15
I see them outside, drinking beers and talking like old friends.
I pause at the crosswalk, admiring the two of them while trying not to realize how odd it is that they are together, that
Ben is drinking again, and that I am about to join them for a meal. I plaster on a smile and approach their table.
“I hear condoms are in order,” I deadpan as I take a seat next to Ben.
Liam doesn’t skip a beat. “We’re actually headed to City Hall right after this.” He takes Ben’s hand. “We’re not going to
hide our love.”
He pats Ben’s hand affectionately, then wraps his long fingers around the neck of a beer bottle. “So, now that you’re here,
Harper, we were just talking about the way you two met at an obstacle race. But I’d love to know how Ben popped the big question.”
His eyes probe mine and then swing over to Ben. Ben and I look at each other and burst out laughing. “Who wants to tell it?”
I ask.
“By all means.” Ben sits back and motions to me.
I extend my arms and roll my neck around as if I’m gearing up for a fight. This is one of my favorite stories, and it takes me a moment to remember who I’m telling it to.
“Well, this must be good,” Liam says good-naturedly.
“Oh, it is.” We wait until I’ve ordered some food of my own, and then I launch right in. “So, Ben had to attend the Oscars
about six months after we met.”
“Such an underachiever,” Liam teases.
“I aim low,” Ben says as he takes a sip of water.
“I was so excited,” I continue. “I’d grown up watching the Oscars like everyone else, but I never thought I’d actually get
to attend.” I glance at him. “Naturally, he won, so we were forced to go to the after-party.”
“Naturally.” Liam sits forward. “You didn’t want to go, man?”
Ben shrugs. “Not my scene. But I made an exception.”
“He means once he found out his crush, Natalie Portman, was going to be there, he was all in.”
“And once you found out Ryan Gosling was going to be there?”
“I almost changed my mind,” I say. “About what I had planned next.”
Liam looks between us, confused. “What do you mean?”
“So we’re sitting there, schmoozing with Hollywood elite, and we move onto the dance floor when ‘Hallelujah’ by Jeff Buckley
comes on, which I had requested the DJ play,” I explain. “Everyone was confused why a slow song was playing at an upbeat party.”
I smile, remembering. “Right there, in front of all these A-list celebs, I dropped down to one knee, which was not easy in
my gown, by the way, and asked Ben to marry me.”
“Wait, you asked him ?” Liam slaps the table. “Please tell me someone recorded it.”
I roll my eyes. “It made the news, in fact.” I look at Liam. “If you’d done any digging, you would have found it.”
He laughs. “Oh, well, I’m totally going to now.” His eyes linger on mine before floating back to Ben.
If the situation were reversed, would I want to watch Liam propose to someone else?
“I was blown away by the gesture,” Ben says, bringing me back to the moment. “I had no idea she was going to do that, but
then I figured she was just trying to beat me to the punch.”
I laugh. “In fact, he had planned on proposing to me a week later, but I did beat him to it. Just like I beat him during that
race the first day we met.”
Ben lightly pokes my shoulder. “Not everything is a competition.” His eyes twinkle.
“Oh, yes, it is.” I tap my beer to his and sit back, enjoying this easy banter and the sun on my face. I haven’t thought of
that day in so long, or what it meant to both of us.
“We’ve come a long way since the days of our Hollywood lives,” I say. I reach over and grip Ben’s hand. He threads his fingers
through mine.
“We have.”
I lose myself to the moment but am acutely aware of Liam taking it all in. He clears his throat and mimes writing something
down on a notepad. “And the cutest couple award goes to...”
“You two?” I quip.
Liam laughs and then glances at Ben, the easy smile slipping from his face. “Hey, man. You okay?”
Ben places his hands on the table and breathes deeply.
I gently touch his back. “Are you going to be sick?”
He shakes his head, and I rub soothing circles over his shirt, then dip my napkin in ice water and drape it over the back of his neck. I fish peppermint oil from my bag and dab a drop into his water, which he greedily sips. The whole ordeal lasts a minute or two before Ben opens his eyes and sucks deep, slow breaths.
“Sorry about that.”
Liam looks worriedly between us but tries to lighten the mood. “Does the idea of our love make you sick?”
Ben offers a weak laugh but doesn’t respond.
“Nausea comes and goes,” I explain to Liam. “Sometimes it’s tied to food, sometimes not. At this stage, anything can cause
abdominal bloating, backaches, and even swelling in the arms and legs.” I want to ask Ben how much they did today, if he needs
to go home and rest. But as the days pass, I know he wants to spend less and less time in our condo and more time out in the
world, which I can’t argue with.
Liam searches for what to say, but I fill the gaps instead by asking how the day went. Ben excuses himself to the bathroom,
and Liam senses the shift in mood.
“It’s just like that sometimes,” I offer by way of explanation. “One minute he feels great, and the next he doesn’t.”
Liam shakes his head and takes a sip of his beer. “It’s strange. All day I kept thinking, ‘This guy is going to make it. The
doctors got it wrong.’”
I nod. “Trust me, I know. I think that all the time, actually. Like it’s not real, or a miracle can happen. But he’s really
sick, Liam. He’s just great at hiding it.”
He stares into the distance thoughtfully. “I’m sure not doing chemo or taking all those drugs at this point probably makes
him feel slightly better, though, yeah?”
I nod. “Much better. We know from endless research that infection from treatment is often what kills people, not necessarily the cancer.”
“You’re right.” He swallows painfully, and I lean in.
“Your mom.”
He smiles and leans back. “Yep.” Ben has shared that Liam has covered a lot of stories about alternative therapies for people
who are terminal, just like his mom. Suddenly it dawns on me why he might have wanted to take this job.
“You’re not trying to convince Ben to seek alternative treatment, are you? Because at this stage, it’s really too late.”
I can tell Liam is contemplating what to say. “It’s never too late,” he says. “And yes, I did float an idea by him, but it’s
obviously up to Ben. I wrote a big story a while back about this advanced neuroscience workshop. I literally saw miracles
happen with people who were terminal, Harper.” He snaps his fingers. “Suddenly, just like that, they were completely healed
by harnessing their own minds in meditation to create a new sense of reality, a new environment of internal health.”
My mind spins rapidly. What, so Ben is just going to “think” his cancer away? I want to scream that it doesn’t work like that.
I know Liam means well, but he doesn’t understand that any sort of false hope is a lifeline I’m not sure we have the energy
to cling to. I can’t get my hopes up. Ben can’t get his hopes up. “Liam, I know you have good intentions, but we’re both finally
coming to terms with the inevitable. I’m not sure now is the time to shake things up.”
“Now is all there is,” he says quietly.
We sit in silence for a few moments until he changes tactics. “Look, I’ve obviously gotten to know Ben a bit, but I’d love
to hear more about him from your perspective. What makes Ben, Ben.”
I search for what to say because I can say so much. Glad for the change in subject, I think about all the little details that compose Ben. For instance, even at his sickest, he never gets out of bed without spooning me first and planting kisses on my cheeks, eyelids, and neck. I decide to keep that little nugget for myself and instead share how he used to go on a run every morning and take at least ten dollars with him to give to the unhoused man on the corner. Often, he’d take that same man for coffee and breakfast and ask him questions about his life because no one else did. I share how much he loves his work, that music has been the guiding compass of his life, just as art was once mine.
I tell Liam how Ben never complains when his work is interrupted but instead calmly stops and pivots to the new task at hand.
I share how his biggest fear is being attacked by bats and one of his deepest regrets is not going on a camping trip with
his dad when he turned thirteen because he felt too “cool” for camping, and then his father died in a terrible car accident
a week later. I share how he always leaves the last of the coffee for me, how he opens doors for the elderly and engages animatedly
with children, even if he will never become a dad himself.
I tell Liam how his positive attitude through cancer has never wavered beyond the initial shock and inevitable disbelief;
it’s why all the nurses and doctors loved him so much, and why, when he told them he was finally done with treatment, they
respected his wishes and let him go.
I know Liam will paint the picture of Ben well. Before I can say more, Ben returns and offers a pained smile.
“Are you okay?” I attempt to clear the emotion from my voice.
“I am, but I think I might have had enough for today.”
Liam gestures the server over. “Let’s get the check. In fact, why don’t you two go on ahead and I’ll pay?”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s on the Times . Trust me, it’s fine.”
“Well, in that case, another round,” Ben says weakly.
We tell Liam goodbye, and I loop my arm through Ben’s. “How was the day other than that?”
He sighs as we stop on the corner. He turns to me, tears in his eyes. “Harp, I’m so tired of these ups and downs. I get to
a point where I feel so good that I forget I’m dying, and then other moments my body takes over, and I just... I just want
the pain to stop.” A few tears slip down his cheeks, and I smear them away as emotion racks my chest.
“I know.” Even as I try to reassure him, I know that I don’t know. Not really. I can’t tell him that it will all be better, because the only way the pain will stop is if he stops breathing.
He sighs and looks at me. “I have to tell you something.”
My heart skips a beat as I look at him. “Anything.”
We cross the street as the light turns green. “I just signed up for a Dr.Joe Dispenza workshop.”
I don’t ask him to elaborate, as I know who Dr.Joe Dispenza is. Wren loves him. But then something dawns on me. “Is this
Liam’s idea or yours?”
He looks at me sheepishly. “Both, actually.” When Ben first looked into alternative treatments, he read most of Dr.Dispenza’s
books and contemplated signing up for one of the workshops, but his doctors convinced him it was much too late for that.
“When is it?”
“The day after tomorrow. In Georgia. Less than an hour by car.”
“Georgia?” I think of the road trip, the germs, the exhaustion, the travel. “What about the article?” Liam is supposed to be here for an entire week.
“Liam’s already got a lot of what he needs from me, and your interviews are next anyway. I thought he could finish up with
you while I’m gone.” He takes my hand and stops on the sidewalk. “I need to do this, Harp. Please.”
He doesn’t know how dangerous the words he’s just uttered are. He can’t leave me here with Liam. He can’t leave, period . I calculate how to talk him out of this. “How did you even get in at the last minute?”
“Liam knows Joe. He made a call.”
I sigh, annoyed. Of course he did. In his line of work, Liam probably knows everyone. After what he told me about his alternative
therapy research, this makes sense. We both know what Ben’s not saying: it’s his last chance. These workshops are famous for
curing the incurable. When an opportunity like this comes around, you jump. You take it. You go all in. I’m not sure my heart
can take this sudden swerve back toward hope, however. And yet Liam’s words burrow back into my heart: “Now is all there is.”
“How long is it?”
“Just seven days.”
I sigh. “Can I drive you there at least?”
He scans my face and rubs his thumb gently over my cheek. “Like I said, Harp, I need to do this alone. I need to focus on
healing my body without any distractions. Plus, you know, the article.”
I don’t care about the article, and he knows it. The sounds of the city balloon around us as I try to wrap my head around what he’s telling me. All of my fears run in rampant circles on a relentless loop. What if something happens and I’m not there? What if he gets an infection? What if he needs me?
As if reading my thoughts, he sighs. “You’ve got to stop worrying about me, Harper. Worrying does nothing, as we both know.
It doesn’t make me better, and it doesn’t keep me safe.”
“Worrying has become my full-time job, though,” I retort. “I’ve become abnormally good at it.”
We continue walking, and I notice his shortness of breath, the way his stomach protrudes just slightly, bloated and tight.
“You’ve already made up your mind about this, then?”
“I have.” He stops again, cups my face in his hands, and kisses me deeply. My insides stir, mourning a life we haven’t yet
lived. “Do you trust me?”
I don’t even have to think about the answer. “I do.” I tap him playfully on the butt, but inside, my nerves are frayed. “Let’s
get you healed.”