Ever since Tom found out that I've been living on borrowed time, he has been inviting me out to spend time with him even more. I think that he spends all his free time with me, and a couple times I heard him call out from work. It almost makes me feel bad, but just being with him makes all my troubles and worries float away. I think I do the same to him.

He always has something new planned. One evening we rode horses on the beach together to watch the sunset where I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. We went to the largest aquarium in the state, and we explored some abandoned buildings on the outside of the city. It was pretty cute actually, Tom was nervous about trespassing so it took some convincing for him to participate in the activity that he planned.

All these magnificent adventures reminded me of how beautiful and precious life truly is. It almost made me sad that I'll miss out on some of these things when I'm no longer around. When I look back, I realize just how fast life passes by. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. If you want to view paradise, just simply look around because it's everywhere. It's the little things that make my world.

As I get closer to my twenty-third birthday, a day that my doctors told me would never come, I have been waking up to more bad days than good. I am fatigued all day, every day. When I shower, more and more of my hair falls out each time. I am bruising all over my legs and arms, even my fingers and my palm. I'm sore all the time. I know it's just a matter of time before these good days are nonexistent so I have been taking full advantage of them while I still can.

Tom had called me the night before, asking if I wanted to get breakfast with him. But by the time morning came, I wasn't feeling very good so I cancelled. He called to check in on me, and when I was feeling better he stopped by, letting himself in with the house key I gave him.

He went out to get milk, since he noticed that I was out when he decided to help himself to a bowl of cereal. While he was gone, I pulled out my acoustic guitar to pass the time. I used to play when I was in high school, but I haven't touched it recently. I don't even know why I packed it... but it reminded me of a time when I was really happy and I felt invincible.

Tom walked through the door and closed it behind him. He smiled at me and greeted me with a kiss, even though I saw him just minutes ago. He nodded towards my guitar and asked, "whatcha got there?"

"A guitar. It was my dads, he taught me how to play when I was a kid." I plucked a couple of soft notes.

"This is your dads guitar?" He asked, eyeing the acoustic in my hands.

"Yeah. I swear it's older than me."

"It's a beautiful instrument," he said.

I looked up at him and asked, "do you play?"

Tom shrugged and headed into the kitchen while saying, "a bit. Not so much anymore."

When Tom came back into the living room after putting the milk away, I held out the guitar for him and said, "play something."

Tom chuckled and took it in his hands. "I don't know what to play."

"Do you know Moon River?" I asked. It's one of my favorite songs to listen to on the acoustic.

He was lost in thought for a moment. When he sat down on the recliner across from me and positioned the guitar on his legs, it was easy to tell that he did in fact know the song. He found the first note and began strumming the beginning of the song.

I found myself more attached to this song now than I have in the past. In the song, the river is a metaphor of longing for the unpredictable whirl of an adventurous life, and to be swept along by the currents to somewhere new. Moon river is the river of life that leads up to the stars, and it was the currant that brought me to Metropolis. To Tom. This is a song about loneliness and restlessness, and it brings to light the love of the journey rather than the destination.

It's such a slow, beautiful song. He played it slow, and I relaxed into my seat as I listened to him skillfully and carefully pluck and strum the instrument. I imagined Audrey Hepburn's heavenly voice in my head, singing the lyrics to the lovely song.

After a few more bars, I closed my eyes and said, "you play it so well."

"Nah," Tom said as he kept plucking the strings.

"You do too. Take the compliment, Hanson."

Tom chuckled softly and finished out the song. He gave me the guitar back and I slowly plucked random notes of the guitar. I wasn't quite sure what I was playing, I guess I was making it up as I went along. It sounded rather nice.

"You know, I've always wanted to write a song," Tom stated.

"Yeah? Why haven't you."

"I-I don't know. But, I've gotten a lot of inspiration lately."

"Yeah?" I asked with a slight chuckle.

"I actually... I would like to write one for you."

My eyebrows came up at him. "You do?"

"It'll be just as beautiful as you are sweet. And I'll give it that hint of pain to mimic that feeling that I get when I'm not around you."

I smiled and looked down at my guitar as I kept playing it. I said, "well, then eventually I'll write you a song too."

"You will?" He chuckled softly.

I repeated a few melancholy bars as if it was the chorus. "Yeah. A song that will make your heart remember me. So, when I'm gone, you can listen to my voice and you can sing along."

Tom let out a slow exhale and he asked, "are you afraid that I'm going to forget you?"

I looked back down and scrunched my lips together in a flat line. After hearing that, I realized that I was terrified of being forgotten. I said in a small voice, "maybe."

"Hey," Tom said and got on his knees in front of me. His hand was over my knee, and his other hand was bringing the neck of the guitar down and away. He looked me in the eyes and said, "I will never ever forget you. You make me happy when the skies are gray, and you are the only sunshine in my life. I don't think you realize just how much I love and care about you."

I sniffed and when I smiled, a tear leaked out of my eye involuntary. I smiled at him and barely managed to whisper through my tight throat, "thanks, Tom."

He leaned forward and gave me a kiss. After he pulled back, he asked if I wanted to gaze at the stars with him. Since I was feeling a lot better, I was really excited to go.

Tom drove us to the outskirts of town where the light pollution was scarce, so we could see the stars in the Milky Way better. The back window of his Mustang is pretty large so we laid together in the back, with the radio playing softly and blankets tucked up to our necks.

Tom's arm was wrapped around me and we found a comfortable position where I was in his arms, but neither of us were going to fall off the seats. He said that he had cleaned the window so we could see the stars better, and they twinkled above us.

I could feel his energy rushing through me. His head was relaxed back, and I could feel my temple pulsing against his shoulder. My hand was rested on his chest, where I could feel his heart beating. I tried to match my breath with his, but I was unsuccessful.

Tom is all that I want. I would throw away the rest of my bucket list if that meant spending the rest of my life with him. How is being here in his arms not heaven? It's Heaven to me. He always brings me up when I'm feeling down, and my world was turned around when he became a prominent part of my life. Nothing can change what he means to me. The nights are better now that I've found him. Even the days are brighter.

His hand trickled up my arm and rubbed gently. I wiggled a bit because I realized that my hip was falling asleep. When I relaxed back into him, he asked, "have you talked to your family recently?"

"Yeah, they're good. I told them about you."

His voice went a little higher. "Did you?"

I chuckled softly, "yeah."

"And what did they have to say about me?" He asked.

"They told me to be careful."

"Why?" He asked.

"Just because of the last guy I dated. He broke up with me after I told him that I was sick."

"He did? That's bullshit."

"Yeah. I guess it made me not want to get close with anyone else, because I just didn't want to go through that pain again." I lifted my head up and I rolled onto my side so I could look him in the eye. I smiled at him and brushed a few strands of his dark hair away from his eyes. I said, "but I'm glad that I took a chance on you. You showed me how wonderful love can really be. You know me in a way that no one else ever will."

He beamed back at me and said, "I don't care how much time we have together. I just want to spend as much time as I can with you."

My smile was quickly replaced with a pucker of my lips. I leaned toward him to give him a kiss, and he met me halfway.

"I never want to leave," I said and rested my head back down on his shoulder, looking up at the stars. I began to wonder if he was losing circulation in his arm. If he was, I don't think he would say anything.

"That's fine by me. We can live just like this for forever."

It was so hard to not fall in love with him. If I let him fall in love with me, it'll make it even harder on him to let me go. That's why I moved away from my family and everything I knew. I didn't want people I love to watch me die. I didn't want them to have to let me go. But I think I might have just fallen in love with him.

Moments like these remind me that one day, this too will be the past and I will mourn it. It was the little things I didn't realize until it was too late that I wish I knew before I found out I was dying. Hopefully, I can bestow these life lessons onto others who can live their long life to the fullest. I didn't start living until I found out I was dying. I don't want Tom to make the same mistake as me. And he's a cop, he doesn't have the luxury of knowing how much longer he has in this wonderful world either. I wanted to teach him to make the most of all the time he has. Once I found out I only had a few months left, everything fell into perspective. I stopped taking moments, people, and relationships for granted.

"Its weird. I just feel like time is eroding away. You only get one shot—just one shot at life and I'm not planning to miss my shot for anything. I don't even want to let one moment pass me by. That's why I've got my bucket list."

"What else is on your bucket list?" He has in a low voice.

"A few things."

"Like what?"

"One is to get married." I chuckled after I said it out loud. "But that's stupid."

"Why is it stupid?" He asked.

"Because it'll never happen."

"Why not?"

I shrugged, "I don't know."

"Why don't you and I get married?"

My head lifted up so I could look him in the eye to see if he was joking. "What?"

He smiled back at me, looking at me with those eyes that always left me speechless. "Yeah. Let's get married."

"Are you fucking with me?" I asked, but my lips were slowly spreading to a smile at the idea.

He laughed, "I'm not fucking with you."

"Really?" My voice felt tight.

"I don't have a ring but there's not a day that has gone by since I met you where I don't want to spend it with you. Let's not waste any more time. I want the world to know that you're mine. I really mean it when I say that I would marry you in an instant. Will you marry me?"

My jaw was dropped as my brain tried to wrap itself around the past few seconds. Happiness escaped my eyes through soft tears and I nodded my head. I choked out, "yes."

Tom chuckled and he was silenced when he sat up and cupped my face with his hand and our lips came together like magnets. My hand reached up to his hair and I ran my fingers through it, memorizing the feel. I felt like I was on top of the world.

"You're gonna be my wife," he told me against my lips.

"And you're going to be my husband," I said back, just as giddy.

I was going to love him like I might lose him at any moment because neither of us are promised tomorrow. Hell, no one is promised tomorrow. I even told him that. I will never take him for granted, and we will make the most of the minutes we have together and love each other with no regrets.

"We will have many tomorrows together, and I will spend my whole life loving you," he promised. There was no doubt in my mind where he belongs, and that's in my heart.

We shifted our focus back to the stars, my mind was going towards my own mortality. Keeping it all inside has been tremendously difficult, but once Tom asked me to marry him, it also showed me that he's aware of my fate and he's willing to accept and stand by me. And these difficult conversations are a big part of that.

"I don't think that it has really hit me until now that I'm going to die. Like... I'm really going to die." I chuckled out in disbelief. "It's gonna be hard to leave this place. It's gonna be so hard to say goodbye."

Tom was silent for a second, trying to comfort me by rubbing my arm. He gently sighed. Then he said, "just know that I'll always be here for you."

I appreciated how he expressed his support without lying to me. I took comfort in knowing that he wasn't going to leave me. I could feel it in my heart that he loved me so much, he was willing to sacrifice himself for me. He pulled me closer, and he kissed my forehead before we both looked back up at the stars.

Our lives are made in these little moments and small hours. They create the little wonders, and twists and turns of fate. Time seems to slip away, but it's what we do in this short amount of time that will always remain and write the story of our lives. In the end, all that really matters is our hearts. I will never forget the way I feel right now, in this moment.

I guess I just fell in love with Tom.

Romantically, frantically, madly, and deeply in love with Tom.