Chapter 1
2261 Words
YESTERDAY
“Six months. Maybe less.”
Michael Hayes stared at Dr. Richardson. The words didn’t make sense. He was twenty-five years old. He was getting married tomorrow. He wasn’t supposed to be dying.
“Your heart is failing, Michael,” the doctor continued, his voice heavy with sadness. “Without surgery, you have six months or less.”
The office was too quiet. Michael sat across from the man who’d been their family doctor for fifteen years. The same man who’d given him stitches when he crashed his bike at twelve. Who’d treated his strep throat more times than he could count. Who’d sat with his father going over blood pressure numbers just last year.
Now he was delivering a death sentence.
Michael’s file sat open on the desk. Thick with test results and scans. Too thick for someone his age.
“I’m listening.” His voice came out steady. That surprised him.
Dr. Richardson leaned forward. “The left ventricle isn’t pumping right. The damage is extensive. It’s moving fast.”
“So I’m dying in six months.” Michael said it like a fact. Because that’s what it was.
“Six months without surgery. With surgery...” Dr. Richardson pulled another sheet from the file. Numbers covered the page. Percentages. Statistics. “The survival rate is thirty percent.”
Thirty percent.
Michael’s mouth went dry.
“So I’m dead either way.” He laughed. A short, bitter sound that didn’t feel like his own.
“That’s not what I’m saying. Even a minor procedure only buys you a few years at most. Three, maybe four. It’s not a real solution. That’s why we push for the major surgery, despite the risks.”
“Six months for sure, or surgery that’ll probably kill me on the table.” Michael stood up. The chair scraped loud against the floor. “Those are my options.”
“Please sit down, son.”
But sitting felt like giving up. Like accepting this was real.
He walked to the window. Outside, Los Angeles stretched under an afternoon sky that was too blue. Too beautiful for a day like this. Cars crawled down Wilshire Boulevard. People walked on sidewalks. Went into coffee shops. Lived their normal lives. They had tomorrow. They had next year.
Michael would not see next year.
“We can manage the pain,” Dr. Richardson said quietly. “Medication to help with the symptoms, the pains. But not for long.”
Michael turned from the window. “The pain comes on really hard sometimes.”
“I know.”
He’d been feeling it for weeks. The tightness in his chest when he climbed stairs. The exhaustion that never went away. The way his heart sometimes stuttered and skipped.
He’d blamed it on stress. Work. Wedding planning.
Not his heart failing.
Not him dying.
“It’s going to get worse,” Dr. Richardson said. His voice cracked. “The medication will help but it won’t fix this. I’m sorry, Michael. God, I’m so sorry. I’ve known you since you were a kid. I wish to hell this wasn’t happening.”
Michael closed his eyes. Drew a breath. It caught halfway. Sharp and painful.
This is real. You’re dying.
“I need time to think.”
“Of course.” Dr. Richardson stood. He held out a business card. “But we should schedule the surgery soon. The longer you wait, the worse your odds get. You’re young, Michael. You have people who love you. Don’t give up yet.”
Michael took the card. The edges bit into his palm. “I’ll call you.”
“Michael, please—”
“I said I’ll call.”
He grabbed the folder from the desk and walked out. The door clicked shut behind him.
The hospital corridor stretched ahead. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Too bright. Everything was too bright. Nurses moved past in scrubs. An old man shuffled by with a walker.
None of them knew. None of them had any idea the man walking past them had just been handed an expiration date.
Michael’s phone buzzed.
He pulled it out. A text from Edra glowed on the screen:
‘Can’t wait to see you tomorrow, my love. I’m so happy I could burst.’
He stopped walking.
The hallway blurred.
Tomorrow. His wedding. The day he’d been planning for months.
He remembered proposing to her. The beach at sunset. Her favorite place in the world. He’d barely gotten the question out before she tackled him into the surf. They’d lain there in the shallow water, soaked and breathless, laughing like idiots. She’d cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. Whispered against his mouth, “I’m going to love you forever, Michael Hayes. Forever and ever and ever.”
Forever.
Tomorrow he was supposed to marry Edra Reine. Stand at an altar and promise her forever.
In sickness and in health. Till death do us part.
How could he make those vows when death was already waiting? How could he trap her in a marriage that would end before their first anniversary? How could he ask her to bury him before she turned twenty-five?
She deserved better. A husband who could grow old with her. Who could give her the kids she talked about with that dreamy look in her eyes.
Not a funeral.
His phone buzzed again.
Another text from Edra: ‘Just picked up my dress. You’re going to DIE when you see it.’
Die.
The irony made him want to scream.
Michael stared at the words until they blurred.
She loved him. She loved him with an intensity that sometimes scared him. It was in every text. Every smile. Every time she looked at him like he was the best thing that ever happened to her.
And he was about to destroy her.
But what choice did he have?
If he told her the truth, she’d stay. He knew her. Loyal to a fault. Stubborn as hell. Good down to her bones. She’d marry him anyway. She’d stand beside him while he fell apart. She’d watch him die and spend the rest of her life carrying that weight.
He couldn’t do that to her.
She deserved to know. She deserved to make the choice.
Michael found her name in his contacts and pressed call.
It rang.
And rang.
And rang.
“Hi, you’ve reached Edra! I can’t come to the phone right now but leave a message and I’ll call you right back. Mmuuaahh!”
Her voice sounded bright and cheerful. So perfectly her that it hurt.
He hung up and tried again.
Same thing.
She was probably drowning in wedding chaos. Her mother fussing over details. Last minute emergencies that wouldn’t matter tomorrow because tomorrow nothing would matter.
Tomorrow may not happen. Not the way she thought.
Michael got in his car in the hospital parking lot and sat there for over an hour, staring at nothing, thinking about his hard luck, hating how useless he felt.
He typed out a message: ‘Hey babe, I need to tell you something.’
Sent it.
The phone was a matte black rectangle with no case, no brand visible on the outside — custom-ordered, like everything else in his life. He stared at the phone like it might save him.
No response came.
He checked the time. 5:47 PM.
He needed to see her now. Needed to look her in the eyes and tell her the truth, even if it killed him.
Especially if it killed him.
He turned on the ignition and drove.
Edra’s apartment was twenty minutes away. He made it in fifteen, weaving through lanes faster than he should.
He parked across the street and stared up at her building. Third floor, corner unit. The lights glowed warm against the approaching dusk. She was home.
The car went quiet the moment he cut the engine — that specific, insulated silence of a vehicle built to shut the world out.
His heartbeat stuttered in his chest. The rhythm all wrong.
He pressed a hand to his sternum, willing his heart to stay calm.
He grabbed the folder from the passenger seat. Proof in black and white. The truth he needed to show her.
Michael got out and walked to her building. Each step felt heavier than the last.
He reached her door and raised his hand to knock.
Then froze.
The door was cracked open.
Just slightly. An inch or two. Light spilled into the dim hallway. Voices drifted out.
Edra’s voice. Laughing.
And a man’s voice. Low and easy.
Michael’s hand hovered in the air.
It’s nothing. Probably a friend helping with wedding stuff. Don’t be paranoid.
But his feet moved anyway. He pushed the door open slowly. Slipped inside.
The voices came from the bedroom.
Stop. Turn around. Leave.
But he didn’t listen.
He walked down the hallway. The folder crumpled in his grip. His heart pounded so hard he could feel it everywhere.
The bedroom door stood open just enough to see through.
Michael looked in.
And his world shattered.
Edra was on the bed with a man he’d never seen before. Tall with dark hair. Grinning like he owned the world. She lay with her head in his lap, looking up at him with that bright unguarded laugh Michael thought belonged only to him. Her hair spilled across the man’s legs. Intimate and comfortable.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she said. Her voice soft. Tender. “I’m glad you’re here. Everything’s about to change. It’s crazy.”
The man’s hand went to her shoulder. Familiar. Possessive. “I’ve missed you too. And I’m so happy to be here.”
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
“You know I’d do anything for you.”
Edra smiled. Radiant and genuine. She said something quieter and they both laughed. The kind of laughter that only existed between two people who truly knew each other.
Michael couldn’t move. His lungs forgot how to work.
So that’s why she hadn’t answered his calls.
Tomorrow was their wedding day. Tomorrow she was supposed to walk down the aisle toward him in white. Tomorrow she was supposed to become his wife.
Edra rolled onto the bed beside the man. He said something and she punched his arm playfully. Laughing. He caught her wrist and pressed her hand to his chest.
“Seriously though, I’m proud of you,” the man said. “And I don’t care who you’re marrying. You’ll always be my girl.”
Edra laughed.
“I love you too, big guy. Always.”
Her words echoed in Michael’s skull. Louder than his heartbeat. Louder than the blood rushing in his ears.
He stepped back. Trying to control the painful squeeze in his chest. That familiar ache spreading through his ribs like fire.
Michael turned and walked down the hallway, through the living room, out the door.
Behind him, muffled by distance, James’s voice drifted off: “...always family... always here for you, cuz...”
But Michael was already gone. He didn’t hear it. Didn’t hear the words that would have changed everything.
He didn’t run. Running would make noise. Would force him to face her. But his body moved on instinct. Carrying him away from the scene burning itself into his brain.
Edra with another man. Edra saying “I love you” to someone who wasn’t him. Edra, the night before their wedding, choosing someone else.
He made it to his car and got in. Slammed the door.
And then the pain hit.
Not emotional this time. Physical.
His heart seized like someone had wrapped it in barbed wire and pulled tight. The air vanished from his lungs. Michael gasped but nothing came. Sweat broke out across his forehead. Cold and slick. His vision tunneled. He doubled over, one hand clutching the steering wheel, the other clawing at his ribs like he could rip the pain out.
Breathe. Just breathe.
But his lungs wouldn’t work. The image of Edra with that man burned behind his eyes. The diagnosis. The betrayal. All of it crushing him until he couldn’t tell what was killing him faster. His dying heart or his shattered soul.
With numb, shaking hands he fumbled for the pill bottle in his jacket pocket. He got two pills out and swallowed them dry. The bitter taste coated his tongue.
Waited.
Slowly, the vise around his chest loosened. His breathing evened out. The world stopped tilting.
Michael sat there staring at nothing through the windshield. His shirt stuck to his back, soaked with sweat. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
She’d moved on. Already. Before the wedding. Or maybe she’d been with that man all along and he’d been too blind to see it.
And he was dying.
The cruelty of it almost made him laugh.
He started the car and drove back to his hotel through streets that blurred together. Inside his room, he grabbed his suitcase and started throwing clothes inside.
No wedding tomorrow. No future. Just him alone with six months left and a heart that was broken in more ways than one.
And Edra would never have to know the truth.
She could have her life. Her happiness. Her other man.
Michael Hayes would disappear. Taking his shattered heart and his death sentence with him.
It was better this way. Easier. She’d be angry for a while. Hurt and humiliated. But she’d move on. She already had someone waiting.
At least one of them would survive this.
It had to be enough.
- Writer
