All Your Perfect Imperfections

Chapter Twenty

-Devin-

I sighed as I stared at myself in the mirror. I'd found myself doing this more and more lately. When my hair started falling out and Nurse Evelyn had shaved the rest of it off, I'd taken it in stride. I knew losing hair happened with cancer and I accepted that there was nothing I could do about it, but now I was growing impatient. I wanted my hair back.

"Devin!" Avery called from the living room.

Feeling defeated, I put my hat back on and left the bathroom. When I came around the corner, I saw Avery had cleaned up everything from breakfast already, and now he was standing in the living room with a huge smile on his face.

"Guess what day it is?" he asked.

"Uh, Tuesday? What are you so excited about?"

"I get to kiss you today! You've been home for four days now."

I briefly counted the days backwards in my head and realized he was right. Then, I immediately felt bad for not remembering this myself. It wasn't like I hadn't been looking forward to kissing him again, but I had a lot of other things on my mind.

Avery stepped closer. "Do you know what makes this even better? After a month of not being able to kiss you, it'll be kind of like experiencing a first kiss all over again."

"Huh. I never thought of it that way." I smiled at him and reached for his hand, gently tugging him towards me. His body bumped into mine and for a moment, we just looked at each other.

I stared into his pretty blue eyes and felt my heart start to beat faster in anticipation. Avery put one hand on the side of my face, his thumb gently stroking my cheek as his other fingers rested near the back of my neck. We both leaned in, and the moment I felt his soft lips on mine, everything in the past month seemed worth it. I'd go through all of that suffering again if it meant I'd get to keep kissing Avery.

We kissed slowly at first, taking time to relearn each other. Sometimes Avery touched me like he was afraid I was going to break, and I sensed he felt that way now. I opened one eye and started guiding us back towards the couch. Avery broke the kiss before we lay down.

"I don't want to do too much," he murmured. "I mean, I want to, but I don't want to wear you out or hurt you."

"You won't," I promised. I pulled him down and settled onto the couch so we were facing each other. "I just want to keep kissing you. I thought I knew how much I missed it, but I was wrong. I have no idea how I'm going to give this up again during my next chemo cycle."

Avery nuzzled my nose with his own. "We'll get through it." He pressed his lips to mine again, and I shifted closer to him and curled my fingers into the hair on the back of his head.

I don't know how much time passed, but it seemed like we laid on the couch for hours. Avery and I kissed slowly, our tongues sliding over one another and hands wandering up each other's backs. I was content with the slow, sensual pace. I was still tired most of the time and knew I wouldn't be able to handle too much activity. It wasn't a surprise when I drifted off to sleep while still kissing Avery.

-

My happiness only lasted until the following afternoon. Avery went back to work in the morning, fretting for several minutes before he finally made it out the door after making me promise to text him throughout the day and to call if I needed him to come back home. For the first few hours I laid around and scrolled on my phone, but I quickly got bored. I didn't know what to do with my time now. I was too weak to work out or do anything productive, and during my time in the hospital I'd seen enough TV and movies to last me a lifetime.