Epilogue

I stretched and blinked in the unfamiliar bed, and found that I was alone. That didn't surprise me, though. I took a few more minutes to wake up before letting my feet hit the floor, wondering what the day ahead had in store.

The swollen wood panels of the floor creaked where I stepped on them. I slipped a pair of thin pants on and left the bedroom. The small, open air living space of the Airbnb smelled like coffee and I poured myself a cup, noting how much of the pot was already gone and smiling at the pill bottles lined up in precise fashion next to the coffee maker. Alex was outside in the hammock, the vision of tranquility, reading an obnoxiously thick, boring looking biography, scratching his stubbly goatee. I sipped my coffee and went to him after a few more minutes of just soaking him in.

"Hi, honey." I kissed his cheek and balanced my coffee as I got into the hammock beside him.

"Good morning, love." He leaned his head on my shoulder and ran his finger over the trail of hair below my belly button absentmindedly as he read.

Alex resumed his reading and I stared out at the water, it was tranquil, the surf was calm, pure blue and barely distinguishable from the horizon line. I ran my fingers through Alex's short hair. It was cute short, never falling in his eyes, framing his face, I'd grown to like it even though I was sure he'd grow it out long. The texture was more coarse than it had been, but I still loved it. It made him look complete. My hand trailed down to finger his scars, the delicate line across his throat where they'd taken out his thyroid and lymph node, and the thicker, harder one on his chest where the chemo port had been.

I celebrated the day that they told us that the chemo port could come out. That was remission day, the doctor had wanted to leave the port in until we were sure that it was over, that the worst was behind us and that we wouldn't need it any longer. That was a good day, Herc and Laf took us out to dinner to celebrate, Alex actually ate that night. It was the start of the next chapter, this new, good chapter where things were good and he was whole again.

We'd been given the all clear back in March and made our plans to come down to the Dominican Republic. Those plans we broadcasted, I looked at the way his golden wedding band glinted in the sun, getting married the day before we left, we had kept secret. I finished my coffee and set the mug in the sand. Alex's skin was sticky from his morning swim, it made us stick to one another. I hitched my leg over his thigh and breathed him in, briney, musky, mine.

I watched the rise and fall of his belly as he breathed, his hip bones just visible above his board shorts, his belly soft again. Alex's appetite came back pretty quickly after the chemo and he didn't look gaunt anymore, cheeks filled out, eyes not so sunken. He looked healthy. Looked like himself, the way he'd always looked. It was taking longer, but his stamina was coming back, he slept less, worked later. Things were going back to normal.

Alex wiggled his toes against my foot just to let me know he loved me, was thinking about me and turned the page in the dense tome he was reading. I dozed, listening to his heartbeat, grateful for it. It was my favourite sound in the world, strong and steady, confident. I listened to it every night as I fell asleep. I'd gone from listening to make sure it was still there to listening to it as a lullaby.

It was hard to believe just how bad things had gotten last year. Looking at him now I couldn't believe he was so sick. He got so frail, like a china doll, I'd been scared to break him. I'd seen more of his skeleton than I ever wanted to and it still haunted my dreams sometimes, him getting so skinny that he'd disappear. I'd wake up next to him though and feel the soft curves of his arms and relax. We were both still getting through the trauma of what we'd been through. He struggled with guilt, I struggled with it too, but we loved each other, that was the most important part.

"Jackie," he woke me up, it was hot, I was disoriented, not sure of where we were at first, wondering if this was just a dream and we were really at the hospital.

"Yeah?"

"Let's go for a swim, baby, it's hella hot."

I took my mug inside and changed into my boardshorts. Our little beach shack was in seclusion, we'd taken a tiny boat to get here and the only vehicles we heard were motorbikes. Other than that it was just the waves lapping the shore and our blissful cries in the night. I met Alex in the water and we splashed and played in the low tide. I went to him and wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him, he was salty and sweet and perfectly Alex.

We sat at the edge of the water and talked once he'd gotten tired in the water, still not quite one hundred percent on endurance. We made each other laugh at stupid, absurd stories. I was so lucky to be with my best friend. There was no one better suited to share a life with. We made it work, proving me wrong about my theory that friends dating ends in catastrophe, sometimes it ends in marriage and sitting on the beach, cancer remission, and happily ever afters.

This was the start of the rest of our lives. Alex was healthy, he took hormones and immune supports and probably would for a very long time, but all I'd heard when the doctor told us that was that he'd have a very long time. We would get to grow old together. We would get to have dreams come true.

Our skin grew darker in the day's sun and we started a small bonfire on the beach to warm ourselves in the cool night air and cook the fish Alex caught during the day. I watched him stare at the fire after we ate and asked what the cogs in his mind were churning out.

"Just thinking about life, I suppose. You, mostly. How grateful I am. Thinking about what really matters."

"And what is it that really matters?"

"Just… just being happy. Leaving behind a story worth telling. Being loved. That's it, that's the near death secrets to the universe."

I thought about it for a while and leaned over to kiss him, "good job not dying."

"Y'know… I do what I can."

"So what's the next adventure, babe?" I asked him, still watching what the amber flames did to his eyes.

"I don't know, enjoy married life. Come home to my best friend every night. Maybe we get a dog or something."

"Did you ever think we'd get here?"

"Not in a million years." He trailed his finger over the freckles on the bridge of my nose, the time in the sun making them brighter, making new ones appear.

"We did though."

"We did."