Chapter 171


    One didn’t need to be young for their life to change in the span of an hour, a handful of minutes, or


    nothing more than a few seconds. Life changed constantly, wickedly fast and terribly slow, when one


    least expected it to or after a long time of chasing that change. Life could be turned around, inside out,


    backward and forward, or it could even transform into something else entirely. And it happened


    regardless of age, but most importantly, it didn’t care for time.


    Life-altering moments spanned from a few seconds to decades.


    It was part of the magic of life. Of living.


    In my twenty-eight years of life, I had experienced few but very different life-altering moments. Some


    hadsted seconds, no more than glimpses or moments in which a realization dawned. And others had


    them from memory too. The first time I’d dipped my feet into the sea. The first math equation I’d solved.


    My first kiss. Falling in and out of love with Daniel. All the terrible months after. Boarding that ne to


    New York to start a new life. Watching my sister walk down the aisle with the biggest, happiest smile I


    had ever seen on her.


    And then there was Aaron.


    I thought I wouldn’t be able to pick one single moment when it came to him. Because it was him, the


    one thing that made that span of time important. Life-altering.


    Falling asleep in his arms. Watching his lips bend into that smile that I knew now had only been for me.


    Waking up to his voice, to the warmth of his skin against mine. Watching his face crumbling down. Him


    walking away. His absence.


    All of them had left a dent in my heart. In me. All of them had changed me. Shaped me into someone


    who allowed herself to open up, to love, to needing and wanting to give herself not to anybody, but to


    him.


    But as much as all those moments that had made me fall helplessly in love with him left a mark I’d


    never be able to erase, one that I didn’t think would ever fade, it was the split second when I had


    known I needed to get myself on a ne to Seattle and find him, the one moment that felt …


    transcendental. The realization that I had let him go too soon, too carelessly. So foolishly. The moment


    it had dawned on me—like a blow straight to the middle of my chest—that nothing else besides going


    to him mattered. That nothing should have stopped me from running into his arms. From being there for


    him when he needed someone the most.


    But was it toote? Was the clock still ticking on my life-altering moment, so I could turn it around, or


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    had I lost my chance?


    My head spun with that question for six hours on the flight from New York to Seattle, continuously


    bouncing from blinding hope to the dread that could onlye from anticipating loss. And when the


    ne touched ground, I still wasn’t sure whether to feel hopeful I was closer to him or whether I should


    have employed that time to ready myself if Aaron told me that it was toote and asked me to walk


    away.


    I thought about it some more as I waited for a taxi, drove to the first hospital on my list of medical


    centers with oncology specialists in Seattle, and asked in reception for Richard ckford—a name I


    had dug out from the inte from what Aaron had told me about him and his past.


    That question kept whirling in my mind as I turned around, got myself into a new taxi, and repeated the


    whole process with hospital number two. Then with hospital number three.


    And right as my knees almost doubled with a mix of relief and trepidation at finally hearing the nurse at


    the counter of hospital number three ask if I was family or friend, that question that was stuck in my


    head was still screaming at me to be answered.


    It still was now as I made my way to the waiting room on what would soon be the longest elevator


    ride of my life.


    Did I throw it all away out of fear and stupidity? Am I toote?


    So, when the polished and metallic doors finally opened, I stumbled out of the elevator like someone


    walking out of an interminable road trip. Limbs numb, skin sticky with dry sweat, and the sense of not


    knowing where you were. My gaze anxiously scanned the space along the hallway before me, all the


    way to the waiting room, where I had been told he’d probably be—my Aaron, the man who I had to get


    to, to get back. And there, right there, sitting on a chair that barely amodated his size, was my


    answer.


    With his arms on his knees and his head hanging low between his shoulders, there was my life-altering


    moment.


    And I realized as I stared into the distance—my heart feeling as weightless and hollow as ever when I


    saw him there, alone, without me—that as long as I had him, my life-altering moment would never be a


    measurement of time. It would never be as simple as marking a few points in the timeline of my life that


    I could identify as transcendent. It was him. Aaron. He was my moment. And for as long as I had him,


    my life would constantly be changing, be altered. I’d be challenged, cherished, loved. With him, I’d live.


    And I’d fight for that. I’d fight for him like I hadn’t when he asked me to. I wouldn’t take no for an


    answer. He was stuck with me. Just like he had promised me in Spain, in front of the people I loved the


    most in this world. I’d prove that to him.


    “Aaron,” I heard myself say. Let me be your rock. The hand that holds yours. Your home.


    My voice was barely a whisper, too low and quiet to make it all the way to where he was. But somehow,


    it did. It reached him. Because Aaron’s head snapped up. As he sat in that rigid stic chair, his back


    straightened, and his neck turned around. I could see the disbelief in his profile, as if he thought he


    must have imagined me calling his name.


    But I hadn’t. I was right here. And if he let me, I could take care of him. I would caress his back while he


    sat in the dull and impersonal waiting room, brush his hair with soothing fingers, and make sure he ate


    and slept. I’dfort him with hugs and be the shoulder he leaned his forehead on as he grieved the


    dad he might lose soon. The one who had missed so much, the one I knew Aaron felt like was already


    gone.


    His gaze scanned the space that separated us with the sheer determination I knew only he was


    capable of. And I’d never know why, but I waited. I held very still as he swiped around. And then, after


    what felt like an eternity and at the same time not enough time to prepare myself, blue eyes locked with


    mine. My heart toppled over itself, and I felt themotion inside my chest.


    I watched his legs straighten, bringing him up.


    Then, his lips parted with my name. “Lina.”


    It wasn’t the L


    ina instead of Catalina. It was the anguish in his voice—the need, the way his hair was ruffled, the bags


    resting under his eyes, the wrinkles in his clothes that screamed they hadn’t been changed in a couple


    of days—that propelled me forward. My legs sprinted across that hallway that separated us like they


    had never run before. Toward him, right into his arms. Just how he had asked me to. And when I


    reached him, Iunched myself at him. I locked my body around his.


    It wasn’t appropriate. It wasn’t the time or the ce, and he was carrying so much on his shoulders


    already. There was so much we needed to talk about, but it was right. I knew it in my bones as his arms


    closed around me.


    He lifted me off the floor, squeezed me into his chest, held me in his arms.


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