Do I Wanna Know

Chapter 46

The past few weeks had been a rollercoaster of emotions. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe that Camila and I were actually married. That highpoint of my life had quickly been followed by a very low one though. And it had been my fault. The throat infection, discovered on Christmas Eve after I had collapsed, had been extremely rough on me. Staying in the hospital over Christmas was not how I had envisioned my time as a newlywed but I had no right to complain after having been so reckless.

Instead, I did the very best I could and focused on my recovery. As horrible as it felt sometimes, I had to admit that I was sick and needed to take care of myself. Constantly pushing my luck and limits would backfire and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Not after I had seen how dangerous it was. And not after seeing Camila be so concerned and heartbroken after she found out that I had downplayed my situation. Even though I meant well in my efforts to shield her from my pain, I had to stop doing it to prevent inflicting even bigger pain on her.

And I did. I was completely honest with my wife whenever I felt off or worse. Of course she would worry but at least she knew. She spent almost every minute with me at the hospital until I was released after three days. The holidays were over and I felt guilty for making them so horrific. But the best thing I could do was continuously work on my recovery instead of making myself feel even worse for ruining our Christmas. Camila told me she didn’t care that much anyways. Her priority was my well-being and I knew she meant it.

Thankfully, the work paid off and the infection was gone just before I had another chemo treatment scheduled. Dr. Phelps said it was borderline to continue treatment but I insisted that I would take things easy if we kept regiments. I couldn’t bear the idea of having to start all over again. If that meant I had to really be careful then I would do be. My oncologist was still worried but she agreed to do it after I pleaded my case repeatedly. Camila reassured that she would make sure that I wouldn’t do something stupid again and that made her gave in.

This way I had gotten my chemo meds just yesterday, one day before New Year’s. That meant we wouldn’t get to celebrate another big holiday but there wasn’t much I could do at this point. I would have loved nothing more than going to Times Square with Camila and show her what an amazing party it was every year in New York. Maybe we would get to do it some other year. We had talked about maybe going for a few minutes if I felt up for it but I hadn’t really left the bed since we had gotten back from my treatment yesterday.

I felt worse than I probably ever had. My body was very strained from fighting the infection and now having to deal with another dose of chemotherapy. I genuinely didn’t even have the strength to get up for more than a few minutes at a time. While this would have angered me in the past, now I simply accepted it and let my body take all the rest it needed.

My eyes were closed and I was not asleep but not completely awake either when I felt someone cuddling up to me. I knew it could only be one person and draped my arm around the familiar body. A pair of soft lips placed a soft kiss on my neck as I took a deep breath. I was lying on my back and felt Camila scooting closer, putting one arm around my waist as well. She wasn’t saying anything, just enjoyed being close to me and I did the same. I was too weak to do anything else anyway.

“How are you feeling?”, Camila asked after quite a while.

“Not that great”, I answered truthfully because that was our deal. I had to be honest.

“Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m good right here”, I said with a little smile because her being there was the best remedy of all. “I’m sorry, though.”

“For what?”, Camila sounded surprised and I felt her shifting slightly so she was propped up on one elbow.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to go outside for the Countdown”, I explained and finally opened my eyes to see the chocolate ones looking deeply into mine.