When a knock comes on her door, she knows it is Shawn, and she hurries to the door and opens it. As always, he was the light to her gloomy day and, just as expected, his eyes light upon seeing her.
His day only gets better as he sees Neriah as the door opens and he steps into the house as she steps aside from the door. She’s about to ask how his day went when he silences that question with a deep, seducing kiss on her surprised lips. The kiss makes her forget everything she’s about to say and when he pulls away; she blinks a few times, trying to regain herself.
“This is for you,” Shawn says, pulling out a red rose from his back and handing it to her.
Neriah feels surprised and her heart swells, even though it hurts her like hell. “Thank you,” she collects the flower and sniffs in its pleasant odour. “What’s it for?”
“It’s officially three months today since we met and I thank God every day for that day.”
She forces herself to smile even though her eyes grow glassy. “You remember.”
“I can never forget that day, my love, what seemed to be the worse day ever became the happiest day of my life and I owe it to you—” he pauses as he sees the tears running down her face, “what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“I’m just so happy,” she says, not completely sure what reason was causing the tears in her eyes to flow.
“Well, I’m glad they are of joy ‘cause that’s what you bring m—”
She doesn’t let him finish before hugging him deeply and sobbing into his white T-shirt.
He takes her by surprise and Neriah is aware of that; she wasn’t one to want emotional hugs. It never comforted her, but she cannot help it. The truth is much harder than she imagined. How is she going to come out with the truth? She’s going to hurt him terribly, something she never intended to do.
“Let it out, babe,” he coos, rubbing circles around her back and kissing her hair.
“I love you so much, Shawn. I hope you know that.” She whimpers weakly.
“I know, hun, I love you too.”
Moments pass and her sobbing reduce, “Remember three weeks ago when you said you wanted to meet my mom and the rest of my family and I said the timing wasn’t yet right?” She asks with a small voice.
He nods, “Yeah?”
“Well, I lied,” she says and pulls back to watch the reaction on his face.
His face displays a little confusion as he stares at her. “Why?” He asks.
“I didn’t want you to meet them,” she truthfully replies.
“Did I cause that? Or you are not on good terms with them?” He asks, trying to get a grip on what is happening.
More tears run down her eyes as she shakes her head, “No, not that, no one is at fault.” She replies weakly and moves away from him to she drops the flower in the vase on the shelf close to the bed, then she wipes her tears with tissue from the nightstand.
He steps towards her, “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
She nods because she knows she can tell him, but the fear lies with how he’s going to take it.
“Come on, Neriah, the wait is killing me already.”
“I have cancer, Shawn, I’m dying.”
He takes a few moments to properly grasps what she’s just said, both the first and the last part. The words replay in his head over and over and over. His eyes grow weak and his face drops and is void of every emotion even as he stares at Neriah, wanting her to give him a sign that she is joking and her last words were just a prank on him to see his reaction.
“What? How? When?” His voice is trembling, which tells Neriah that so is he, but she numbs on how to console him without losing it herself.
He runs a shaky hand over his low-cut hair, “It can’t be, you can’t have cancer.”
She moves closer to him, “I’m sorry, Shawn—”
He raises his hand, silencing her apology, “How long have you known?”
“Shawn—”
“How long have you known damn it!”
“Close to a year now,” she answers sincerely, but even she knows this sincerity is going to cost her a lot now.
A frown appears on his face and only deepens as the moment passes by. “You knew even before we met and you said nothing?!”
“Shawn, I—”
A tear drops from his eyes. “What kind of person does that?!”
“I’m sorry, Shawn. I was scared. At first, I didn’t owe it to you to tell you the truth and then our relationship grew and I fell in love with you and I got scared of getting you involved in my mess. I saw how your mom’s illness had gotten you down and I didn’t want that, I never wanted that.”
“Those migraines and dizziness that you constantly complained about were because of it, right?”
She presses her lips together and nods.
“So what were you hoping to do, keep me in the dark forever?” When she doesn’t reply, red flashes in his eyes. “What kind of person are you?”
“Someone who’s been in this situation before, Shawn. When I was nineteen, I was diagnosed with brain cancer. It was rare and no one could understand why I had it and I saw how my family had to give up all they had and although I recovered, my family didn’t recover from all we lost in the fight against cancer and that was five years ago. I moved to the city with hopes to better the lives of my family again. But about a year ago the sad news returned, and I have been trying to do it on my own.”
There’s a sharp pain in her head and she rubs it slowly, trying to ease the pain thereof.
“Isn’t it what loved ones do? Help share the pain?” He asks, pained and his eyes already swimming in tears.
“I’ve seen you go through a lot of pain and I love you too much to bring you mine.”
He moves closer to where she is by the lampstand. “That shouldn’t be your decision to make, Neriah. I’m old enough to know what I want.” His fingertips slowly stroke her cheeks. “You’re dying and you’re scared, but no one in this situation would want to be alone.”
Neriah knows there’s no way she’s going to talk him into not taking responsibility for her, Shawn has always been stubborn, maybe a little more than her and now as much as she wants him around, she needs him to move on with his life.
It sounds absurd, but if he moves on now, it won’t be so hard when she’s gone and that is what she wants, for him to move on and be happy.
She picks up the card Cainan had left on the table and hands it to him. Shawn pauses and stares at the card, which he knows is Cainan's card, which is now in Neriah’s room. The only explanation is that Cainan has been here, but for what? He wonders.
“Cainan knows,” she mutters silently.
He looks down at her with curiosity and confusion on his face. “Knows what?”
“That I have cancer,” she replies, feeling weak and going to sit down on the chair beside the table.
“When? How?”
“This morning, I passed out and his doctor did the test and I don’t know how but they came out so.” 
Something ticks off in Shawn and even Neriah feels it, too. “He’s the reason I now know the truth, isn’t he?”
Neriah has always known him to be smart enough to put two and two together and that’s what he just did and if he would just be smart enough and run for the hills now, it would be so great.
She nods, “Yeah if he didn’t find out and confront me about it, I don’t think I would have ever been able to tell you.” There was no other way to make the truth any less hurtful and even she knew it.
“And I thought you loved me.”
“I do—” she tries taking his hand, but he moves it away.
“No, you don’t. If you did, you would have trusted me to decide and now you told me the truth not because you want to but because Cainan made you.”
“I’m sorry.” She doesn’t know what else to say. She admits she messed up, but she was afraid of hurting him and in the end, that’s what she has done.
“For what, breaking my heart in a thousand pieces? Deciding for me like I am a child that can’t think for himself—” he grits his teeth and heaves a deep breath, “I wish I could hate you, I wish I could, but I can’t and that hurts like hell.” he wipes away his tears and walks out of her apartment.