“Baby, don’t cry. I swear I did not kiss her back. She wouldn’t listen to me.”

“We’ve been together for almost a year Tristan. It’s hard to believe someone would just show up out of nowhere and not know we’re together.”

He drops to his knees in front of me with tears streaming down his face.

“She’s been in Europe. She just got back into town.”

“Is this because I can’t have sex with you right now?”

“What? No Evelyn—”

“Is it because I’m sick and you have to always feed me our memories?”

“Baby stop, just stop,” he whispers, as he continues to cry.

“No Tristan! I was getting drugs shoved into my body. Your brother was right. And here you were making out with some other woman while our son was asleep right down the hall.”

He tries putting his head in my lap and I shove him away with the arm not holding our son.

“Don’t touch me,” I hiss.

He chokes on a sob. “Baby, I didn’t cheat on you. I would never do that!”

“I’m fighting cancer and I’m tired. I am going to feed our son and myself. Then I am going to call my father to come and get us for a while.”

“No, no, no baby. I will leave if you want space, but I did not cheat. Don’t leave; please don’t leave!”

“Whatever Tristan, take the baby. I’m too weak to get up while holding him.”

“Yeah, okay,” he whispers.

He takes our baby and tries helping with his free arm. I knock it away, causing pain to flash across his face.

“I don’t want your help Tristan, not with myself. Help with our son all you want. Just don’t touch me!”

He lets me go down the stairs first, probably to make sure I don’t fall. I hit the bottom step and look towards the front door.

“What the hell is she doing back here?” I yell. Hasn’t she caused enough pain?

“She has something she would like to say to you Sunshine.”

“Adella is a friend of mine so I called her to see what all this was.”

Oh, this just gets better and better.

“No, wait Sunshine, let her finish.”

“She told me who you were.”

I cross my arms, leaning against the wall beside of the steps.

“And who am I?” I spit out weakly. This is just too much. I am fighting cancer and just had a baby; how much more do I have to endure?

“‘Love Lost’. You are ‘Love Lost’. You are the mother of his child, and you are fighting cancer. He didn’t kiss me back. He was trying to explain and I…I didn’t want to hear it. I’m sorry for any trouble I caused you.”

She turns and goes through the open door, with Drake shutting it behind her.

“I told you,” Tristan whispers, causing my blood to boil.

“Tristan, tie up your loose ends or untie me,” I spit out.

“Okay baby.”

Why is his voice irritating me all of a sudden?

“I can’t do this. I can’t handle groupies Tristan.”

A year later and they still come around? The hell?

“You know dad paid the label off to cancel the contract. There will be no more.”

“Give it a rest Tristan. That doesn’t stop them from coming around. I didn’t want you to cancel the contract. You did that all on your own cause you wanted to be here. Make it known you’re off the market much louder if you have to, or cut me f**king loose!”

I sigh. I need to sleep.

“Can you feed the baby? I need to sleep. I’m too tired to eat now.”

“Yeah.”

I push past him and walk back upstairs.

I fall asleep quickly. This is all becoming too much for me to bear. I think I might be losing it.

I wake up in Tristan’s arms as he is carrying me out of the bedroom.

What on earth?

“Tristan, what are you doing?” I try to wiggle free, but his grasp is a million times stronger than my weak little cancer-ridden body.

“I have a surprise for you.”

This man is infuriating. I was sleeping!

He walks outside and down the stairs onto the beach where there are a bunch of candles lit. He stands me up in the middle of them.

“Tristan, what are you doing?”

He drops to one knee.

“I’m making it known; making it louder and clearer. How much louder is a wedding ring right?”

I gasp, throwing a shaky hand over my mouth, tears already forming.

“I’m going to recycle from our past, recreating another first baby, but I’m gonna add to it.”

He takes a breath in as he pulls out a ring box and opens it. It is my old ring that I found in my memory boxes.

“There are a million reasons why I love you, but it would take forever to name them, so I will just say a few. I love how you love me like our lives depend on it. I love your laugh, your voice, your touch. I love how when you’re mad at me you show it now. I love how you treat my brother as your own. I love how you call my parents mom and dad. I love you for taking one of my most embarrassing moments and turning it into something funny. I love how you just roll with everything. I love how smart you are. I love how beautiful you are. I love how you came back to me. I love you because you gave me our son. I love how you are so strong even though your body might be weak. But the main reason I love you is for how special you are to me, because there is only one Evelyn Marie Beaumont. There is no one in this entire world but you that I could love. I was meant to ogle you and hit you with that volleyball and I will never apologize for that again. I believe we were meant to lose one another only to find our way back to one another again. So will you marry me my crazy-ass beautiful girl?”