Chapter 1
Prologue: Before the Goodbye
Lia’s POV
The morning I decided to break his heart began like every other morning I loved him.
Sunlight seeped through the thin curtains, laying pale gold across the floorboards, across the book he’d left open on the arm of the sofa, across the shirt of his I was wearing.
The flat smelled like coffee and burnt toast—Nathan’s signature domestic disaster. Nate, as I liked to call him, had a particular talent for turning breakfast into both a hazard and a love language.
He whistled something tuneless in the tiny kitchen of my London apartment, then swore when the toaster smoked.
“You’re banned from heat,” I called, smiling into the pillow.
“I’m a slow learner,” he said, appearing in the doorway with two plates and that grin that made me feel nineteen again—even at twenty-eight.
Nate, at thirty, always looked like he’d just stepped out of a memory I didn’t know I’d made—dark curls refusing to obey gravity, soft green eyes full of mischief and sunlight, stubble that made him look equal parts professor and trouble.
He was tall, lean, all warmth and clumsy grace. The kind of man who could ruin toast but remember the exact way you take your tea.
He’d showered already; damp curls clung to his forehead, and a drop of water lingered at the base of his throat—one I had an almost religious urge to kiss.
He handed me the less cremated toast, then set his plate down and climbed onto the bed on his knees, bracing one hand beside my hip.
“Quality control,” he murmured, stealing a bite from my plate—and my breath.
“Oi.” I poked him in the ribs, laughing. But the laughing tipped into breathlessness. Not much. Just enough to make the room tilt. I chased it away with a smile.
“You’re terrible at breakfast.”
“Untrue. I am excellent at coffee.” He passed me a mug far too large for human hands. “And you love my burnt toast. It’s the crunch of champions.”
I didn’t tell him how the mug felt heavier this morning, how my hands trembled—not from nerves, but from something deeper, something that lived beneath my ribs and beat too hard when I asked it to be brave.
He flopped beside me, propped on one elbow, watching me like reading me was easier than reading the world.
“You’re quiet,” he said softly.
“I’m thinking.”
“About?”
“Whether I can convince you that ordering pancakes is not a moral weakness.”
He smiled. “You never have to convince me of breakfast. I’m already there.”
We ate with our legs tangled, sunlight pooling on our skin. My skin—warm caramel, kissed bronze in the morning light—contrasted against his pale arm as he reached for the coffee pot.
It was one of those small, quiet contrasts I’d always loved.
Him and I.
Light and shade.
My curls tangled around his fingers, his freckles pressed to my shoulder like tiny constellations. We fit, impossibly, like something the universe had drawn before it even invented words.
He told me about a client who thought deadlines were decorative, and about the song he couldn’t get out of his head—some old thing his dad used to play on road trips.
He hummed the chorus until I sighed theatrically and joined in, off-key.
He pressed his forehead to mine and whispered, “Hopeless,” with so much affection it felt like a blessing.
I loved him. God, I loved him.
Later, after we’d left the bed unmade and the coffee half‑drunk, he found me standing in the hallway, still in his shirt, staring at our gallery of nowhere photos: our shadows on a beach, a snowman with a spear-sized carrot for a nose, the blurry shot at the fair with fairy lights exploding behind us like sparks.
“Let’s take the weekend away,” he said suddenly.
I blinked. “What?”
“Come away with me. This weekend. Somewhere with terrible reception and too many stars.”
He leaned against the wall beside me, his voice gone shy around the edges. “There’s a cabin up north. A friend owes me a favour. I thought… you and me. No burnt toast. Or lots of it, if that’s our kink.”
My laugh came out wrong.
“Nate…”
He saw something in my face, and the grin faltered into concern.
“Hey. I was mostly joking about the toast.”
He reached for my hand. “If you don’t want to go, we don’t have to. We can do movie night and a pillow fort like feral kids. I just—” He exhaled. “I want more of this, Lia. More of you.”
Something fluttered in my chest like a trapped bird. I managed a smile, but it felt like something brittle held under lights. “You’ve got a presentation on Monday.”
“I’ll move it.”
“You can’t move the world for me,” I said lightly.
“Watch me.”
I kissed him before I could cry. He kissed me back like we had time.
The first fainting spell happened at lunch.
We were at the café on the corner with basil pots in the window. I remember the clink of cutlery, the soft bell when the door opened, his knee against mine under the table.
I remember thinking, Tell him.
Then the room greyed at the edges.
“Lia?”
Nate’s voice came from far away. I blinked too slowly. The fork slipped from my fingers and tapped the plate with a bright ring.
By the time it hit, he was already beside me, one hand at my back, the other brushing hair from my face.
He smelled like wind and espresso and home.
“Sorry,” I murmured when the colour returned. “Stood too fast.”
“You were sitting,” he said gently.
“Then I sat too fast.”
He didn’t laugh. Not really.
He walked me home even though it was four streets away, and the day was soft and ordinary.
He made tea. Found the blanket I claimed to hate and tucked it around me anyway. He put on a film and didn’t watch any of it.
His eyes flicked to me every few seconds, like he could keep me tethered just by looking.
By evening, I’d almost convinced myself it was nothing—stress, skipped breakfast, faulty body mechanics. By evening, he’d almost convinced me to call the GP.
I didn’t.
I promised I would tomorrow.
I meant it.
Almost.
The second collapse came the next morning, on the bathroom floor. My heart raced at a lazy pace—too hard for doing nothing at all. I counted my breaths. The tears came without permission.
At the doctor’s there were kind eyes, cold stethoscopes, machines that drew my heart in electric lines.
There were new words: dilated cardiomyopathy—congenital, degenerative—each one peeling away the world I knew.
“There are treatments,” the consultant said. “We can manage symptoms with medication and monitoring. But long-term… a transplant offers the best outcome. Survival without one isn’t impossible. Just uncertain.”
“How long?” I asked.
He didn’t answer directly.
“Do you have someone we can share this with?” he asked instead. “A partner? Family?”
I heard myself say, very calmly, “No.”
On the walk home, the city felt louder. I thought of Nate’s hand on my knee under the table. His voice saying more of this. His offer of stars and silence and a life we hadn’t lived yet.
At home, I stood in front of the mirror and practised smiling. It looked right—until it didn’t. Until it cracked. Until the girl in the mirror whispered:
You can’t ask him to wait in hallways and whisper your name into monitors or learn the dosages of pills you can’t pronounce without crying.
At six, Nate knocked with daisies he’d definitely overpaid for. He kissed my cheek, my forehead, my mouth, and I tasted every future I couldn’t give him if I wanted to be kind.
We stayed in. Ordered Thai.
He teased me about my mild curry addiction until I stole his spoon, swore I’d changed, and took three mouthfuls of his.
He laughed into my neck, curled a hand against my spine, and made a quiet sound that said, please stay.
That night, when he fell asleep facing me like a sunflower, I lay awake counting the beats that no longer kept time.
When dawn broke, I was still awake. He woke to find me watching him. Kissed my wrist. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I whispered. “Everything.”
“Weekend away?”
The no caught in my throat. He mistook it for hesitation. “We can stay in,” he said quickly. “Do nothing. Just… be.”
Then softer: “Move in with me.”
The words struck like a stone in water.
“Lia…” He pushed his hair back. His heart was wide open in his eyes. “I don’t know how to not plan my life around you. I don’t know how to not try. So, tell me if I’m wrong. But if you want me… I’m all in.”
Something inside me cracked cleanly.
I kissed him.
Then I got dressed.
Then I cleaned the already clean kitchen, because movement was easier than choosing a future in hospital chairs.
When I turned around, he was watching me with that same patient hope.
“Lia?”
I held the counter—and the lie—with both hands. “I can’t do this.”
He frowned. “The cabin?”
“Us,” I said. “I can’t do us.”
He went still, like the air had turned to glass.
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to move in. I don’t want a cabin. I don’t—” I swallowed. “I don’t want this.”
“Since when?”
“Since now.”
He stepped toward me. “If I did something—”
“You didn’t.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t love you enough to make it worth it.” The words tasted like poison.
He flinched. Swallowed hard.
“No.”
“Nate—”
“No,” he said again, quieter. “I don’t believe you. I know you. I know you.”
He reached for my hand, held it like a question.
“Tell me what’s really going on.”
Tell him, something begged.
Instead, I pulled away. Wrapped my arms around myself.
“I’ve said what I needed to.”
He looked at me for a long time.
Long enough that I could hear the clock ticking, the siren of a distant ambulance, and the way my heart beat unevenly, like it knew what I was doing.
Finally, he nodded. Picked up his keys.
He didn’t shout. Didn’t beg.
Just broke—quietly, in the shape of his face.
“I’ll come back for my things later. Text me when you’re not here.”
“Okay.”
“If you ever decide to tell me the truth…” He hesitated. “I’ll still want to hear it.”
I didn’t look at him.
“Goodbye, Nate.”
He waited—for mercy. Then left.
The door closed softly.
I stood still and listened to the silence expand.
I turned toward the sink, needing something ordinary to hold on to.
The room tilted—not enough to fall, just enough to make me grip the counter until the world settled again.
When I could move, I walked to the sink and turned on the tap, watching water run over the daisies like time being poured out.
My vision blurred for a moment—edges soft, colours wrong—then sharpened again as if nothing had happened.
I tried to steady myself the way I always did—counting breaths.
One. Two. Three.
My heart stumbled, then hurried, like it was trying to make up for something it had forgotten.
I counted five breaths. Six. Seven.
Then the pain came.
It wasn’t cinematic.
No sudden clutch and collapse. Just pressure building until it knocked me to my knees.
I was cold and sweating.
The room narrowed.
I remember crawling for my phone. The operator’s voice. Sirens rising. The moment they arrived.
Outside, the sky was the colour of unspilled storm. A drop of rain hit my cheek.
Sirens rose and fell as they lifted me onto the stretcher and the doors closed.
Monitors beeped steadily as the ambulance carried me through streets I barely recognised.
When the siren finally faded, white light replaced darkness as they wheeled me into St. Alden’s.
I didn’t know what the night would demand—or what promises had been made on roads I couldn’t see.
I only knew this: I had chosen the kindest cruelty I could live with.
