56. Zoey
56
Zoey
H azel sits in my bed, curled into my side as she tells me about some guy from school who is definitely not good enough for her, but the way she lights up has me wondering if maybe I should bite my tongue just this once. I’m sure she’s been strutting around school with her eyes closed just so she can’t see his blazing red flags, and I hate that I’m not going to be around to teach her this stuff. Not that I really know much about it. I fell in love with the first boy I ever saw, and while he has more than his fair share of red flags, those flags don’t fly around me.
Noah will be there though. Once I’m gone from this world and Hazel is experiencing life at a million miles an hour, he’ll be there to guide her through it. He won’t let her fall. I just wish I could be there as she grows to see the beautiful woman she’ll become.
I picture her falling deeper into makeup and having a glamorous life, maybe becoming a makeup artist for runway shows or a stylist. She loves that stuff, and I hope that whatever she chooses to do with her life, it’s rewarding, and she gets to smile every day.
Hazel gets distracted, and her recap of her latest crush somehow turns into a story about some girl named Molly who’s apparently a nasty, hoity-toity cow simply for also having a crush on the walking red flag. Then just as I go to give her all the advice in the world about the company we keep, a soft knock sounds at the door, and I glance up, finding Mom. “Do you girls feel like going for a drive?” she asks, her gaze lingering on me, her smile brighter than I’ve seen in weeks.
I smile right back at her, making the most of all the time we have left. “Can we get ice cream?”
“OH!” Hazel cheers, scrambling up onto her knees. “Yes! With choc-chips?”
Mom rolls her eyes. “Fine, but we need to sneak,” she says. “I don’t want your dad to know we’re getting ice cream without him.”
“HELL YEAH!” Hazel cheers, throwing herself off my bed and racing to her room to get dressed. It’s been another long day, but after my private prom night with Noah last night, I’ve opted to stay in bed for most of the day, and apparently Hazel classified today as a pajama party for the ages. But she was more than ready to bail on our pajama party the second ice cream was mentioned. I suppose loyalty only goes as far as her stomach.
Mom strides into my room and offers me her hand. “Come on, my sweet girl,” she says. “Let’s get you dressed.”
She helps me out of bed, and the second my feet touch the ground, she places her arm around my waist, taking my weight as we walk, not that there’s much weight left to carry. I’m getting slimmer by the day. I’ve had to borrow Hazel’s shorts because mine keep falling off.
Mom walks me into my closet and picks out a nice dress before helping me into it. “How are you feeling today?”
I shrug my shoulders, not willing to lie to her. “It’s getting harder,” I whisper. “I’m tired.”
“Oh honey,” she says, drawing me into her arms and holding me tight. “I know it is, and as much as it kills me to see you going through this, knowing that I’m going to have to say goodbye, you can celebrate that it’s almost the end because once you reach it, a whole new adventure will be waiting on the other side. There won’t be any more pain. No more doctors and hospital beds. You’ll be free to run. And when my time finally comes, and I see you in heaven, I’m going to run right into your arms and hold you while you tell me all about the grand adventures you’ve been having.”
Tears well in my eyes, and I bury my face into her shoulder. “I’m not ready to say goodbye.”
“We’ll never be ready,” she tells me, her hand gently roaming up and down my back. “Now, what do you say we sneak out of here before your father figures out I’ve kidnapped you?”
“I don’t think it counts as kidnapping when you’re my mom.”
She gives me a wicked smirk. “For today, let’s pretend it does.”
As if on cue, Hazel barges back into my room ready to go, complaining about us taking so long. Apparently, even after three servings of spaghetti and meatballs, she’s so starving she could eat a cow. Only then she mentions that the cow might just be named Molly.
Taking my time down the stairs, we make our way out of the house, and before I know it, I’m buckled into the front of Mom’s car. We start driving toward the creamery and are halfway there when Mom turns to me. “Where’s Noah today? He disappeared this afternoon.”
My gaze lingers on the street, watching the world as we pass. “One of the seniors on his team had a baby this past weekend, so Coach Sanderson is hosting a full team baby-pushing party in the spirit of team bonding. He should be back in the next hour or so.”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” she says. “But tell me Coach Sanderson didn’t actually call it a baby-pushing party?”
I laugh, a smirk pulling at the corner of my lips. “I honestly don’t know,” I tell her. “That’s just what Noah said when he got the message this morning.”
“You know what? I’ve been with your father for over twenty-five years, and I’m still completely baffled by the opposite sex.”
Hazel scoffs from the backseat. “Don’t worry, Mom. I know everything there is to know about them,” she says. “I’ll walk you through it.”
Mom and I both roll our eyes, and the rest of the way to the creamery, we listen to Hazel’s long, drawn-out explanations of how a man’s brain works, and honestly, I think she’s got it down. Maybe I won’t need to worry about her as much as I thought I would.
Choosing the right flavor is the biggest challenge I’ve ever had to face, and considering the two failed rounds of chemotherapy, that’s a strong statement to make. I mean . . . okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. Nothing is worse than chemo, especially that second round. That shit was brutal. Just the thought of it sends chills down my spine.
I end up with a strawberry and white chocolate swirl on a cone, and as we wander back to the car, Mom takes a deep breath, breathing in the warm evening. “Perhaps we should drive down to the lake and eat our ice cream there? Have you ever been there at night?”
I scoff as we reach the car and get back in. “Mom, I’ve not only been there at night, but I’ve been wildly drunk and partying like nobody’s business there at night, and well into the morning, too.”
She gapes at me, her jaw dropping. “You’ve done what?”
I laugh and bat my eyelashes. “You think that’s bad?” I say. “Did I ever tell you about the night Hope and I snuck out and shared a joint? Noah had to carry my ass home. I couldn’t see straight for days.”
“What’s a joint?” Hazel asks from the backseat.
I laugh a little harder, having to clutch my stomach when it starts to hurt.
“Nothing,” Mom says, shaking her head as she pulls out of her parking spot and takes off toward the lake, but I see a glimmer of happiness in her eyes, and despite the reckless things I’m admitting to, I know she’s glad that I’ve had my chance to walk on the wild side, that I haven’t spent these past eighteen years being an overly good girl who never got a chance to really live. But since the second Noah stormed back into my life, he’s made sure that I’ve lived so enormously that it’ll be enough for a million lifetimes, and yet, not nearly enough for just this one.
We pull up at the lake a moment later, driving through the twisty dirt road to get in. Then, instead of having to get out to walk, Mom drives straight past the parking lot and right up to the water. “Should we get out and sit by the water?” Mom asks, despite all of us already finished with our ice cream.
It’s a no-brainer, and we all pile out of the car, tossing our shoes aside so we can stroll right down to the water’s edge. I stand with Mom, her arm around my waist to hold me up as Hazel pulls up her pant legs and walks calf-deep into the water.
As I search for a log to sit on, a throat clears behind us, and the sound is all too familiar. I whip around to find Noah standing a little further down the lake, looking just as sexy as last night. Instead of the black suit he wore to prom, he’s in a gray one, and the top few buttons are undone just the way I like it.
He looks amazing, and as much as it kills me to have to let him go so soon, I hope he’s able to move on and find something incredible with a woman who inspires him to be everything I know he can be. But on the down-low, I hope he doesn’t love her quite as much as he loved me.
A smile pulls at my lips as he walks toward me. “What are you doing here?” I ask as he steps right into my arms, taking my weight from my mom. “How’d you know we were here? No, better yet, why are you in a suit? Was the baby-pushing party that fancy? I thought it was a casual thing.”
Noah just laughs, and as his fingers brush up and down my arm, he leaves a trail of goosebumps everywhere our skin touches. “Walk with me,” he murmurs in that deep tone that makes me believe that nothing bad could ever happen in this dark world.
We make our way a little further down the lake, my feet barely skimming across the water’s edge. “You’re being awfully shady, Noah Ryan,” I say. “Explain yourself.”
“Can’t I just do something nice for my girl?”
I narrow my eyes. He knows how I feel about surprises. I like giving them, love it even, but the whole receiving thing has always been a sore point for me, and over the past few weeks, the surprises just seem to keep rolling in.
He takes me around the bend in the lake, and when I glance up and peer out into the opening, my heart swells bigger than it’s ever been. My eyes instantly fill with unshed tears. “Noah,” I gasp, clinging on to him with everything I am.
Hundreds of long-stemmed red roses have been planted into the ground to form a large semi-circle with dozens of candles scattered among them. Fairy lights hang from the trees above, creating a beautiful canopy over the rose-lined circle below, and if that weren’t enough to take my breath away, the words MARRY ME are written in giant light letters, creating the most stunning backdrop.
I fall into him, my knees going weak. I knew he might try to make some grand gesture over the next few weeks, but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that he’d propose.
My heart has never beat so fast, and as he takes my hand and leads me toward the rose-lined circle, my whole body goes weak, but for the first time in months, it’s not because of the cancer or medications pulsing through my veins.
We enter the semi-circle, and as he leads me right into the middle and turns to face me, I take a quick look around, which is when I see my whole family—Mom and Dad standing in each other’s arms, tears in my mother’s eyes, while my dad . . . God, he’s never looked at me with such pride before. Aunt Maya is here, her arm around Hope’s shoulder, and damn it, I’m going to have to have a word with her about secret keeping, but it can wait because all that matters right now is the man standing before me.
He clutches my hands, his thumbs rolling over my knuckles. “Zo, you’ve been my world since the day I first met you. You’ve been my everything. My bestest friend, my partner in crime, my salvation when the world was closing in on me, and through it all, you’ve been the love of my life. I’m proud that you’ve allowed me to be the man by your side right from the beginning, and you know that I’ll be right here, holding your hand until the end. Getting to see you grow from the scrawny little kid who went mud diving with me into the radiant, incredible woman you are today has been and will always be my greatest honor. And Zo,” he says, pausing a moment. “No words will ever be enough to express just how in love I am with you, and while I know our time is limited, I want to be able to give you everything you’ve always deserved.”
Tears flow from my eyes as I clutch his hands tighter. His words play on repeat in my mind, and my heart has never been so full. “Just having you by my side for the past eighteen years is more than I could have ever asked for, Noah,” I tell him, my voice breaking over the lump in my throat, my lips starting to tremble. “I love you more every day, and getting to walk this life with you has been the greatest gift of all.”
He smiles and leans into me, gently brushing his lips over mine. “Always, Zozo,” he murmurs. “You’ll always be the other half of my soul. Without you, I’m not whole, and while having to learn to walk this earth alone is going to be the hardest thing I’ll ever do, I want to treasure every last moment I have with you.”
With that, he inches back just a bit, putting space between us as he drops to one knee. Releasing one of my hands, he pulls a small velvet box from his pocket. He holds it up toward me, and my hands shake as he opens the lid, revealing a beautiful diamond ring—a diamond ring that I’d recognize anywhere.
I suck in a gasp, my eyes lifting to his. “Is that?”
“The same one I proposed to you with when I was seven,” he confirms.
“But how did you—”
“Your dad found it,” he says, squeezing my hand. “He kept it for you— for us —because even back then, they all knew we’d make it right here.”
“Noah,” I breathe, the tears graduating from a steady flow into a raging river.
“Zo,” he says, his voice shifting, a seriousness wrapping around us and closing us into this beautiful private bubble for this moment I’ve always dreamed about. “You had me wrapped around your little finger from the day I first met you, and every day since has led us right here. I’ve always known that this is the path we would take and that you would be the one I would give myself to, vowing to love you in front of all our friends and family for as long as we both shall live. And I’ve been so lucky and grateful that you’ve opened your world to me and loved me in return, even when I didn’t deserve it. Every piece of me belongs to you, Zoey James, and though we won’t have as much time as we always dreamed of, nothing would make me happier than to be your husband.” He pauses, holding my stare, those dark eyes so full of undeniable, overwhelmingly pure love. “Zoey, will you marry me?”
A wide smile stretches across my face, and I fall right into his open arms, our bodies colliding as tears stream down my face. “Yes,” I whimper. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”
Noah holds me so damn tight as our family cheers for us, and honestly, I’d forgotten they were even there. He crushes his lips to mine, kissing me so tenderly, and even through our kiss, it’s impossible to wipe the smile off my face. I’ve never been so happy.
Over the past few months, I had to come to terms with the fact that marrying Noah Ryan was only ever going to be a dream for me. But the fact that Noah is willing to get down on one knee and ask me to marry him, despite the heartbreak he knows is coming his way, fills me with the most genuine, unadulterated, pure kind of love.
When we finally break apart, Noah takes my hand and slides the ring into place, right where it’s always belonged.
He kisses me again, and with that, we’re swarmed by our family, each one of them crashing into us and wrapping us into their warm arms, not a single dry eye to be seen. Noah doesn’t dare let go of my hand, keeping me right by his side as our family offers us their congratulations.
It’s an incredible night, easily the best one of my life, and as Noah drives me home after all is said and done, I can’t help but smile. His hand lingers on my thigh, the weight of my illness not welcome here tonight. As I gaze at him, his elbow resting against the driver’s door, his fingers carelessly draped over the steering wheel, my heart flutters. Things could not be more perfect.
This incredible man is going to be my husband.
Right from the start he was mine, and now I’m going to walk down the aisle to marry him before he inevitably walks me through to the end, our hearts entwined until the end of time.