He Kept It from Me
“No,” I said, shaking my head, like I could undo it by refusing to accept it.
Jake’s eyes filled and overflowed, and I realized I had never actually seen him cry before.
“I found out a few months ago,” he said.
“I didn’t want to tell you until I knew more, and then more kept coming, and it was worse, and I kept thinking, if I tell her now she will leave, and I can’t lose you too.”
I stared at him, my mind flashing back through cancelled dates, the nights he said he was working late, the sudden weight loss I had blamed on stress.
“You were going alone. To appointments, to tests, to all of this.”
He nodded, wiping his nose with the heel of his hand.
“I wanted you to feel happy about the wedding,” he said.
“I wanted today to be pure, just one day where you weren’t worried about something crashing down.”
“You waited until after you married me to tell me you might die,” I said, and there was more hurt in my voice than I wanted.
He flinched like I’d hit him, but he didn’t look away.
“I was selfish,” he said. “I know that. I just kept thinking, if I tell her before, she’ll run, and I won’t even get to know what it feels like to stand at the altar with her, or dance our first dance, or hear her say my last name.”
Something inside me cracked open then, some old wound that had never healed right after Ryan.
“Do you really think I’m that weak?” I asked. “That I’m the kind of person who only signs up for the easy parts?”
He shook his head frantically.
“No,” he said. “I think you’re the strongest person I know. That’s why I’m so scared of breaking you.”
For a minute, we just sat there, jaws clenched, breathing in sync, the papers lying between us like a land mine.
I don’t know how long it was before I moved.
I slid off the bed and onto the floor and crawled the few feet between us and climbed into his lap like a child.
He held me so tight it almost hurt.
My tears soaked his shirt; his tears soaked my hair.
“You idiot,” I whispered into his chest. “You absolute idiot.”
He let out a shaky laugh.
“Fair,” he said. “Do you hate me?”
I pulled back and grabbed his face in my hands.
“No,” I said.
“I am so angry at you, but I don’t hate you.”
“I love you, and I’m terrified, and I wish you had told me sooner, but I’m here.”
I pressed my forehead to his.
“Do you understand,” I asked, “that you don’t get to decide for me what I’m capable of staying for?”
He nodded against me, shoulders shaking.
“I don’t want to die,” he said, and the words came out so raw I felt them in my bones.
“I know,” I answered. “But if you do, I’m not going to let you do it alone.”
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