Chapter 55
SAM
The hospital lights flicker overhead with an artificial brightness that feels, somehow, even more exhausting than the dull days spent waiting at home. I've spent the last six days doing exactly that, counting every second as if the right number might unlock a door to a better universe, one where everything ends up okay.
They called this morning, asked if I could come in as soon as possible, and it's amazing how quickly hope and terror can intertwine in the chest— how for one sharp second, the mere possibility of good news can crowd out months of dread.
Zach drove us to the hospital. Mom sat in the passenger seat while Eli and I were in the back. He spent the whole drive with his thumb pressed into the soft skin between my knuckles, his eyes fixed on the window, the city’s gray monotony reflected in his irises.
They call us back almost immediately, and Dr. Wilcott's office smells like green apples, which I hate. I think she must have read somewhere that kids like fruity scents, that it calms them, but it only makes me want to heave. There are four chairs fanned out in front of her desk, and she gestures for all of us to sit, her smile just a shade too bright.
There's a folder on her desk, bright blue, and I know without looking that it's mine. My name is written on the tab in black marker, all caps, like a warning.
She starts with her usual, "How are you feeling, Sam?"
I want to say, How do you think?
But instead I just stare at her, directly, until she falters and looks down at the folder, flipping it open with practiced fingers.
Mom answers for me, anyway—she always does— "She's been a little more tired this week. The fevers are worse. There are bruises, these ones on her legs that haven't gone away." She lists my symptoms like a grocery receipt, voice trembling at the edges, and I can feel the tension coiling in the back of my throat.
Eli shifts next to me, takes my hand between both of his, squeezing hard enough that my bones creak. Even with the pain, I don't let go. I want to remember what it feels like to be held this tightly.
Dr. Wilcott closes the folder. She sets it down as if it weighs a hundred pounds. I know what's coming before she says it, because I've seen her do this with other patients— the way her lips flatten, the way she draws in a breath and braces herself.
"The results from your biopsy came back. I'm very sorry, Sam, but..." She hesitates, and I want to scream at her to just say it. "The chemotherapy didn't have the effect we hoped for."
My mother's face crumples, entire lifetimes of hope and denial collapsing inward. Zach makes a choked noise, then covers it with a cough, eyes zeroed in on a spot on the carpet. Eli doesn't move, doesn't even flinch, but I feel his hands go ice-cold around mine.
I close my eyes. I have to, because if I look at them I'll see too much. I'll see their pain, their disappointment, their fear, and I can't handle all of that at once.
Eli's hand tightens again, a Morse code of support I am too foggy to decode. I open my eyes, and Dr. Wilcott is still watching me, her eyes soft and wet.
"Where are we with the donor search?" My brother asks, his voice rough.
"We're still actively searching," Dr. Wilcott says. "We're in regular contact with the registry and checking for updates consistently."
Still searching. Still waiting.
My mom lets out a soft, broken sound beside me.
"So what do we do now?" she asks, her voice trembling. "What else can we do?"
No one has an answer for her. No one ever does.
Silence falls, heavy and absolute. It's the kind of quiet that makes you hyperaware of every sound—the hum of the overhead lights, the sniffling from my mother, the distant beep of a monitor from another wing. I focus on the feeling of Eli's hand around mine and count the seconds, willing myself not to cry.
"There are still options," Dr. Wilcott continues gently. "We can consider another round of treatment, or a lower-intensity approach while we continue looking for a donor. But I do want to be honest—it will be harder on Sam's body than what she have already experienced."
I shake my head.
It's subtle, but I know Eli notices because his grip falters for half a second.
The room is so focused on Dr. Wilcott that no one else sees it, so I do it again, sharper this time. "I don't want it."
Everyone looks at me. It's like a record scratch, the way all their heads snap in my direction.
Dr. Wilcott blinks. "Sam—"
"I'm not doing it again," I say, lifting my head this time. My voice trembles, but I don't let it fall apart. "I can't."
"Angel..."
"I'm done with the chemo. I'm done with the hospital." The words taste like metal, but I force myself to say them, to make them real.
I fix my eyes on my doctor, "You said it yourself. You said it's not working. So why would I want to go through that again when the end result is just the same?"
Mom's face dissolves. She makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob, hands shaking as she covers her mouth. "Honey, please, don't—" But there's nothing else to say.
She just keeps repeating my name, like maybe if she says it enough times she can anchor me to this world.
Zach crouches next to Mom, wraps both arms tightly around her as she cries into his shoulder. I've never seen him cry before, but now tears are running down his face, tracing the same lines mine have worn a hundred times.
God, it hurts doing this to my family. My chest feels hollowed out, scraped raw. I can't lift my head to look at Mom, whose sobs sound like she's being torn apart from the inside.
But I'm so tired.
I've been fighting this for so long, and there's nothing left in me to give. Even if I agree to another round... I know where it leads. More pain. More time in this hospital. And in the end—the same outcome.
I'd rather spend whatever time I have left with them. Outside of this place. Not hooked up to machines, not waiting for the next thing to go wrong.
I've accepted my fate long ago.
I just kept fighting... for them.
And now I can't anymore.
My gaze finally lifts—to Mom, to Zach. My eyes plead with them to understand, even if I know they won't.
Mom lets out a broken wail, and Zach pulls her into him, holding her tight as she collapses against him.
I look at Eli.
His eyes are shining, that deep green glassy with tears he's trying so hard not to let fall. But I know I am breaking his heart right at this moment.
"I'm sorry..." My voice cracks, and the tears finally spill over. "I know I promised I wouldn't give up, but... I can't do it anymore."
His hands come up to cup my face, warm and steady, his thumbs brushing over my tear-streaked cheeks.
I lower my head as a broken sound slips out of me. "I'm so... so sorry."
For a second, he doesn't say anything.
And I think—this is it.
This is where I lose him.
But then Eli lifts my face, forcing me to look at him.
He smiles—a fragile thing that doesn't reach his eyes, just a trembling curve of lips that threatens to collapse under the weight of everything he's holding back. It feels like watching hope die in slow motion.
And it hurts more than anything else in this room.
His hand tightens around mine.
"I.... understand," he says quietly.
And somehow—that makes it harder to breathe than anything Dr. Wilcott said.
*****
ELIJAH
I carve another figure eight into the ice, the scrape of my skates echoing in the empty rink. The Zamboni's been out twice already, smoothing away the evidence of my relentless circuits, but I keep going. My lungs burn. My thighs scream. My feet are probably bleeding inside my skates.
Good. The physical pain is almost a relief compared to the hollowness spreading through my chest like black ice, cracking deeper with every breath I take.
My teammates cleared out ages ago. Most of them, anyway. A few still linger on the bench behind the glass, their concerned murmurs just audible enough to irritate me but not clear enough to make out actual words.
I don't need their concern. I need the ice. I need the burn. I need to keep moving because if I stop, everything else starts.
The puck slaps against my stick as I drag it through another turn, the impact reverberating up my forearms. My muscles have that liquid-concrete feeling—heavy and burning and somehow still functioning. I wind up for another slapshot, my whole body coiling like a spring before I release. The puck flies, a black blur that smashes into the empty net with a satisfying thwack that echoes off the high ceiling.
I can't remember a single word from the last hour, but the conversation in the doctor's office replays in my head in a neverending, high-def loop. The moment Dr. Wilcott told us Sam's chemo didn't work. Again. The way it crushed whatever hope we had left.
And Sam... refusing to go through another round.
I understand her decision. I do.
Two rounds of aggressive chemo that left her so sick she couldn't keep water down, that took her hair, that turned her into a ghost of herself—and for what? For the cancer to mock the treatment, to keep spreading, to keep taking more and more pieces of her. She doesn't have the strength for another round. She's right to refuse. I know she's right.
But knowing she's right and accepting what it means are two different things.
I slam another puck into the net. And another. My arms are trembling now, but I don't stop. I can't stop. Because stopping means thinking, and thinking means feeling, and feeling means acknowledging that I'm going to lose her. That I'm already losing her. That there's an invisible timer counting down, and I don't know what number we're on, only that it's running out.
I never expected the weight of this pain. I knew it was coming—we both did—but knowing a tsunami is heading your way doesn't prepare you for the moment it crashes over you, ripping away everything you thought was solid.
"Elijah!" A voice cuts through my internal roar. "Stop, man—you're gonna end up killing yourself at this rate!"
It's Zach.
I don't look at him, just bank hard and cut another tight turn in the opposite direction. My skates dig into the ice, carving white trails that mirror the scars I wish I could leave somewhere, anywhere, to mark what's happening. To make it visible. To make it matter to the universe that doesn't seem to give a shit that my girlfriend is dying.
"I mean it, Elijah! Enough!"
I hear him, but I keep skating. Another lap. Another shot. The puck misses this time, clanging off the post with a hollow ring that sounds too much like finality. I chase it down, my breath coming in ragged gasps now. My vision blurs at the edges, either from exhaustion or tears—I can't tell anymore.
When my legs finally give out, it's not a decision but a surrender. I skate shakily to the exit, stumbling slightly as my skate guards hit the rubber matting. The walk to the locker room feels endless. My gear is soaked through with sweat, my jersey clinging to my back like a second skin. I feel hollowed out, a shell of myself, but the pain I was trying to outskate is still there, patient and unyielding.
Zach's already in the locker room, sitting on the bench in front of his locker. His eyes track me as I drop heavily onto the bench beside him.
I stare at my locker, a deep scowl etching itself into my face. My chest heaves with exertion, each breath a labor. My fist clenches and unclenches at my side. I want to punch something—the innocent metal of my locker seems like a good target.
I want to dent it, destroy it, make it reflect just a fraction of what's tearing through me. But my arms are leaden. My body spent.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The only sound is my ragged breathing and the distant hum of the building's ventilation system.
"I get it," Zach finally says, his voice low and rough. "The anger. Wanting to break shit. Feeling like the world just handed you the most colossal 'fuck you' imaginable." He pauses, rubbing a hand across his jaw. "I spent all last night putting my fist through drywall. Got three holes in my room to show for it."
I don't respond, just keep staring straight ahead, but I'm listening.
"You know what's the most fucked up part?" he continues. "It's that there's no one to be mad at. Cancer isn't a person you can fight. It's not some asshole you can square up against. It's just... this thing. This invisible fucking thing taking my little sister piece by piece, and all I can do is watch."
My jaw tightens. "She's refusing treatment," I say, the words feeling like glass in my throat.
"Yeah," Zach sighs. "She is."
"Did you try to talk her out of it?"
"Of course I did. My mom did too. But you've met Sam, right?" A ghost of a smile touches his lips. "Once she decides something..."
"She's the most stubborn person I've ever met," I finish for him.
"Look, man," Zach shifts to face me more directly. "I know what you're doing out there. Pushing yourself until everything hurts so much that maybe, for just a second, you can forget about the real pain. But that's not gonna work. Trust me, I've tried."
I finally turn to look at him. His eyes are red-rimmed, dark circles beneath them like bruises.
"So what am I supposed to do?" The question comes out more desperate than I intend. "Just accept it? Just sit around waiting for her to—" I can't finish the sentence.
"No," he says firmly. "You be there for her. You make whatever time she has left mean something. You don't waste a single fucking second feeling sorry for yourself when she's the one going through this."
"You think that's what I'm doing? Feeling sorry for myself?"
"I think you're scared out of your mind. I think you're angry. I think you're heartbroken. And I think you're allowed to feel all of that." Zach's voice softens. "But what you were doing out there, pushing yourself until you collapse? That's not helping anybody, especially not Sam. You think she wants to spend her last weeks watching you destroy yourself?"
The truth in his words makes something crack inside me. My fist flies forward, connecting with the metal locker with a hollow clang. Pain explodes through my hand, but it's distant, secondary.
"Fuck!" The word tears from my throat, raw and agonized. And then the dam breaks.
I cover my face with my hands, my shoulders shaking as sobs wrack my body. Zach's arm comes around my shoulders, solid and steadying. Through my own ragged breathing, I hear his quiet sniffles.
"I can't believe there's nothing else we can do," I choke out between sobs. "Nothing. It's so fucking helpless. What kind of world is this where she gets cancer at twenty? Where she has to make a choice between being poisoned or dying faster?" I wipe roughly at my face. "And I'm sitting here falling apart when she's the one who's actually facing it. I'm such a fucking mess."
"Hey," Zach squeezes my shoulder. "Don't do that. Don't compare suffering. This isn't a competition. She's allowed to be scared. You're allowed to be devastated. I'm allowed to put holes in my walls." He takes a shuddering breath. "We're all just trying to get through this the best we can."
I nod, unable to form words for a moment. The locker room is quiet around us, just the sound of our breathing and the occasional drip from the showers. I flex my hand, already swelling from the impact with the locker.
"Should probably get some ice for that," Zach notes.
A laugh bubbles up unexpectedly, slightly hysterical. "Pretty sure I've had enough ice for one day."
He snorts. "Fair point."
As my breathing steadies, a thought forms, crystallizing out of the chaos of my emotions. "I want to do something for her," I say, more to myself than to Zach. "Something good. Something special. Before she..." I shake my head, still unable to say the words outright. "I want to give her something to look forward to. Perhaps, make one of her dreams come true."
Zach looks at me for a long moment, and then a knowing smile spreads slowly across his face. "My sister only has one dream," he says. "And you already know what it is."
I stare at him, puzzled at first. Then understanding dawns, warm and certain. A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.
"To marry... me," I whisper.
Ever since she was ten years old, Sam has talked about marrying me. Not just a childish fantasy, but with the absolute certainty that only Sam could have.
For the first time in hours—maybe days—I feel something other than despair. It's small, fragile, but unmistakable. Hope. Not for a miracle cure, but for a different kind of miracle. The miracle of making whatever time she has left matter.
"I'm gonna need your help," I tell him, determination settling into my bones. "And probably the guys, too."
"You got it." He holds out his fist. "For Sam."
I bump his fist with mine, wincing slightly at the pain from my bruised knuckles. "For Sam."
As we sit there in the quiet locker room, the impossible weight I've been carrying doesn't disappear. It's still there, heavy and awful. But somehow, planning this one perfect thing makes it feel like maybe I can bear it. Not easily. Not without breaking. But bear it nonetheless.
Because Sam would do the same for me. Because loving someone means carrying their dreams when they get too tired to hold them. Because sometimes, when you can't change the ending, the only thing left is to make the story as beautiful as possible while it lasts.