home to you: a blackbear fanfiction

the text

           In true Matthew fashion, as soon as I was getting used to him being healthy, he got sick again. It was a Saturday evening, exactly two weeks before the day we were to be married. We were spending the night at home, eating Chinese takeout and watching Narcos. We were cuddled up to each other on the couch, and I noticed that Mat had barely touched his noodles. "You alright babe?" I asked, turning to look at him. At this moment, I wasn't as concerned about his health as I had been in the past. He had been healthy since he returned from the psych ward, and I had started to think of his condition as an insignificant issue that no longer affected our lives. I had attempted to push the fear and anger I had felt during his worst times out of my head so that the memories of hospital visits and tears were now very vague. But as I looked at my fiancé in that moment, all of those feelings came rushing back to me. 

           "Matty, what's wrong?" I placed my manicured hand on his cheek and watched his light green eyes fade out of focus. I found myself annoyed and frustrated. Matthew and I were happy, but it was as if the world was against us. Sweat dripped from Mat's forehead, and I watched as his body began to shake, his head falling against his chest. Though I had so often experienced his health problems, I struggled to keep my tears from falling. "Come on, get up. I'll drive you to the hospital." I shook him slightly and he sprung back to life, looking around confused as to what had just happened. I held out my hand and he took it, stumbling behind me as we walked out to the garage. In the following minutes as I pulled out of the neighborhood, I found myself hating the man I was meant to marry. For the first time in a long time, I reflected on the fact that Mat being sick was all his own fault, and that we may never be truly happy because of it. However, as I looked at my engagement ring on my finger, glistening in the sun, I knew that regardless of what came between us, I could never truly hate Matthew. I had become so acustomed to driving to the hospital that I no longer had to think about the route to get there. Mat said nothing on the way there, rubbing his hands together anxiously and breathing heavily. I pulled into the hospital parking garage and helped my seemingly helpless fiancé out of the car. I was so used to the routine, entering through the automatic double doors as nurses and doctors who knew far more about Mat's condition than I did crowded around us and shouted medical terms at one another. An intern named Erin helped him into a wheelchair, and one of my favorite nurses, a middle-aged woman named Jessie with a bright white smile that contrasted against her dark skin, placed a hand on my arm. "It's okay baby, deep breaths." It was routine for the hospital workers to assure me that everything would be alright, and I nodded, pretending that I believed this to be true. Nurse Jessie grabbed my hand, admiring my ring. "You two are getting married? I'm so happy for you. That boy is something special." I nodded and watched him being rolled away down the long hallway. "Yeah, I know he is." Though I knew it was selfish, I began to think about our wedding, and how I didn't want to postpone it. I was afraid that if we didn't get married on May 5th, we never would. Everything in our lives always went wrong so quickly, and I wanted so badly to believe that we were going to be okay, but Mat had said himself that our lifetime together was limited, and that scared me more than I'd ever like to admit. I couldn't imagine living this life without him. He was the love of my life, the only love I'd ever known and the only love I would ever know. I wanted a normal wedding, full of laughs and happiness and smashing cake in each other's faces. I wanted to be surrounded by those that we loved, who looked on in pride as we recited our vows. I wanted to celebrate our honeymoon on some island somewhere, getting sunburns and drinking on the beach. I would never share these desires with Matthew, but I wanted a normal life with a normal husband. But instead, I sat in the hospital waiting room,  flipping through fashion magazines. The doctors and nurses here had become my only friends. I had memorized the speeches they gave me when they weren't sure whether or not Matthew would be okay. I was angry and feeling sorry for myself, so I did something that I was known to do when I felt this was. It had been a long time since we talked, but I pulled out my phone and texted the boy who made me feel normal and happy, despite the fact that I knew I didn't love him. I texted Zac.