The Heartbroken - S01 E185

Story 2 years ago

The Heartbroken - S01 E185

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 185

I still loved him, but not in the

same way that I used to, and this

time, I would stay, so I lifted my

eyes to his and said, “You know I’m

not going anywhere, right?”

“I was hoping you’d walk away,”

he said, but when I tried to step

closer, he let me.

He opened his arms and I fell right

into them as he wrapped me in a

tight embrace. It was such a simple

gesture, nothing but a small step

forward that closed the gap

between us, but it was so much

more than just that.

—

Cedric had Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

He found out about the week

before our breakup.

The month before that, he was

already diagnosed with anemia, but

they later found out it was

myelodysplastic syndrome.

Cedric tried to explain everything to

me in a way that would help me

understand it better, switching

medical terms with simple ones,

but it was still hard to grasp

everything.

The myelodysplasia, he said, was

discovered a little too late and had

already evolved into AML not long

after he was diagnosed with it.

So he broke up with me.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to

make,” he told me while we walked

around the park, an hour after

leaving Parker’s. “Many times, I

wanted to just tell you, to give up

and let myself be selfish, but when I

think of you and your dad…”

We had been walking around for a

while, trying to talk about anything

but the cancer, but it was lurking

somewhere at the back of our

minds. It was hard not to talk about

something so big, something that

had ruined and kept us apart.

I asked him how bad it was, and

he replied with a vague “Don’t

worry.”

He said it in a way that made it

clear that he didn’t want to dwell

on the topic, but I kept thinking

back to Dad all those years ago;

how Mom had kept most of the

details from me and only decided to

tell me when there was only little

hope left.

This time, I had to know, so even

though it was difficult, I pressed on

and asked again, just as we had

stopped walking under one of the

lampposts circling the park.

He let out a defeated sigh before

saying, “Leukemia that develops

from myelodysplasia is usually

resistant to treatment.”

I released a soft whistle and closed

my eyes, as if shutting down one of

my senses was going to lessen the

pain from the words he had just

told me.

It didn’t.

“You don’t seem sick,” I told him

when I reopened my eyes.

“You haven’t been around me

much.”

That was when I did notice the little

things—like how he shivered

despite his thick jacket o how we

had to stop walking a lot of times

and sit on one of the benches

whenever he was short of breath.

With a start, my eyes snapped to

his. “F--k, Ced, what about the

fight? Shit. Shit, you f-----g idiot

—”

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

I wasn’t sure when, exactly, I began

to cry all over again, or when I

decided to stop.

The only thing I was sure of,

however, was that I missed the

feeling of his arms around me and

the sound of his voice and the way

would wrap me in a one-arm hug.

And now that it was all back, and

cancer or no cancer, I wasn’t going

anywhere.