Love Lost to Illness and Lies

When I was nineteen, during a scorching summer, I left everything behind to run away with Armani. Through tears, young Armani promised he'd never let me down. Seven years later, in the heart of winter, I was diagnosed with cancer while Armani celebrated his childhood friend's birthday.

Leaving the hospital, I stepped into the season’s first snowfall, clutching the thin paper with my stomach cancer diagnosis in one hand and my phone in the other, debating whether to call Armani. Our last conversation was still on the screen, dated a week ago. After his childhood friend, Vienna, returned from abroad, we had a big argument and had been giving each other the silent treatment. He barely came home anymore. Staring at my empty contact list, I realized I had no one to turn to. The doctor's words echoed in my mind—I had only a few months left to live.

After a long pause, I dialed Armani’s number. The phone rang endlessly; unsurprisingly, no one picked up. Cold wind mixed with snowflakes hit my face, chilling me to the bone. I quickly pulled out a scarf to wrap around my neck. Maybe it was psychological, but ever since I got sick, I was much more sensitive to the cold. The scarf was a simple white one, with a cute little teddy bear carefully stitched at the end. Armani had knitted it himself as a special gift for my eighteenth birthday. That winter, it was all the rage in our group to knit scarves for your significant other. I was hopeless with my hands, my fingers pricked red with every attempt. Armani, worried, wouldn't let me continue knitting. But on my birthday, he wrapped his own handmade scarf around my neck.

The warmth from the scarf surrounded my neck, and suddenly, I felt an intense longing to see Armani.