what I feel for you—it changed something in me, Sam. It's like I've been living behind bulletproof glass, safe but unable to feel anything real. You shattered that glass. And yeah, now I can get hurt, but I can also finally breathe."
I reach out, brushing a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, my fingertips trembling against the soft silk at her temple.
"I'm not scared of the pain anymore. But I'm scared of missing a single day I could have had with you. That's the real tragedy—not loving you while I have the chance."
"Eli, you don't get it—"
"No, sweetheart," I whisper, "You're the one who doesn't get it. I love you, and nothing you could tell me will change that. You can try to push me away—" I brush my thumb over her cheek, damp with tears. "— but I' m never letting you go. Not now, not ever. I'd stick to you like bubblegum on the bottom of your shoe. I'd still hold onto you just like you held onto me all those years."
She opens her mouth to argue, but I press a finger gently against her lips. I almost laugh at the cute way she pouts in response.
"I get that there will be a future where you're gone—" My voice chokes on the last word, and something vicious squeezes my chest, like my heart is being wrung out like a dishrag. The mere suggestion of a world without Sam in it sends a physical pain shooting through me that makes it hard to breathe. I suck in a sharp breath, trying to push past it.
"And yeah," I force the words out, each one raspy, " it hurts—too fucking much. But that' s tomorrow's hell. What matters is right this second. This fragile, perfect now. And I want every single moment of it with you."
Sam's shoulders shake. She tries to talk through the tears but can't get the words out. I hold her face, wiping at the wet streaks with my thumbs, not caring that my sleeve is getting soaked. When our foreheads touch, I can feel each uneven breath she takes.
"You don't know what you're signing up for," she whispers, voice small and broken. "The treatment is brutal, Eli. You'll watch me throw up until there's nothing left. You'll see me lose my hair again, lose weight until I hardly look like me. You'll see me in so much pain sometimes that I'll beg for it to end. My mom and Zach—I've seen what it's done to them. The helplessness in their eyes. The exhaustion. I don't want to do that to you too."
"I don' t care," I say fiercely. " I don't care about the pain—I only care about being with you, doing anything for you, even this. I can live with every ache and tear, but I can't live knowing that I was too much of a coward to stand by you when you needed me most. I can't live knowing I missed even one day I could have had with you because I was afraid of getting hurt."
I kiss her forehead, a soft smile ghosting across my lips. "So... do you have any more excuses you want to throw my way? Any other reasons why I should walk away? Because I'd love to shoot them down too, and then maybe I can finally kiss you."
She laughs—wet, hiccupping, but real— and my heart swells. "I don't deserve you," she says, wiping at her eyes.
"No, sweetheart. I'm the one who doesn't deserve you. But I'm afraid you're stuck with me, because letting you go isn't something I'm capable of." I cup her chin and lift it so she can look into my eyes and see that I mean every word I've said.
"I love you," I tell her, the words coming straight from the center of my chest, where my heart beats only for her.
"Please, sweetheart, don't leave me hanging here like some desperate fool. Tell me you still love me too." My voice is teasing, but my eyes are dead serious.
Her gaze warms, and a shy smile flickers on her lips. " I love you too, Eli. I never stopped loving you."
The words wash over me like warm water, a gentle caress to my battered heart. I didn't realize until this moment how desperately I needed to hear those words again, how much I'd missed them.
"Of course you didn't," I murmur. "You've never been the kind to let go once you've given your heart to someone."
I trace her cheek gently, and the instant our eyes connect, my heart starts pounding too fast, the need to kiss her flaring so sharply it's almost impossible to hold back.
"Can I kiss you now?"
Sam hesitates, pursing her lips, looking embarrassed. My gaze drops to her lips, pale and chapped, cracked in places—lips that bear the marks of her illness, of medications and dehydration. But all I see is the same perfect mouth that I've dreamed about for weeks, the lips that tasted like cinnamon frosting the first time I kissed them.
She clamps the back of her hand over her mouth.
"I don't think it's—" Her words cut off when I tug her hand away from her lips, my hand gently cupping her neck as I pull her to me and seal our lips together.
It was supposed to be a gentle, chaste kiss—that was the intention. But the moment our lips touch, it's like striking a match in a room filled with gasoline. What starts as a flicker explodes into a consuming blaze that threatens to burn through my carefully constructed restraint.
Her mouth opens under mine, and I taste the sweetness of her, the vitality that cancer hasn't managed to steal away. Her fingers tangle in my hair, pulling me closer with a strength that surprises me, and something electric races down my spine, lighting up every nerve ending in my body.
I try to fight it, to remember where we are, what she's going through. This isn't the right time. She's sick.
She's in a hospital bed, for God's sake.
But then her hands slide beneath my shirt, her cool fingers tracing patterns on my skin that make it impossible to think straight. Each touch is like a live wire against my flesh, sending jolts of desire through me that make it hard to breathe.
I break the kiss, panting slightly. "Sam, we should slow down."
But she doesn't slow down. Instead, she pulls me closer, her mouth finding my neck, teeth grazing my pulse point in a way that makes my entire body tense with want. Her fingers continue their exploration, dipping below my waistband, and I have to stifle a groan.
"Sweetheart," I murmur against her hair, "I'm trying to be a gentleman here, but you're making that incredibly difficult when you touch me like that."
She looks up at me, and there's a fire in her eyes I haven't seen in a long time. "I don't want you to be a gentleman right now, Eli," she whispers, her voice husky. "I want you to make love to me. I need to feel alive. I need to feel you."
The war inside me is tearing me apart—desire and concern battling for dominance. I want her so badly it hurts, but I'm terrified of causing her pain, of pushing her body too far when it's already fighting such a massive battle.
"I don't think it's a good idea right now," I tell her, my voice strained. "You've been through hell this week. Your body needs rest, not... this. I'm afraid of hurting you."
Sam shakes her head, her hands coming up to frame my face. "This is exactly what I need right now. You are what I need." Her thumbs trace my cheekbones, and her eyes are fierce with determination. "I need to feel you inside me, Eli. I need to remember what it feels like to be wanted, to be whole, to be more than just a patient. Please." The need in her voice is my undoing.
"Fuck," I groan.
Sam's hand tangles in the hem of my hoodie, tugging it up in one fluid motion. The coarse cotton slides over my skin, revealing my torso to her hungry gaze.
I'm still not entirely convinced we should be doing this here, now, but I can't stop kissing her. Her lips are addictive, and each time I pull away, I find myself drawn back like she's gravity and I'm helpless to resist her pull.
"Don't hold back, Eli," she whispers against my mouth. "Don't treat me with kid gloves. I can take it."
My control snaps like a twig under too much pressure, and I surrender to the temptation that is Samantha Westbrook. My kiss becomes hungrier, deeper, claiming her in a way that leaves no doubt about my intentions.
"Promise me if it gets too much, you'll tell me and we'll stop," I manage to say between kisses, my voice rough with need.
A playful smile dances on her lips as her fingers find the drawstring of my sweatpants. " It only ever gets too much when it' s you," she teases. " And that' s precisely how I want to be touched. So you won't be hearing any objections from me."
I let out a low laugh, something fierce and tender at once.
"You know what I meant, sweetheart."
"I know," she says softly, her eyes telling me she understands my concern.
Gently, I rise and move behind her. My fingertips brush the thin fabric of her hospital gown, fingers trembling as they find the ties at her lower back. With slow, reverent care I untie them. The gown parts, revealing her skin, and I have to fight back a sharp inhale.
Her skin is a canvas of purples, yellows, and greens—bruises in various stages of healing covering her once flawless skin.
My fingers trace one particularly dark bruise near her spine, barely touching it. Something inside me cracks at the sight of these marks of her suffering. How did I not notice? How could I have been so wrapped up in my desire that I didn't see how fragile she truly is?
Tears burn behind my eyes, and I hate myself for wanting to take something from her when her body has already given so much.
Sam's skin pebbles under my touch, and she straightens her back slightly. "I know they're ugly," she says quietly, vulnerability in her voice. "I've been covering them with concealer before, but I haven't bothered since they brought me here. If they bother you, I can put my gown back on."
Slowly, I bend down and press my lips to each bruise, one by one, feather-light kisses against her skin. Sam sucks in a breath, her body trembling slightly under my mouth.
"These bruises don't make your body ugly," I tell her, my voice thick with emotion. "Not even a little bit. Your body is as perfect now as it was the first night I saw you bare. More perfect, actually, because now I know the strength it holds, the battles it's fought." I kiss another mark, just below her shoulder blade. "Every mark tells me how hard you've fought to stay alive, to stay here with me. How could I find that anything but beautiful?"
She turns in my arms, eyes shining with tears and something else—desire, love, gratitude—all mixed together. Our mouths find each other again, and I gently lower her back onto the bed, my body covering hers as I support my weight on my forearms. I kiss my way down her neck, to her collarbone, down to her breasts where I linger, worshipping her with my mouth and hands.
"You're so beautiful," I whisper against her skin. "Every inch of you is perfect." I move lower, pressing kisses to her stomach, her hips. "I'm going to love you so thoroughly, sweetheart, that you'll forget everything but the feeling of my mouth on your skin."
Her hands fist in my hair, guiding me where she wants me most. I take my time, using my lips and tongue to bring her pleasure, listening to her quiet moans and feeling her body respond to my touch. Each movement I make is gentle, careful not to press too hard against her bruised skin.
"Is this okay?" I ask, looking up at her flushed face. "Am I hurting you?"
"God, no," she gasps. "You're healing every broken part of me, Eli. Please don't stop."
I want to say something back—something profound, something that will explain how I feel like my entire body is a raw nerve when I'm with her, how every cell in me is aching to be closer, how I want to peel my own skin off if that's what it takes to touch her more intimately—but the words get stuck in my throat, and all I can do is show her. I keep going, letting her pleasure become my obsession.
When she's breathless and writhing, I move back up her body, kissing her deeply as I position myself between her thighs.
"I love you," I whisper, looking into her eyes as I slowly join our bodies. "I love you so much, Sam."
She wraps her legs around my waist, pulling me deeper, and I have to close my eyes against the overwhelming sensation. "I love you too," she breathes. "More than anything."
I move slow, deliberate—reverent. Every thrust feels like an apology for all the years I wasted, every beat of my heart a quiet, desperate promise that I'll make whatever time we have matter.
"Eli..." she moans, her nails raking down my back, and I grit my teeth because I want this to last, want to burn the memory into my bones so it never fades.
"You're everything I've ever wanted, sweetheart." I whisper against her lips, my voice rough with the effort it takes not to break apart. "Everything I never thought I deserved."
She trembles beneath me, and the sound she makes feels like it carves straight through my chest.
"Then take what's yours," she whispers, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. "I've always been yours."
God.
I love this woman so much.
The realization hits me again and again, like waves crashing against a cliff that refuses to crumble.
And yet my heart feels like it's splitting open.
Because the same moment that should feel like the beginning of everything—the beginning of us—has a shadow hanging over it.
Cancer.
The word keeps echoing through my skull like a gunshot that never stops ringing.
This woman beneath me has dismantled every belief I ever had about love. I spent years convincing myself love was a trap—a slow poison that only ends in loss. I watched it destroy people.
But Sam...
Sam walked straight into my life like a hurricane and rewrote every rule.
She taught me that love isn't the absence of pain.
It's choosing someone even when you know the pain will come.
Even when the storm is already on the horizon.
Every movement, every breath, every brush of her skin against mine magnifies everything I feel.
The love. The terror. The unbearable, suffocating fear that the universe might be cruel enough to take her away just when I finally found her.
My emotions feel like a storm trapped inside my ribs—thunder pounding against bone, lightning tearing through my veins.
It's too much.
Too vast.
Like my heart is trying to contain an ocean that refuses to stay inside the shorelines of my body.
"Eli," she gasps, her body tightening around mine, and I feel her release washing over her. The sight of her pleasure pushes me over the edge, and I follow her, burying my face against her neck as ecstasy crashes through me.
For a moment everything goes quiet.
Except the sound of our breathing.
Except the frantic pounding of my heart.
Except the crushing realization that I might lose her soon.
And then, without warning, the dam breaks. Hot tears spill from my eyes onto her skin as my body shudders with silent sobs as everything I've been holding back floods out of me all at once.
I cry for the little girl who's been fighting since she was eight years old.
I cry for the teenager who endured poison and needles and hospital rooms while the rest of the world kept spinning without her.
I cry for the woman who tried to push me away—not because she didn't love me, but because she loved me too much to watch me suffer.
I cry for the future we might not have, for the children we might never meet, for all the mornings and messy kitchens and ordinary years that cancer might steal from us before they even begin.
And I cry for myself.
For the man who finally let himself love someone with his whole heart—only to discover that loving her might mean learning how to survive losing her.
Sam's arms tighten around me, strong and sure despite everything. Her fingers slide gently into my hair at the back of my neck, brushing slowly through it like she's trying to soothe something far deeper than the surface of my skin.
She doesn't tell me to stop crying.
She doesn't tell me everything will be okay.
She just holds me, letting me break apart in her arms, giving me the space to be as vulnerable as she's been with me.
"I've got you," she whispers against my ear, her voice steady and sure. "I'm right here, Eli. I'm right here."
And for this moment, that's enough. She's here, warm and alive in my arms. Tomorrow will bring its own battles, but tonight, I let myself be held by the woman I love even as my heart quietly shatters in my chest.