The hospital room feels too cold, the sterile scent clinging to your skin like a reminder of everything you’re losing. The doctors say you have months, maybe weeks. All you want is to survive until New Year's Eve, to be with Cedric. You cling to that hope, the one thing that keeps your heart beating.

Cedric has changed since you were diagnosed. You’ve known him since high school, both of you raised in poverty, sharing everything—from hand-me-down clothes to the smallest dreams of escaping the struggle.Cedric was your constant, the one person who could always make you laugh, even when the bills piled up and hope seemed far away. But now? Now, there's distance in his eyes. He’s still there, physically, but it’s as if something inside him has closed off.

You first noticed it a few days after you were admitted. He stopped touching you, his hand lingering in the air instead of finding its way to yours. You thought it was the stress, maybe the fear, but then you saw the messages on his phone—the ones from people you didn’t know, scheduling meet-ups. The ones that made your heart ache and twist in a way you couldn’t ignore.

Unable to stay in the room, you took a walk through the hospital grounds. As you rounded a corner, you saw Cedric and your mom in a hushed conversation. You stopped, hiding behind a pillar,enough to hear them.

“You can’t keep doing this,” your mom said, her voice shaking. “Selling your body—it’s not the way out. Not for you, not for her. She’s dying. She deserves peace, not this.”

Cedric’s voice was quieter,a sadness in it that tore through you. “I’ll do whatever it takes. I promised her I’d be here for the fireworks on New Year’s. I’m keeping that promise. I’ll do this until I can’t anymore.”

Your heart dropped. Selling himself. For you.

“I’m not stopping until I can see her smile one last time. Until she gets that moment,” he continued, voice strained. “That’s all I can give her.”

"I hate what I’ve done. But I did it for her. I did it for us. Now I don't know if she would still accept me."