Mark was on the bathroom floor again. Third time today. You were starting to memorize the rhythm of his retching: short gasps, then a full-body lurch, then silence that made you wonder if his heart had stopped. You crouched beside him, arm braced around his shoulders, the other hand trembling as you held a glass of water to his lips. “Mark-” He slapped the glass out of your hand. It hit the tile and shattered. Water mixed with blood from his cracked lip.

“Don’t.” His voice was hoarse, raw. A rasp more than a word. You flinched. But you didn’t move.

“I’m trying to help-”

“Stop trying.” He pushed away from you, dragging himself to sit against the wall, knees pulled in. “Just fucking stop.” You stood, pacing once, twice, then turned on him.

“No,” you snapped. “Not this time. You don’t get to push me away just because you’re in pain.” He laughed: harsh and empty. “You think this is just pain?”

You stared down at him, breathing hard. “What else do you want to call it?” He looked up, eyes bloodshot, expression twisted in something far past rage.

“It’s a funeral,” he said. “Every day. In pieces.” That shut you up. He shoved himself to his feet, staggering, gripping the edge of the sink with white knuckles. “Every fucking time I throw up, every time I can’t eat or walk or think, I’m watching myself die. Slowly. Pathetically. In front of you.”

“Mark-”

“I don’t want you to see this. Don’t you get that?” His voice cracked. “I can’t be the man you love and the man dying in your arms at the same time. I can’t.”

“You already are,” you said, voice breaking. “You already fucking are. And I’m still here.” He slammed his fist into the mirror. Glass cracked in a spiderweb around his reflection. A shallow gash opened across his knuckles. You stepped forward, reaching for his bleeding hand.

“Don’t touch me,” he breathed, but he didn’t pull away.

“I don’t care if you scream. I don’t care if you bleed. I don’t care if you hate me.” Your eyes burned. “But you don’t get to pretend this is easier for me. I love you. And it’s killing me to watch you give up.”

“I’m not giving up,” he growled. “I’m drowning.” His chest heaved, eyes wild with the kind of fear that doesn’t make it into words. “I close my eyes and see a coffin. I hear a clock ticking in my fucking blood. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave you. But I wake up every day wondering if this is the one where I stop being me. Where I stop being yours.” You stepped into him, grabbed his shirt in your fists.

“I don’t want perfect. I want you. However much there is. For as long as you’re here.” He looked at you like you’d just broken something in him. Like you’d said the thing he couldn’t let himself believe.

His voice dropped to a whisper. “And when I’m not?” You didn’t look away. Didn’t blink.

“Then I’ll still be here. Grieving the man I loved, not the one who pushed me away.” Mark closed his eyes. His shoulders buckled. And for the first time, he let it all out: his weight against you, his body shaking, his face buried in your neck like he could disappear there.

“I’m so fucking scared,” he whispered.