I Said I Never Loved Him to Save Him

Everyone thought I felt nothing for Wayne Henson.

For three years of marriage, he'd declared his love ninety-nine times, loud enough for the whole world to hear.

I never answered. Not once.

On the hundredth day of our marriage, Wayne didn't come.

He sent someone with a letter instead.

I sat stiff in the dining room chair, hands shaking as I tore the envelope open.

A single line on that wide sheet of paper:

【Lacey Abbott, I'm tired. Let's get a divorce!】

I crushed the paper in my fist.

Over and over, I traced those two words. Divorce.

And I broke.

He didn't know that for every one of his ninety-nine confessions, I had answered him ninety-nine times.

He didn't know that those answers, and the love I never let past my lips, were all buried under one piece of paper.

A terminal diagnosis.

……

When I left the restaurant, the sky had opened into a downpour.

I stood under the entrance awning.

Fat raindrops hammered the ground, and the spray soaked the hem of my dress.

My heart clenched, beyond my control.

Three years ago, on another night like this, the rain had come down in sheets, and I'd huddled soaked and pitiful in an alley.

Wayne walked toward me out of the rain, an umbrella over his head.

The rain drummed against it, a steady knocking.

He crouched down, his eyes burning into mine.

His voice came level, neither soft nor sharp.

"Lacey. Do you dare marry me?"

I turned my head and looked at him.

The truth was, I wasn't good enough for him.

But in that moment, the rain seemed to drown out every sensible thought I had.

I answered fast, as if afraid he'd take it back.

"I dare!"

And so I rose overnight into a different life. The luckiest girl alive, people called me, with no small amount of envy.

But only Wayne and I knew the truth.

That kind of luck was two people running toward each other after ten years of loving in secret.

We were supposed to stay happy. Forever.

But in the second month of our marriage,

they found a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor inside me.

A cancer with no symptoms. The kind that can take you at any moment.

From that day on, I didn't dare answer Wayne's love again.

I was terrified he'd be brimming with joy one second and lose me the next.

So I went cold. I pulled away. I kept my distance and didn't let him near.

Until he believed I'd stopped loving him.

And he only loved me louder.

As if he wanted every person on earth to know how much he loved me.

The louder he got, the more afraid I became.

So many times I nearly told him the truth.

But I was afraid of turning one person's torment into two people's pain.

So I just kept holding on. Day after day.

Until finally……

Clutching the letter where Wayne had written that word, divorce,

I let the pouring rain cover the sound, and I broke down crying again.

"Wayne! I'm sorry!"

By the time I got home, the rain had stopped.

But I was soaked through.

I stood barefoot in the entryway.

Water dripped off me, one drop after another, onto the floor.

Wayne looked up, his brows drawing together.

His voice carried the same scolding edge he always used with me.

"A grown woman, and you don't know to take cover when it rains?"

My nose stung. I turned my face away and forced the tears back down.

My voice came out muffled. "Couldn't get a cab."

Wayne shot up off the couch,

snatched the towel from the armrest,

crossed the room in two strides, and draped it over my head.

He raised his hand to dry my hair, the way he always had.

Then something stopped him, and his hand went rigid before he pulled it back.

"That letter…… did you read it?"