“You need to know the truth,” she said, her voice shaking.
I should have walked away.
Instead, I followed her.
She drove me in silence to a quiet suburb I didn’t recognize. The houses were modest, tidy, almost too peaceful.
We stopped in front of a small beige house with a ramp leading to the door.
My heart began pounding.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of antiseptic and lavender.
And then I saw him.
Mark.
He looked ten years older.
His once-athletic frame was thinner, his face drawn. And he was sitting in a wheelchair.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
He looked up at me slowly.
“Hi,” he said, his voice softer, weaker—but unmistakably his.
Elise stepped outside, giving us space.
I stood there, frozen between anger and shock.
“What happened to you?” I finally whispered.
He exhaled carefully.
“On the morning of our wedding,” he began, “I got a call from my doctor.”
He told me about a routine scan he’d done months earlier. Something precautionary. Something neither of us had worried about.
The results came back that morning.
Aggressive. Terminal. Less than a year to live.
Treatment would be grueling. Progressive weakness. Around-the-clock care.
“I knew you,” he said, meeting my eyes. “If we got married, you would never leave my side. You would spend your twenties watching me fade away.”
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