I remember remarking how pale he was. He had always been so much tanner than me. Always. The look is his eyes automatically contradicted the smile on his face as I walked towards him. It was as if he was overlooking a deep ledge within the contours of his mind, looking into the deep abyss scared out of his psyche. But he would never say anything to the contrary of his pseud; he is much too strong to break. I sit down beside his bed. Wires upon wires twist into his frail body; the body of a starved athlete; a deprived soldier. The words that escaped his mouth came out billowing with a fighting spirit. The spirit that kept him from falling into that abyss. I smiled. His young body was ever so broken.
I always wondered what he saw in my eyes. In my mind, I was unmistakably scared, and angry, and sad, but I could never let that show. If I wasn’t strong, how could I ever look in those eyes I’d fallen in love with and ask him to be? If I didn’t ground myself, if I wasn’t there to hold him up when life was giving it’s all to make him fall, then I was truly purposeless. My heartache would be saved for the late hours of the night, when I could blast sad music, and stare at the ceiling. When I could curl up and escape to the oblivion of sleep.

I took his hand. It was so cold. He was melting away before my eyes. We were silent for a minute of two, but this was no different than before. We were to the point where we didn’t have to talk to understand. His hand went to my cheek. It was silent, except for the monotone chorus of noise from all of his IVs. There are no words to describe what it’s like to watch someone wither away. There are no words to describe the feeling of utter numbness, or the pain of projecting false strength.
I look at him, and with genuine confidence I whisper “It will all be over soon.”
He smiles. I smile. The world had seemed to have stripped him of almost everything, but he was smiling. We hold hands again; I rest my cheek on the rail of his bed. I stare into his eyes, and there we both fell asleep, for a moment or so. There is where I realized just how much I care about this boy. There is where I witnessed true, and indefinable, courage.