Cancer

Turn away

(Tres pov)

Me and my husband, billie, have been together since high school. I consider myself lucky for marrying my high school sweetheart, especially someone like billie.

We're both 30 now, we got married when we were 26. We moved in together when we were 23, we didn't really care how our families felt about us being gay. All that mattered is that we had each other.

But, everything was just too perfect. Of course something had to happen to us. A few months ago billie got diagnosed with lung cancer. Id do anything for something else to have happened. Anything but something that would hurt the love of my life.

I wish it would have at least happened to me. Id go through anything just for him to be okay. Even though its not my fault and we couldn't have prevented this, i live in guilt every single day.

I feel guilty that i didn't do anything about it sooner. He was obviously sick and i just treated it like some virus. I always think maybe if i did something sooner, he wouldn't have gotten this bad.

~ 5 months ago ~

It was around 2pm on a Saturday and i was cleaning around the house. It was my usual weekend schedule since i knew billie hated cleaning the whole house and i loved being busy and listening to music the whole time.

Once i was finished, i felt kind of worried for billie. I never woke him up, I wake up before him so I just let him get the sleep he needs. But usually he'd be up by 12 as if theres an alarm clock set in his mind.

I turn my ipod off and slowly make my way up the steps not trying to wake him up. Once i make it to our room i slowly open our door to reveal the dark room.

Billie was laying on his side facing the opposite direction of the door. I don't bother turning on the lights as i walk up to my husband. I face him and crouch beside the bed. He was awake. His eyes were open but he looked upset.

"Whats wrong?" I ask in a soft voice.

"I feel horrible" i could hear in his voice that he was sick.

"Aw, what hurts?" I wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer to me.

"Everything, especially my chest-" his sentence was cut off by him coughing.

I sighed as he went into a short coughing fit. He didn't get sick often at all. We haven't even been out of the house much recently. It might just be the change in the weather, it is starting to get cold out.

"How about we go downstairs and you can lay on the couch while i make you soup?"

"Mhm"

Once i got his approval i wrapped my arms around him to pick him up. Him being stubborn, he pushed me off.

"Oh tre, i can walk!"

I couldn't help but smile at him. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder as he walked, he was obviously weak. He whined as we walked down the steps in obvious pain.

"No, you cant walk"

I scooped billie up half way down the steps. This time, he didn't deny it. I felt him weakly grip onto my skin as i continued walking down the steps. Once i was down the steps i gently laid him on the couch, covering him up with a blanket that was sitting there.

He was breathing heavily, like he was out of breath. I frowned at him then went to the kitchen. I poured him a glass of water then looked through our medicine cabinet. I grabbed him some tylenol and brought it to him.

"Take this baby."

"Thanks.."

He slowly sat up and took the medicine, wincing in pain as he laid back down. I placed a kiss on his forehead and his eyes were quickly shut. I watched him as he tried to fall back asleep for a moment before walking back to the kitchen.