“What if he doesn’t wake up, Stan?” Meryl asked, speaking the words everyone seemed so quick to say.

“He’s going to wake up,” I interjected.

Beck’s parents looked up in surprise, not realizing I could hear them.

“Of course he will,” Stanley said quietly.

“Why would you even suggest that he wouldn’t?” I asked angrily.

Meryl wiped tears from her face. “This is the second time he’s been in here. Like this. How much more can his poor body take?” she cried.

“He’s going to wake up! He wouldn’t leave us. He’s going to fight to come back. Don’t you know Beckett at all?”

“Corin, I know you care about our son and we’re so glad you’re here with him—”

“I love Beckett.” I pressed my hand over my heart. “I love him. And I’m going to sit here and wait for him to wake up. I won’t give up on him. Not ever.”

Meryl smiled at me. A look of genuine affection on her face replacing the sorrow for just a moment. “He’s lucky to have you fighting for him, Corin. I know that when he wakes up, yours is the face he’s going to want to see.”

Beckett’s mother came over and sat down beside me and together we held her son’s hand, leaning on each other for support. Loving the man with the tubes down his throat and machines monitoring his fragile, fragile heart.

Waiting for a miracle we prayed would come.

—

“It’s been four days, Cor. You need a shower. You’re starting to gross everyone out. And that’s saying something considering we’re in a hospital.” Tamsin handed me a to-go cup filled with tea. Too much sugar and too much milk. She clearly hadn’t figured out the perfect milk-to-sugar ratio. Beckett could teach her a thing or two about proper tea preparation.

“I’m not leaving.” I stood up as the nurses came in to move Beckett’s arms and legs. They repositioned him in his bed afterward.

“I’m telling you this as someone who loves you, you are starting to smell. It’s not pleasant. You don’t want Beck to wake up and get a whiff of your pit stink, do you?”

“You’re exaggerating,” I scoffed, pulling my shirt out by the collar and sniffing.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t exaggerating.

“What if he wakes up while I’m gone?” I asked, my eyes lingering on Beckett’s face. Looking for signs that he was waking up.

I had started to imagine all sorts of things. His fingers moving. His mouth opening. I was becoming a bit delusional.

Tamsin looked down at my unconscious boyfriend, a sad, sympathetic smile on her face.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that, Corin.”

—

Tamsin drove me home and while I showered, she ran out to get us something to eat. I didn’t like being away from Beckett. I felt restless. Guilty even.

When I was dry and dressed in clean clothes, I walked out into the living room. Mr. Bingley jumped down from the kitchen counter and twined himself around my ankles.

Adam had been coming in and making sure my cat was fed and his litter box was clean. But it was obvious that my cat had missed me.

I picked him up and tucked him beneath my chin, rubbing the spot behind his ear that I knew he loved.

“I know you miss me, buddy. But I have to be with Beck right now. He needs me.” I kissed the top of the cat’s head and put him down.

I hadn’t been back to my apartment since the day of the carnival. I thought about that morning before our lives upended.

We had always been a pair of battling forces. Beckett wanting only to live and me…well I had been simply waiting to die.

I had been dominated by my fear, my illogical neurosis, for so damn long, and I was working to address the issues that had come to dominate my life. I knew that I was ready to let go of the baggage. The stuff that was suffocating me.

And I wanted to do that because of Beckett.

He made me happy.

He made me feel loved.

He made me forget about death and dying and illness and disease.

I could only focus on one thing…

Him.

I still felt him. In my home. I could hear his laugh and the deep timbre of his voice.

But he wasn’t there. He was ten miles away in a hospital bed.

We had been happy.

Our story had just begun.

I covered my face with my hands and shuddered, trying not to cry.

I heard my door open and close. “I saw your car out front, I wanted to see if you still needed me to feed Mr. Bing—Corin? Did something happen? Is it Beckett?”

I shook my head, my hands still covering my face. I heard Adam’s footsteps as he approached and he tentatively put his arm around me.

“What happened? Tell me,” he said softly.

Adam’s much-needed support made my eyes burn with unshed tears. But I wouldn’t cry. If I opened that gate, then it would make all of this real. I wouldn’t be able to keep the pain at bay.

And if I let it in, I wasn’t sure I could survive it.

Not this time.

“What if he doesn’t wake up?” I whispered.

I couldn’t believe I was actually saying that. I hadn’t let myself even contemplate the idea. But now, with devastation looming, I couldn’t help it.

Adam gave me a squeeze. “It’s okay, Cor. Beckett will be okay.”

“Will he?” I asked. The words muffled by my hands that I still used to cover my face. Holding the tears in. So they couldn’t escape.

Adam didn’t answer. And I knew it was because he couldn’t. He didn’t want to give me false promises.

“I can’t do this again, Adam. I really can’t.” My voice was broken. Shattered.

But I was trying to stay together. Even if pieces of me were in a hospital bed struggling to stay alive.

“You can do this, Corin. You are the bravest person I know. I watched you after your dad died. I waited for you to crack. But you didn’t. You kicked my unmotivated ass into gear and we opened Razzle Dazzle. Sure, you’re a bit loopy about all the diseases and thinking you’re going to die every other day, but you’re still standing. And that’s a lot more than most people would be doing.”

“Standing isn’t enough. Not anymore.”

Beckett had taught me that. He had forced me to wake up and stop simply existing.

But what was I going to do if he wasn’t there to keep pushing me?

“I’m not sure what I’ll do if he doesn’t make it. I can’t—” I choked on my words, unable to get them out.

“Beckett loves you, Cor. He’ll fight his ass off to get back to you. And if he doesn’t”—I shuddered and Adam pulled my hands away from my face so that he could look at me—“and if he doesn’t, you will keep going. You will live your life because that’s what you should do. Because that’s what he would want you to do.”

I felt the tears start to drip down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them. I wiped them away, furious.

“It’s okay to cry, Corin,” my friend said, giving me permission to do the thing I was terrified to do.

Let it out.

All of it.

With a sob I fell to the floor. Adam sank down beside me. He wrapped his arms around me and I wept.

For Mom.

For Dad.

For Beckett.

For me.

“You will keep on living, Corin. You’re healthy. You’re strong. You have your whole life ahead of you. It doesn’t end here. I can promise you that.”

“I know.” The words sounded miserable. But true. Because they were.

I wouldn’t give up. No matter how much I wanted to.

Not anymore.

Beckett had taught me that.

Tamsin came in a short time later.

She didn’t say anything.

She simply joined Adam and me on the floor.

And together my sister and my friend held me while I finally cried for all the things I had lost in my life.

For all the things I had gained.

For all the things I hadn’t yet experienced.

With Beckett.

Or without him.

They were right. I had to keep on living.

Waiting to die wasn’t an option.