Like I had when I’d been a kid, I sat on the chair in the corner of the room and stared at the letter in my hand, tracing my name on the envelope with the tips of my fingers. I watched as Blake slowly moved onto his back, his arm out on my side of the bed, waiting for me to crawl in beside him, throw my arm and leg over him like I did every night. And in that moment, there were no insecurities, no petty teenage jealousy. There was just me—and Blake—and our maybe forever.

   And that was all the courage I needed.

   I lifted the envelope, taking one more look at its unopened form before quietly peeling back the flap and pulling the letter out.

   I unfolded it.

   Once.

   Twice.

   Three times.

   A gasp escaped before I covered my mouth with both hands, dropping the letter onto my lap.

   To my beautiful girl, Chloe, it said.

   White paper.

   Red ink.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

   Chloe

   He wasn’t in bed the next morning, and neither was a note on his pillow. For a second, my heart dropped, believing that he’d left in the middle of the night. And then I remembered everything he’d said, everything he’d declared, and I knew it wasn’t possible.

   Sitting up, I searched the hotel room, smiling when I saw his figure out on the balcony.

   Two coffees in hand, I made my way out there. He was sitting on the chair—phone in one hand, pen in the other—frantically writing something on a notepad. “Morning, babe.” I set his coffee on the table. “What’s all this?”

   I didn’t wait for an invitation before taking my regular seat on his lap. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around things . . . what we need to do from here . . . but my phone keeps fucking up, and I can’t get to certain sites, the signal keeps cutting out . . .” He was rambling, lost in his own thoughts.

   I looked at the notepad; his now-familiar handwriting graced the page. Words like symptoms, malignant, chemo, mammogram all stood out.

   “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

   My gaze shifted to him.

   “I’m sorry if I don’t do things right or if my emotions get the better of me, but all of this . . .” He motioned to the notes on the table. “This is all new to me . . . so if I get off track or go a little crazy with the research, I apologize now. I just need to know that I’m doing everything I can to take care of you.” He paused. “I think I’m going to enlist, Chloe.”

   I did everything I could to contain my reaction. It was his decision and one that he’d made on his own, but deep down, it wasn’t the choice I wanted him to make, though I’d never tell him that. “Okay.” I nodded and smiled, but the smile was tight. “That’s good, Blake. I’m glad you made a decision.”

   He let out a heavy breath. “If we get married and I enlist, we get free housing, more pay, and you could be covered under my healthcare, so at least that’s one less thing to worry about. I called my recruiter, Hayden, and told him everything. He said that he’d help me out—do everything he can so that I could serve out my time here and take care of you while you’re going through treatments. I’d have to go to basic for ten weeks and then AIT, but still, I might not have to travel like I would with ball. Maybe Mom can be there when I can’t be. I wouldn’t do it if I knew that I had to leave your side . . . I couldn’t do that . . . but so far it’s the best option and—”

   “Wait. Do you want to enlist because of the free housing and healthcare or because you want to?”

   His face fell.

   “Blake?”

   I waited for a response, but it never came.

   “Before you knew about my cancer, yesterday—when you proposed—what did you want?”

   He swallowed before lacing his fingers with mine. His gaze lowered, fixed on the engagement ring. “Duke.”

   A relieved laugh bubbled out of me.

   He eyed me sideways. “What?”

   “So you’re going to Duke.”

   “But—”

   “But nothing, Blake. We’ll make it work. I promise. Did you look up the best treatment centers in the state?”

   He shook his head. “No, I was just—”

   “It’s here, Blake. Duke Cancer Institute is one of the best hospitals for cancer treatment. You choosing Duke doesn’t have to change anything. You can get what you want. I can get what I need. And we can do it together.”

   “Okay,” he agreed. “But you have to promise me something.”

   “Anything.”

   “Promise me you’ll let me carry some of the burden. Don’t pull back and don’t push me away. This is our life now, our future.”

   I sucked in a breath and held back the tears. “Okay, I promise.”

   Minutes felt like hours while we silently sipped our coffees.

   “I wish Mary were here.”

   He nodded slowly, a grimness washing over him. “I wish my mom was here, too. She’d be good in this situation. She’d take charge, make appointments, whatever we needed, you know? I mean . . . do we even know what we do from here?” He laughed, low and slow at first, and then he let it out, unconfined. It was a beautiful sound. A beautiful sight. He was beautiful.

   “What?”

    “We’re eighteen, and we need our mommies!”

   “Yeah,” I agreed. “But at the same time we’re only eighteen. We’re not supposed to have all this figured out yet.”

   He ended his laughing fit with a sigh.

   “I think it’s time to go home, Blake.”

   And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.

   “I love you, babe,” he said as he stood in front of the fridge and read my magnet. He picked up our bags off the floor and kissed my cheek. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

   “Wait. You’re not doing a magnet today?”

   He winked. “It’s there.”

   I turned back to the fridge, my eyes already searching for it. And there it was. Top left corner. Red ink, as always.

   Be strong when you are weak, brave when you are scared, and humble when you are victorious.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

   Chloe

   Mary cried when we told her the news, just like we knew she would. Dean—he left the room, went out to the backyard, and sat in the playhouse. Mary said to leave him be—that he just needed time. He was there for an hour, then Blake went out there to talk with him. They were there for another two hours. When they came back into the house, Dean wrapped me in his arms, told me he loved me, and went back to his normal self.