You couldn’t make sense of your dreams anymore. Fleeting images and memories were unperceivable as they weaved senselessly through your sleeping mind. You couldn’t remember the last time they were logical. It felt as though your brain was struggling wildly in helplessness, unable to process the losing battle from within.

Your eyes fluttered open faintly, and although you were awake, the white room about you resonated with a discomforting and ethereal quality. The routine you had been used to was transformed, the last month a muddled blur of pills and tests, of visitors and confusion. A familiar face smiled at you as you turned your tired head. Sliding his hand to the back of your neck, your boyfriend cautiously lifted you to a seated position. Cupping your palm, he handed a number of pills to you and offered you water from the drinking glass you had grown to despise. The oxygen tanks maintained their relentless hum, giving your every breath a ghost-like quality. You sighed, reminiscing over better health and better days.

When you were first becoming ill, your boyfriend took you everywhere you had wanted to go, taking your mind off the pain of initial treatment and nagging doubts. For a while, you felt unbreakable, your disease carving hardly a mark on the rhythm of your daily life. As time progressed, you became weaker and frail, deteriorating until you were unable to so much as breathe without help from a machine. You resented the wires and tubes, yearning to escape despite your fragility.

Your boyfriend brushed your bangs carefully from your eyes. When was the last time you had been able to have a haircut? You smiled with sarcastic displeasure. You couldn’t even remember the last time you had left the room.

Every time you looked into his eyes, you saw a disconcerting mirror of yourself. Heavy circles were etched ruthlessly beneath his once bright features, taking on the aged expression of an elderly man with the weight of millions on his shoulders. His plastered smile was fake and heartbroken; morphing to a shadowed form every time he thought you had turned away. Despite your feeble protests, he hadn’t left your side in weeks. It was an unmentioned fact that he had taken an indefinite hiatus from promoting with his group, bringing his career to a temporary cessation until you were healed. Healed, you thought, or gone. You hadn’t considered the possibility of death. Life seemed temporary as you witnessed others in the same hospital fade from the world in which we are born. You feared not the act of passing, but for the fates of those who you might leave behind. Such contemplations were unpleasant to process, and you pushed them away to focus on more preferable subjects.

Hours passed with a blurry haze, nurses and friends stopping by periodically. Your boyfriend never shifted from his position at your side, speaking softly as you made an effort to converse. A doctor came in and gestured for him to follow. He did so, taking a moment to kiss your forehead before standing up.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you always.” This ceremony of seven words had become your ritual every time he left the room. It reassured you that he would be at your side, and you had the nagging feeling that it reassured him his last words to you might be ones of love. The door opened, and you saw a genuine smile on his face.

“He said you can go outside! You’re looking a little more stable, and I can take you outside.” He repeated the words silently, as though repetition would double the effects. You watched quietly in anticipation as you were helped into a wheelchair, tubes removed, adjusted, or repositioned to make the ride comfortable. Your boyfriend dragged a hairbrush gently over your head, smoothing every lock with care and attention. He looped a fabric mask over your mouth and nose, and made sure everything you needed was perfectly in place. He kissed the top of your head lightly and began to push you towards the elevator.

Once you were in the car, you rested your back against the familiar passenger seat. A few errant raindrops began to fall from the sky, and your boyfriend sighed in dissatisfaction.

“Damn. I was hoping the weather would be nice for you today…” He looked over with an apologetic glance, and was surprised by the elated expression on your face. You rolled down the window, reaching your hands carefully out. Raindrops landed lightly on your fragile fingers, pooling into tiny beads of moisture as nearly identical ones formed in your eyes. You had forgotten the feeling of rain, the feeling of the cool wind whipping your hair as the car drove quickly down the road.

You spent only a few minutes in the car before reaching your destination. It was no secret that you couldn’t be far from the hospital. Both of you knew subconsciously that any sign of healing could turn drastically opposite at any moment. Nevertheless, you were overjoyed with the opportunity to escape the painfully white room. You clapped your hands gently in excitement as he helped you into the wheelchair once again; rolling you down the familiar path of a park you once loved.

Your smile never faded as you took in all that you could see, your mind savoring the much-needed change. People stared at you as you rolled by, trying to ignore your obviously diminishing health. You took no notice, too busy appreciating the view of the outdoors.

All day your boyfriend took you around, pulling you close so you could brush your fingertips along pretty fabrics at the store and carrying you carefully when you wanted to go someplace your wheelchair could not. When you returned to the park in which the car was parked, the sun was just beginning to set behind the indistinct blur of distant trees. A gingery glow gleamed brightly over every surface, highlighting the often-absent sparkles in your boyfriend’s eyes. His hand was settled gently on your head, back your hair in a rhythmic motion. As the fluid drop of light finally fell behind the mountain, nebulous speckles of stars began to appear as though a heavenly force was sprinkling them about with care.  

Your boyfriend continued to your hair, clearly entangled in deep thought. Neither of you knew how many more sunsets you would be around to see. There could be a lifetime remaining, there could be only one. He had no way to determine the number you were set to witness, but he knew one thing with unyielding certainty:

He would be by your side for every single one.