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I write it all down and send pictures in our new family group chat called Kick AML’s Butt, so everyone we love, our parents, my sister and his grandmother, knows how he’s doing. How much he ate, what his blood counts look like, how the chemo is going, whether he slept.

We’re fighting.

We’re not giving up.

We’re not stopping until Damiano is in remission and all of this is just a bad memory.

***

Months pass. Christmas comes and goes, and we even dance to our song on New Year’s Eve, swaying slowly in our living room while everyone else counts down to midnight.

When the clock strikes twelve, Damiano kisses me and whispers, “Next year we’ll celebrate remission, and I’ll finally take you to Paradiso Ranch.”

I believe him.

God, I believe him.

Four rounds of chemotherapy later, I’ve stopped counting blood transfusions, bags of platelets and hospital bracelets. My life is measured in bloodwork appointments and medication schedules now.

Round five is scheduled for Thursday.

We’re still following the plan. Another round of chemo, more bloodwork, more waiting, one step closer to the word we’ve been chasing for months.

Remission.

Jude called again and told us he got tickets to visit us this summer. Damiano tried to talk him out of it, telling him they’d see each other after he got better, but Jude insisted.

I saw the tears in Damiano’s eyes when he hung up.

In just a few months, his best friend, his brother, would be here.

Then, on Wednesday afternoon, I look up from packing Damiano’s hospital bag and see him shivering on the couch.

Violently.

My stomach drops. “You okay, baby?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and when he finally looks at me, his eyes seem distant and unfocused.

Wrong.

I cross the room in seconds and put my hand on his forehead. He’s burning up.

“No.” I grab the thermometer, and when the number appears, my heart sinks.

I call the ambulance exactly like the doctors told me to. Then I spend the next twenty minutes pretending I’m not terrified.

By the time we reach the hospital, he’s barely awake. There are no rooms available, so we spend the night in the emergency department surrounded by beeping machines, crying people and nurses rushing past while the hours crawl by.

I sit beside his bed, holding his hand, and pray.

God, I pray.

I pray until my head hurts, until my throat feels raw, until I run out of words and all I have left is the same desperate plea repeating inside my head.

Please.

Please.