We continued to hold one another for a while; I rocked her body back and forth gently, whispering to her that it would be all right, even though inside I really wanted her to be the one tell me that everything would be fine. I was so scared, worried, hopelessly in love. I could feel my own body trembling, but I’m not sure why it was. I guess it was from so many emotions coursing through my body at once, my mind unable to decipher which one to lead the pack.

It was hard enough for me those two days without her, and the sheer idea of spending the rest of my life without her smile, her kisses, her love was beyond horrifying. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Forever and a day. Just like I said - for life, for death, for eternity.

“Nick,” she whispered softly, sniffling.

“Yeah?” I asked, still locked in our embrace.

“I need you to promise me something.”

“What?” I wondered.

She pulled away from my tight embrace, forcing me to stare into her eyes. I felt my heart crumbling. Her lovely face was streaked with tears, her eyelashes wet. I reached up and wiped the lingering tears away from her eyes. “Nick,” she started again. “I want you to promise me that you’ll move on, okay sweetheart?” My eyes searched her face for...something, but I’m not sure what. Probably for hope. “I want you to be happy; I want you to find someone...a beautiful girl, and I want you to get married and have tons of children. Have a white picket fence,” she smiled, “the whole works.” It took a moment for me to understand what she was saying to me. I felt kind of numb, from crying so long I suppose.

“Move on?” I asked, confused. “Julie...you can beat this. Don’t talk like that, okay?”

“No, you don’t -”

“I’m not going to leave you. I want to be with you through all of this... I still love you, even if you are sick...don’t you realize that?” Tears continued to slide down her cheeks. “If I didn’t then I wouldn't have walked all the way here. It wouldn’t have mattered to me that you never said ‘I love you’ and it -”

“I don’t want you to get hurt anymore. Nick...I don’t want you to see me die, okay?”

“You’re not gonna die! I know you won’t!” Inside I was torn between everything. Death and life. Even if Julie was dying though, I understood that no one should die alone, and I wanted to be there for her even in her final hour.

“It’s fate, I know it is. I was meant to finally fall in love with my ideal man, and then, of course as all good things do,” she laughed bitterly, “it’s meant to come to an end.”

“I don’t believe that. What if,” I paused. “What if it was meant to happen like this? We were meant to meet and fall in love and then you’d marry me, even though you’re sick - and we’ll live the rest of our lives together.” The expression on her face was hard for me to decode. She seemed heartbroken and bitter.

She simply shook her head.

“C’mon Julie. I can help you. Let me help you... I can help pay for your heart transplant if that’s what you need. What do I need to do? Just...just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Funding isn’t the problem, Nick. It’s that there’s not a donor for me.”

“But they’ve got those mechanical hearts now, ya know? The Abiocor or whatever they’re called.”

“People don’t live very long with those. Months maybe, but not years.”

“But it would still buy you time. And maybe you’ll be the lucky one, ya know? The one person that can live with the mechanical heart,” I said in all hopefulness.

She still sat there, probably thinking of a tactic to use to shoot down every option I was putting up for scrutiny. Slowly she brought her eyes away from my face, avoiding looking at me any longer.

In the back of my mind, something was telling me that it wasn’t stubbornness that was making Julie doubt all my ideas. It was more along the lines of being too tired to continue on. Not wanting to wait for something that might never come. Knowing the inevitable and being okay with it; being able to live with it for the rest of her days.

“I’m tired Nick. I just...I can’t wait forever, ya know?” Her eyes met mine again for a short glance. “I’ve waited long enough, and now more than ever, I’m okay with death. It’s one of those things that just happens. You can't stop it; you know it’s coming...you might not know when, or how, but you know it’ll be there to take you in it’s arms and carry you away eventually.”

What kind of world do we live in, when the moment you realize you’re madly in love, something beyond your power threatens to take it away? The epitome of ‘bitter sweet’, it is. Finding out the only woman you’ve ever truly loved loves you back - and in that same moment, you also find out the reason she never told you... because she’s dying. Evilness in it’s intended form.

“I don’t wanna lose you. You mean so much to me, Julie.” I’d said that before. When relationships got tough, it always seemed like the right thing to say. Now, I meant it. “I want to be with you. Let me be with you.”

Taking a few minutes, she thoroughly thought it over; weighing each option equally. “Okay,” she said softly; so softly I barely heard it. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

I tried to smile and show some outward form of my inward joy, but I don’t think one made itself known in any other fashion except the hug I managed to engulf her in.