When I Was Theirs

16. Emmy

16

Emmy

T he sheets beside me are cold. Untouched.

Jerking upright, I listen for the familiar sound before stumbling out of bed.

Ben glances up at me. His skin is pasty, plastered with sweat as he shivers against my toilet before he leans down to retch again.

I run the washcloth under the tap, rinsing it until it’s cool and pressing it to his neck. Ben groans, deep in his throat as I run my hand down his back. He reaches for my hand, tangling it in his. “Em.”

“Ben Ben,” I whisper.

He barely cracks a smile. His eyes skitter down, away from me. “Will you… will you get me some fresh pants?”

His face is flushed with shame.

“Of course,” I say quietly. My heart squeezes as he curls up. “I’ll be back.”

My hand shakes as I reach for a clean pair of sweatpants. Just for a moment, I grip them. I don’t move.

I just… breathe.

You never signed up for casual.

“Here we go.” I keep my voice light, but quiet as I walk back into the bathroom. “Let’s get you changed.”

“I can do it.” It’s almost a plea. “Just… help me up?”

He’s terrifyingly light under my grip, but it still takes us a few minutes to find his balance. Ben shakes his head when I move around him to help. “Please. I… just give me a minute.”

I nod. “I’ll make some coffee.”

Three weeks.

That’s all I can think when I hear him in the doorway. Three weeks for us to get from that to this. I keep my back to him for a second, concentrating a little too hard on adding the half sugar to his decaf coffee.

“Come for a walk with me, Emmy Marsters.” His voice is gruff.

My eyes feel wet. “It’s the middle of the night.”

And you’re tired, Ben. You’re so tired.

“You and I have the best conversations in the middle of the night.”

His fingers close over mine, gently placing the bag of sugar down on the counter. And then they link together, before he draws me away. “Come on. A few minutes won’t hurt.”

It’s getting colder. I bundle Ben into the jacket I bought last week, shoving a navy beanie over his head before I let him coax me out of the front door.

The night is quiet. There’s nobody around to disturb us as we walk down, in the direction of the pier.

Fresh, salty air sweeps over our faces, sending tendrils of hair dancing around my head as we reach the railings at the end. I step forward, wrapping my hands around the cold metal.

In front of us, the sea spreads out further than we can see, endless inky depths.

“Beautiful,” Ben says roughly.

I lean back into the warmth of him as he wraps his arms around me and props his head on top of mine. “I know. Those stars are huge.”

“Are they? I wasn’t looking at those.”

I half-laugh. “Sweet-talker.”

“Only for you,” he whispers. “Always for you.”

We watch the night sky for a few minutes.

“You need help, Em.”

It takes a moment for the words to filter through, and then I’m shaking my head. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” He kisses the top of my head. “None of this is fine. And you can’t do it on your own.”

“I can,” I insist. My throat feels thick. “I promised you I could do it. I meant it.”

I promised him I was strong enough.

I have to be strong enough.

“You are ,” he whispers raggedly. “Fucking hell, Emmy. You think I don’t see everything you’re doing? What it’s doing to you? You quit your job —,”

“They're on hold,” I correct him. My voice shakes as I say it. “It’s not forever.”

But going back means that he won’t be here.

“I don’t want this to destroy you too,” he says heavily. “That’s what it does, Em. This thing inside my head… it’s a poison. It spreads out to the people around me, and it hurts them. And that’s what I can’t cope with.”

I swallow. “I found a new trial.”

He tenses against me. “No.”

“Just listen,” I try. Beg. “It’s a new drug. They might be able to shrink it – to give you more time—,”

“I don’t want more time.”

The words sink into the night.

I blink, still staring out across the water.

Ben buries his face in my hair. “Not like this. Not when every waking moment is a battle against my own body. When I first found out… I wanted to fight it, Em. And then the days turned into weeks, and months. And nothing changed. I don’t want to go through that again. I’m getting tired, baby.”

“But it might be different this time.”

“No,” he says gently. And his arms tighten. “No, it won’t, Emmy. It’ll only steal the time I have left. I’m too far down this road now. And I want to spend that time with you.”

Tears on my cheeks. “It’s not fair. We deserve a life, Ben. You deserve a life.”

We should have had years. Years to learn each other. To love each other.

And all we get is weeks.

The fucking unfairness of it makes me want to scream out into the ocean.

“No,” he says roughly. “It’s not. The night we met… I knew, then. I would have married you, Emmy Marsters. In a heartbeat. And we would have traveled the world together, and eventually found a place to settle down.”

I can’t breathe. I can’t speak. So I listen, as Ben Bennett weaves the story of our life into the air around us. The life we should be looking forward to, instead of grieving over.

“I would have found a job.” Ben clears his throat as he runs his fingers through my hair and I lean against him, staring sightlessly out over the water. “Maybe carpentry. I always liked building stuff. And you would have your own flower shop. After a few years, maybe we’d have kids. A little girl that looks like you. Maybe a boy that looks like me. And we would have been happy , Em. So fucking happy. I would have spent my entire life waking up every morning with you beside me, and it would have been a life well spent.”

I’m gripping onto his hands. “Ben…,”

“No,” he says fiercely. “Just… just listen. Because you’re still going to have all of that, even though I’m not going to be there to see it. You are the most important thing in my life, Emmy Marsters. But I want to be a footnote in yours. I want to be the guy you met on the way to your happy ever after. This is my ending, but it isn’t yours. You’re going to pick yourself up when this is over , and you’re going to be happy . Promise me you’ll do that.”

I only shake my head.

“Promise me.” His lips brush the side of my hair. My neck. “Promise me that you’ll love the little moments, Emmy.”

“Stop,” I force out. Turning away from the sea, I grab his face in mine. “Stop it.”

My heart pounds inside my chest. Because his words… They sound so final .

As if he’s saying goodbye.

And he’s crying. There are tears on his face, tears I taste as I slam our mouths together to stop him saying these things.

But he murmurs them against my lips instead, in between desperate kisses.

“I love you, Emilia Marsters. And there is not enough time in this world for me to show you just how fucking much.”

We still have time.

There is still time—

Lips on my cheek, tasting my tears. “I’m going to leave this world so fucking happy, Em. Happy that I met a girl at a bar like any other guy, and fell in love with her. But I need you to promise me that this won’t consume you when I’m gone.”

I can’t.

I can’t promise him that.

Because loving Benjamin Bennett feels all-consuming. As if nothing else matters.

As if losing him will be the thing that breaks me.

“Do the trial,” I whisper. “Please, Ben. Please .”

He sighs. “There’s no money, Em—,”

“I have money,” I interrupt. “Enough for this.”

Or I can get it. All it would take is one phone call, and a piece of my soul. But it would be worth it.

But he’s shaking his head. “And there is no time.”

He strokes my cheek, before he sighs. “Just… love me, Em. I don’t need anything else. But we’re calling the hospice nurse, so you can have some breathing space.”

I drop my head to his chest, then. “And Jared?”

He stiffens at the mention of his brother, as he always does. “Not yet.”

I straighten. “Not yet?”

Not a no . But a not yet .

Ben shakes his head. His arms are heavier around me now, and he doesn’t argue when I slip one around my shoulders and begin walking us back. “I… I fucked up, Em. I was so scared.”

“He’ll forgive you.” I glance up at his face. “But you need to call him.”

Slowly, he nods. “Maybe I will.”

His steps get heavier as we make our way up to my apartment. His knuckles are white against the railing as he pulls himself up slowly, one step at a time.

“Do you have any paper? And envelopes?” he asks, as we walk back in.

I dig around in several drawers before coming up with a lined pad, and some small envelopes. “Here.”

“Thank you.” He grabs my hand as I pass them to him on the couch, pressing his lips to my palm. “Go on to bed. Get some sleep.”

“What about you?” I grab the blanket from the back of the couch, drawing it around his shoulders. “You need to rest.”

Ben half-smiles up at me. “Plenty of time for that.”

I linger in the middle of the room, my fingers twisting together. “You’ll call if you need me, right?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I’ll call you.”