Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
Bex
The water laps on the golden sand, the summer wind warm against my ankles. As the sun sinks behind the horizon, it paints the sky in a soft orange light.
Liam squeals as his brother dunks him under again. The two boys burst back to the surface, laughing, hurling fists at one another playfully.
“Brothers,” I mutter under my breath, and Savannah snorts beside me.
“Sisters aren’t any better.”
We both watch as Rose sneaks up behind her younger brothers, grabs each one from behind by their neck, and throws them face first into the water. The boys flail around as if attacked by a sea monster, as their older sister cackles like a witch.
“Maybe you’re right,” I tell Savannah, who readjusts her sunglasses and puts her nose back in the book she’s reading. But I don’t miss the smile that graces her lips with my praise.
Now, mid-teens, she’s growing up fast and has big plans to follow in her father’s footsteps of becoming an oncologist. She’s determined, clever, and knows she’s more than capable of achieving anything she sets her mind to.
I wish I’d had half her courage as a teenager.
Ben reappears with a tray of brightly colored drinks. He places them down on the small table attached to my lounger and passes one to his oldest daughter, who practically snatches it from his hands.
“Don’t get too excited,” he mutters. “There’s no alcohol. You’re fifteen.”
She rolls her eyes to the sky, and I snicker. Every day, she and her father knock heads about something. And quite often, she has a logical reason as to why she’s right. It makes me chuckle when he backs down.
He passes me a blue concoction. Mine won’t have any alcohol either.
The medication I’m on now means those days are long gone.
It had been hard enough to get my doctor to agree to this trip when Ben surprised us all with a family vacation to Spain.
Back to where I fell in love with him two decades ago.
It was only a month ago that we were told there was little they can do for me. After all the operations, treatments, and medication that’s been pumped into my body these past few years, the cancer is still spreading. I suspect Ben already knew, though he never told me.
I suspected it myself.
When we sat down in the doctor’s office, and he broke the news. It was almost a relief. My fate was sealed. Life shifted from attempting to outrun death to living life until it finds me. We’ve been doing what we want since, and I’ve never been happier.
“Savannah.” Ben’s voice cuts through my thoughts as I take a sip of my drink. “Go play with your brothers and sister.” She groans, and pops her earbuds in, trying to ignore him. He steps forward, leans down, and pulls one back out. “Please. I need a few minutes with Bex.”
Father and daughter stare at one another for a moment, then her face softens, and an understanding flutters between them.
Without another word, she places her phone and earbuds on the lounger, stands, then runs toward her siblings.
Ben and I watch as she splashes each of them, throwing herself into the water.
“I love it when she still acts like a kid,” Ben says, sitting down beside me. I sit up and swing my legs around so we’re shoulder to shoulder. “Time passes so fast.”
He glances at me, then his focus returns to his fingers twisting together on his lap.
“We can’t control nature,” I whisper. “We need to learn to live with it.”
He doesn’t respond, merely clears his throat as if trying to hold back a sound I don’t want to hear. I touch his arm, and his hand lifts, squeezing my fingers.
“I’ve got something for you,” he says, changing the subject away from my unspoken mortality. “Two things actually.”
He reaches into his beach bag, and stowed at the bottom is a clear plastic folder. Inside is a blue book, the word memories scrolled in gold across the front. He hands it to me, and I stare at him for a beat.
“What is it?” I ask, snapping the button locking the flap.
“Open it and you’ll see.”
I pull the book out and flip it open to the first page. A photo of Ben and I as kids at high school at a random school dance. The next page has an image of a school art project I received an award for. Then come prom photos, filled with us and our group of friends.
With each page, my life unfolds. Memories of Ben and me together, then times when we were apart. Liam’s early life, from a baby to the boy he is today, decorates the pages. And the time we’ve all had together these past few years.
“How did you?” I stutter, trying to comprehend how he managed to compile it all. Memory after memory. Some happy, some sad, some bittersweet. But every one important in the patchwork of my life.
“Amy. Kelsey. School friends…” He shrugs. “I wanted you to have something to look back at and see how far you’ve come.”
“It’s beautiful.” Sharp emotion catches in my throat as tears sting my eyes.
It’s not pain exactly, but truth. Truth that we know where we’re headed, and this was something he could do for me.
“Perfect for now, and for Liam—when I’m…
” My words disappear. We both know we’re on borrowed time, but it’s time we’ll cherish until we can’t.
I’m lost in the pages when I realize he’s no longer sitting beside me. When I glance up, Ben is on one knee, ring box open, and a stunning antique diamond ring glints under the summer sun.
“Marry me,” he whispers, his voice thick.
“Ben, I…”
“I bought this for you when I ruined everything. After Spain, the first time, I wanted to ask you. But then it all happened. I messed it up. Do me the honor of making me the happiest man now and being my wife.”
My eyes flick from him to the ring, to the kids playing oblivious in the sea. Well, all except Savannah, who’s watching us, an enormous grin on her face.
“I’m scared that we won’t have any time,” I say, my voice cracking.
“No one has forever, Bex. But we have now. And I’ll take that.” Tears stream down my cheeks, my head nodding, but no words coming out. “Is that a yes?” he prompts.
“Yes.”
He takes my hand, sliding the ring onto my finger. His large hand wraps around my smaller one as he leans in, kissing me softly.
“It looks perfect, like I always knew it would,” he says.
There’s a gaggle of screams and shouts as the children race across the beach, each one grabbing one of us into a hug. The six of us fall onto the sand, wrapped in a tangle of bodies.
“She said yes,” Ben shouts, punching the air, and they all erupt in cheers. When we all sit up, smiles are plastered on faces all round.
“When’s the wedding?” Rose asks. “And do I need to wear a dress? I don’t like pink.”
We all laugh, then I say, “I want to get married as soon as possible.”
And for the first time in a long time, I stop thinking about the end, and start imagining the days still to come.