65. Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Five
Elowen Briar
One Last Thing
The world slips in and out of focus, like a candle fighting a wind it can’t outlive.
Each breath drags through me with the slow ache of failure.
My body feels pinned by something colder than exhaustion.
Even the rise of my chest demands more strength than I’ve got left.
Shadows stretch across the ceiling, long and trembling.
They sway as if they’re alive, though I can’t tell if it’s the light or if my vision is beginning to break.
The room looks unfamiliar, as if I’m watching it from underwater.
This is the end for me. I’m really about to die.
My limbs are useless. My vision is blurry.
My brain is a jigsaw puzzle with several missing pieces.
The truth settles quietly, without panic, without drama.
A soft, merciless certainty. I should’ve known.
Since when have diseases ever been one to bargain?
They wait in silence, patient and cruel, until the moment they decide to claim what is theirs.
My body feels heavy enough to sink straight through the mattress.
My heartbeat flutters, uneven, smaller each time it tries to rise.
My throat has been burning since I opened my eyes, desperate for me to just let go and cry it out.
Even a whisper feels like a battle I’m losing.
Still, I force out the only name that can hear me, “Imani. Come here.” It doesn’t take much strength to yell out for her, but it leaves me gasping just the same.
Her footsteps reach me before her face does.
Then she leans over me, framed by lamplight, her expression soft enough to steady the shaking inside me.
I’m tearing her apart and I’m not even meaning to.
How could I do this to her? Why can’t I just agree to stay?
“I’m here, sweet girl,” she says. Her fingers brush my forehead, cool against the inferno that roars beneath my skin eating away at all of my nerves. The touch almost makes the long-awaited cry break through.
I swallow, my tongue dry like sand. “Write something for me. I need you to…write a letter for me.” Her eyes widen in realization.
Fear flickers there, raw and bright, before she can hide it.
For a moment she looks like she might refuse, like she can’t bear to help me prepare for what comes next.
“Please, Imani,” I whisper. The words break, begging to turn into a plea for help.
Her hand finds mine. I can’t feel the weight or the warmth from her touch, but her presence wraps around me like a blanket I wish I could hold on to forever.
“Okay,” she says. Her voice cracks. “My sweet Ella, I will.” Relief washes over me.
It doesn’t make breathing easier, but it softens the terror clawing at my ribs.
She reaches for the notebook on the dresser.
The pen slides free from the spine. Such ordinary objects.
Yet they may be the last ounce of proof that I ever existed, the last echo of what I feel.
She sits beside me with a posture so gentle it breaks something in my chest. The lamplight touches her curls, turning them gold around the edges.
I close my eyes for a moment and gather my thoughts, though they scatter like frightened birds.
The faint scratch of her pen begins. The steady rhythm carries me through the rising panic inside my lungs.
Each stroke sounds like a promise that I’m not alone in this room, not drifting away unseen.
I think of Beau. His steadiness. His impossible tenderness.
His danger. His devotion and drive. Even when I feared him.
Even when I tried to push him away. Even when running nearly destroyed me.
He fills spaces inside me that I didn’t know were hollow.
He takes root without asking, and part of me always knew to let him.
Without explanation, maybe we are meant to be.
Maybe, we were meant to be. God, this is cruel.
My breath stutters again. I open my eyes and see her watching me, waiting, ready to catch any word I drop from my lips.
Her eyes shine with unshed tears. Grief pulls at the corners of her mouth.
“I’ll do right by you, Elowen,” she whispers.
“Never worry. I’ll do whatever your heart desires and I will be right here. I’ll do right by you, I swear.”
A sob rises in my chest before I can stop it.
She leans forward and presses her forehead to mine.
We break, together. Our tears mix. Our breaths shake in the same rhythm.
She clings to me because letting go feels too much like death right here between us.
This feels like a final act. Because it is.
Every time I close my eyes, it could be the last time.
It’s funny how that works. Waiting to die your whole life, but the second it becomes more real you question every attempt to leave this world.
Dying by your own hands is one thing. Dying from a medical condition, that’s another.
But if this letter is the last gift I have, then it’ll be enough. My letter to Beau. My tears for Imani because no phrase could ever fathom the love I carry for her.
I whisper the last thing I can manage. “Thank you.”
Imani’s hand covers mine, trembling, unflinching, and devoted.
“Rest now, please” she murmurs. “I’ll be back with your medicine shortly.
I promise, I will take care of everything.
” The pen begins to scratch once more. She lets me take a glance at it and I nod in approval as she folds it into the envelope.
She gets up and kisses me on the forehead before she leaves.
I’m sorry, Beau. I’m so sorry.