The one that got away

The one that got away - part 2

Part Two — The Last Light

It started with a cough.

Just a small one at first — the kind you brush off, the kind no one worries about. But then it lingered. Stayed. Grew.

Ethan started missing practice. Then school. Then he stopped replying to my messages for days at a time.

I remember the first time I visited him at home. His mom opened the door, eyes red, smile too forced.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she said softly. “He’s resting. But you can go in for a few minutes.”

Her voice trembled. That’s when the fear settled in my stomach like a stone.

He was lying on the couch under a blanket, TV on low, looking smaller than I remembered. His skin was pale, his lips dry. But when he saw me, his smile still reached his eyes.

“Hey, artist girl,” he said weakly. “You miss me already?”

I tried to smile. “You wish.”

He laughed — a soft, broken sound. “I do, actually.”

I sat beside him and reached for his hand. It was cold.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Just tired,” he said. “Doc thinks it’s some kind of infection. Nothing major.”

But it was major.

Two weeks later, I found out what it really was.

Leukemia.

The word hit like a physical blow. I was sitting outside art class when Jade told me. She’d overheard teachers whispering. My sketchbook fell from my hands, pages scattering like leaves.

I couldn’t breathe.

---

The hospital became my second home.

White walls, quiet halls, the smell of antiseptic and coffee.

Ethan hated it there — the needles, the silence, the way everyone looked at him with pity.

But when I visited, he smiled like everything was normal.

“Hey, Lia,” he’d say, like we were just two kids hanging out after school. “You bring me anything to draw?”

Always.

I filled his room with sketches — the field, the Ferris wheel, the fireflies. Every piece of art I’d ever made for him now hung on those sterile walls, turning his room into a world of our own.

Sometimes we talked for hours. Other times, we just sat in silence, holding hands, pretending silence was enough.

One evening, as the sun dipped low outside his window, he said quietly, “Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“If I don’t…” He stopped, swallowing hard. “If I don’t make it out of this, promise you’ll still draw. Promise you’ll live.”

Tears filled my eyes. “Don’t say that.”

“I have to,” he said gently. “Because I need to know you’ll keep going.”

“I can’t imagine a world without you in it,” I whispered.

He squeezed my hand. “Then draw it until it feels real.”

That night, when I got home, I opened my sketchbook and drew his hand in mine. Beneath it, I wrote:

> “If love is art, then loss is the frame that holds it.”

---

Winter came, cold and cruel.

Snow covered everything, even the soccer field where he used to run.

The school held a charity game in his name — “Play for Ethan.” The bleachers were packed, but I couldn’t bring myself to go.

He watched the video later, tears in his eyes.

“They really did that for me?” he whispered.

“Of course they did,” I said. “You’re Ethan Cole.”

He smiled faintly. “No. I’m just a boy who got lucky enough to be loved by you.”

I cried then. I didn’t want to, but I did — quiet, helpless tears that fell onto his hospital blanket.

He reached up and wiped one away. “Don’t cry, Lia. Not for me.”

“How could I not?” I said. “You’re everything good I’ve ever known.”

He smiled. “Then remember me like that. Not like this.”

---

The last time I saw him awake was in early February.

The light was fading through the window, golden and soft. He looked so fragile, but peaceful.

I brought him my newest sketch — a picture of him on the field, mid-kick, alive and strong.

He stared at it for a long time. “You made me look like I could fly.”

“You did,” I whispered. “You always could.”

He smiled, eyes glassy. “I love you, Lia.”

It was the first time he’d said it. The last, too.

I didn’t say it back right away — not because I didn’t feel it, but because the words caught in my throat. I just leaned forward and kissed his forehead.

“I love you too,” I said. “Always.”

He closed his eyes. “That’s enough.”

---

He died two days later.

When I got the call, the world went silent. No crying, no screaming — just a ringing in my ears and a numbness that swallowed everything.

The funeral was quiet. The whole school came. His teammates wore their jerseys, number 7 stitched on their chests. His mom hugged me so tightly I thought I’d break.

“He talked about you all the time,” she whispered. “You made him happy, Lia. You gave him peace.”

I didn’t know what to say. Peace felt like a word that belonged to other people. Not me. Not yet.

After everyone left, I stayed.

Just me, the wind, and the sound of leaves brushing his gravestone.

I laid my sketchbook beside the flowers and whispered, “You were supposed to stay.”

---

Epilogue — The One That Got Away

Three years later.

I still walk by the soccer field sometimes. The bleachers are empty now, the paint peeling, the grass overgrown. But when the sun hits just right, I swear I can almost see him — running across the field, laughing, calling my name.

I never stopped drawing.

In fact, I got into art school — the one I’d always dreamed of but never dared to apply to. Ethan’s mom came to my exhibition last spring. She brought me a photo of him — one where he was holding one of my sketches in the hospital. I keep it on my desk now.

Sometimes, I talk to him while I paint. I know he’d laugh at that — say something like, “You’re such a dreamer, Lia.”

He was right. I still am.

I draw him often — not the sick version, but the boy on the field. The one who taught me that love doesn’t have to last forever to be real.

Last week, I finished a painting called The One That Got Away.

It’s of the soccer field at sunset — the light soft, the air golden, and in the distance, a blur of motion. You can’t see his face, just the outline of someone running free.

When my professor asked what it meant, I told her, “It’s about a boy who never really left. Because love like that doesn’t fade — it becomes part of who you are.”

That night, I walked home past the park where we once chased fireflies. The air was warm, the sky violet. And just for a second, I saw them — little sparks of light, rising from the grass like tiny souls.

I smiled.

“Hi, Ethan,” I whispered. “I’m still drawing.”

A breeze brushed past, soft as a touch, and I swear I heard his voice — not loud, but clear enough to feel.

> Keep going, Lia. You’re doing just fine.

I looked up at the stars and smiled through my tears.

He was gone — but not lost.

He was still there, in every sketch, every stroke, every dream I dared to chase.

Because sometimes, the ones who get away don’t really leave.

They just live on in the parts of you they helped you find.

And that’s enough.

---

~ The End ~

🕊️ “Love doesn’t always mean forever. Sometimes it means leaving you with a heart big enough to hold what’s gone.”

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