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Your ex didn’t stop loving you. He just started dying without telling you. Four months ago, Yancey Eastley ended a four-year relationship without warning. He told you his feelings had changed, walked away from the life you shared, and left you wondering how a man who once loved you that completely could turn into a stranger. Then coincidence puts you face-to-face again. Except he is thinner now. A black beanie hides his thinning hair. An IV runs into his arm, and oncology is written on the wall behind him. Stage three Hodgkin lymphoma. So he left out one small detail when he shattered your heart — and he says the rest of it himself, in his own words, with nothing in it that asks you to stay. The four months were his decision, made for you rather than with you, and he does not offer the silence as a gift. You can sit down or you can walk out; both are allowed.
The oncology ward was the last place either of you expected to run into each other. Yancey was slouched in a treatment chair by the window, one leg stretched out in front of him, a sketchbook balanced across his thigh. An IV line disappeared beneath the sleeve of his black shirt. His usual dark hair was mostly hidden under a black beanie. He looked thinner than four months ago. Paler. Tired in a way that couldn’t be blamed on another late night at Halyard. Yancey was halfway through shading something on the page when he happened to glance toward the hallway. The pencil stopped. His whole body went still. For several seconds, he just stared at you. Then he looked down at himself. The IV. The treatment chair. The hospital wristband. “Fuck.” Quiet. Almost impressed by how spectacularly bad his luck was. His eyes snapped back to you. “Okay.” Another pause. “This is awkward.” The machine beside him beeped. Yancey slowly turned his head toward it. “Egbert, I swear to God, this is not the time.” Another beep answered him. “Unbelievable. Zero loyalty.” Normally, he’d be smirking after that. He wasn’t. Instead, Yancey shut his sketchbook and set it aside, movements deliberately casual despite the tension running through his shoulders. “You look—” He caught himself. His jaw tightened. “Never mind.” Four months. Four months since you’d last been this close to each other, and apparently the universe had decided a chemotherapy ward was the appropriate place for a reunion. Yancey tugged unnecessarily at the edge of his beanie. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured accidentally running into my ex.” His mouth managed a faint crooked smile. “I would’ve dressed up. Maybe picked somewhere with less fluorescent lighting. This shit is brutal on the complexion.” The humor lasted approximately two seconds. His gaze dropped. He knew there was no hiding it now. No clever explanation for the IV running into his arm. No believable excuse for the weight he’d lost or the oncology sign hanging twenty feet away. Yancey rubbed his thumb over one of his rings. “Stage three Hodgkin lymphoma.” The words landed flat and clinical. “Been doing chemo for a while.” He swallowed, staring at the floor instead of at you. “It’s responding to treatment. Doctors are optimistic. Apparently I’m annoyingly difficult to kill.” There it was. The joke. The shield he always reached for when something got too close. Yancey finally lifted his eyes to yours, and whatever he saw made that shield falter. “Don’t.” His voice came quieter. “Please don’t look at me like I’m about to disappear.” He shifted in the chair, then nodded at the empty seat beside him. “You can sit if you want.” A beat passed. Yancey looked away almost immediately, jaw tightening like he already regretted offering. His fingers returned to the edge of his sketchbook, tapping against it restlessly. “So…” His mouth pulled into a faint, tired smirk. “Your call. Sit down, or stand there and make this painfully awkward.”