When the ocean’s beauty fades into the night, why sit in the tide as if it won’t swallow you whole? When the rose has wilted, why keep it as if the petals won’t fall? And when the one you know best is testing your heart, why stay? June Monroe recites the short passage she had scribbled in her journal this morning as she stares at the creamy heart drawn in her coffee. The steam warms her hands. The first November frost sent a chill through her bones she couldn’t quite shake even with a fire’s glow. Golden leaves and vintage books accessorize the diner’s hearth. Why is it that people only find it aesthetically pleasing to read when the weather turns?

With a sigh, she refocuses her attention back to the mug, to the table, to the man sitting across from her. Nathan. His blue eyes are glassy today and from the shadows beneath them, she could tell that he, too, had a restless night. “You didn’t sleep well?” June asks before gently blowing on her coffee, careful to protect the swirled heart of vanilla foam.

“You either?” In addition to the uneven waves in her black hair, her smudged mascara must be a giveaway. There was a silent moment between them before the waitress delivered their omelets and toast. The same order as always. “Were you up writing something?” He says it like he needs more than one coffee to get through this breakfast.

“Oh, just something little.” She couldn’t show him yet. Of course, she couldn’t.

“Nothing too major.” And then with a bit more energy, she adds, “Should we toast?”

Nathan stops folding his napkin into a lopsided triangle to raise his mug.

“To one year since we’ve met.” He has to talk loudly over the din of the kitchen, the ‘good mornings’ and ‘welcomes’ from the aproned hosts.

“To one year since we’ve met.” June wants to say something else but that sentence alone implies more than enough. Pulling a run-away curl back behind her ear, she taps his ceramic mug with her own. She knows that when they go to sip their coffee, they’re both trying to hide the smiles they’ve long forgotten.

- - -

They first experienced each other’s stares at the diner on 31st Street. It was a warm autumn and June was just loosening the tie on her coat as she took her seat at a water-stained table. “It’s quite stuffy in here,” she huffed, gathering her hair in a fist. Her date, Charlie, grazed the small of her back as if that would cool her down a great degree. The temperature of the diner didn’t offer any relief either. Harvard students lined the walls and circled the tables until the small space was feeling like summer instead of the week before finals.

“It’s the last chance to have some fun before cramming,” Charlie had said, convincing himself that he was comfortable with anything and everything related to microbiology. Huh, she had thought, knowing how Charlie waltzed into every exam. “You can spend every hour next week working on your essays, Miss Journalist.” So, not wanting to let him down, she caved. The jazz band began to play at a quarter past eight and it wasn’t until a quarter past nine when June finally felt the music ease her mind. It was then too that she began to actually look around the diner, at all the faces scattered above the tables and all the instruments on the makeshift stage. “Are you having fun?” Charlie asked between songs, keeping his eyes fixated on the singer.

“Sure, I am,” she replied after a pause. She had caught a glimpse of the couple sitting beside Charlie. A honey-colored blonde was bouncing to the piano’s staccato while holding the hand of a man June had never seen before. He looked like the type of person who was naturally gifted in math. He had dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a thin layer of facial hair, the kind that appeared both clean and accidental. She must have been studying him for far too long because, to her surprise, he matched her stare. They held eye contact until Charlie’s voice interrupted whatever feeling arose in June.

“Do you know that guy?” He asked, suddenly moving his hand higher on her leg and raising a scrutinizing eyebrow. June had almost nodded because she felt as if she did actually know.

She sipped her tea, trying to suppress her blush. Charlie had gotten her favorite, earl gray. From three seats over, she could still feel the yearning behind those blue eyes.

“No, no I don’t. Do you need a refill?” June fetched his mug before he could say no. He had only taken a sip or two. “I’ll be right back.”

Less than ten seconds passed before June felt a tap on her shoulder at the counter. Sugar cubes and syrups patterned the granite. “I’m Nathan West,” the voice behind her spoke.

They shared their first everything that autumn night. They had both feigned excuses for leaving so early. During a catchy tune played by an impressive saxophone, Nathan thought he was coming down with something and June believed Charlie would have had a better time with someone more willing to relax. “But thank you for the tea,” she had said to his frown.

In just two weeks’ time, June had admitted that she was falling in love. After she had aced every one of her finals, Nathan graduated with a degree in statistics. His family was too broken to mend so she had been the only person to shout his name when he received his diploma. “Who knew a quiet girl like you could yell so loud?” He had asked afterward. Even as he mimed broken eardrums, he looked handsome in his gown.

​

With more free time, they had quickly become best friends. She had introduced him to her father who was accepting, though skeptical. “Does he have nice friends? What are his career plans? Does he drink? Does he remove his hat during dinner? Does he like the Patriots?” With both annoyance and care, June answered all of his questions on a cold Christmas Eve. Coming in from helping June’s father shovel the drive, Nathan, who had snowflakes strung to his eyelashes like beads, asked, “Where’s your mother?” Instead of considering the question for even a second, June played the vinyl to fill the house with Bing Crosby. She and Nathan danced around the kitchen while the unexpected question fell to the floor where Nathan was trying to find his footing.

“Remind me to lead next time,” June giggled uncontrollably. They only laughed more when a freezing Mr. Monroe entered the room with his mouth on the floor.

Before they could even catch their breath, the ball drop was playing on channel seven. June, flushed by champagne and lust, lay haphazardly in Nathan’s sheets. They had just toasted to a wonderful ‘98 to come and were late-night talking.“When I do, leave that is, I want you to come with me. You’ll be close to campus still and I’ll be close to my firm. You don’t have to say yes because I know we kind of only just met, but it doesn’t feel –” He was moving out of his apartment so they could share one. Together. June only had to imagine her novels on his bookshelves to say yes. She would leap.

“It really will be a happy New Year.”

And it was for a while. They were each other’s everything. When the spring semester began, June returned from the muddy campus each day to welcome Nathan home. There wasn’t a night they didn’t spend together. They cooked every dinner together and renovated the new apartment together. Together, together, together. They blended their friend groups and became the couple everyone wished they could be. She loved how Nathan looked on the sofa reading her latest assignment and how he could always make her laugh when she felt overwhelmed. When she cried in his lap for the writer’s block she loathed in February, he had twirled her hair between his fingertips and whispered, “June bugs don’t give up.”

“How would you know? You don’t even know what a June Bug looks like!” And she giggled through the tears then and wrote the next morning until she swore she had arthritis. He was a constant. It was easy.

But March came and June had just come home from her poetry course to find Nathan on the telephone. Bad news. His blue eyes were watery wells. He stiffened once the call ended, sitting at the kitchen table that was covered in clippings of Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Alfred Tennyson. “What is it? Was that the doctor?” He hadn’t been feeling well. Drowsy. Sick. But who didn’t feel that way in March? She clung to his shoulder, hesitant at first because she thought he might be too fragile to touch.

“June –” He sighed, his hands running through his hair over and over again. “Cancer.” That word. She had to sit, had to find something that would ground her to the floor. The world was unraveling around her. “You don’t have to stay. I wouldn’t expect you to. You’re busy with classes. You’re waiting on that internship at The New York Times. You need to stay focused.” His voice was clipped, searching for a sense of control.

June couldn’t stop the tears from falling. Whoever said you have to be strong for the person who’s hurting must have never seen their love aching in pain. She couldn’t meet his eyes, there was too much emotion in them. They had painted the kitchen yellow as a reminder to stay happy and they were feeling the opposite of that, of what they had been feeling the past four months. They had argued about which shade they should choose but that time with Nathan was actually one of June’s favorite memories. They ordered Chinese and watched The Money Pit. Nathan surprised June with his impression of Tom Hanks.

That night seemed forever ago now as Tennyson’s words practically shone on the table. Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. June would put her entire soul into that message and believe it more than she could any religion. She picked the paper off the table and rubbed the words between her trembling fingertips.

The appointments in the stale hospital, the shifts she picked up at the local library, the sounds of his vomiting, the sobs she cried to her father, and the slow days she crossed off the calendar were dreadful, but there came a shift with August’s warmest day when the lilies bloomed.

“Are you ever going to admit why you called me?” Charlie threw down another price tag and scoffed in the middle of the furniture store. He had let her join him on his morning errand. He needed a better sofa for his apartment. An errand.

“We’re friends aren’t we?” She really just needed a break from all of the stress. It was as simple as that. She needed to be selfish for a single day. She needed to avoid the letter she received last week. It was shoved in the back of her desk with the pens she didn’t like. “I thought so.” Charlie chuckled then and slid past her to look at a brown leather ottoman. She wondered if he noticed the small tear.

“You ditching me that night at the diner said otherwise.” He shook his head but about what, June didn’t know. What was she doing there?

“Isn’t buying furniture too boring for you?” She hoped to change the subject.

​

“I’m going to be a Harvard grad soon, June. I can do boring things.” They both laughed before he saw the pain behind her smile, the confusion. He pointed to the plush ottoman. “Help me get a discount on this one and then be on your way.” He knew as well as her.

The clock above the sink had just neared noon when she arrived home from the humid walk from the store. Nathan should have been sleeping like he usually did halfway through the day, but instead, he was sitting up on the sofa watching a baseball game. Boston. “I was with Charlie this morning.” June blurted out. There was an unsettling sense of guilt in her stomach. He kept his focus on the bottom of the fifth. She took a deep breath, not as deep as the blue of his eyes during hard times though. “We just ran an errand.” Nathan nodded, patting the couch with the remote. She sat. “You asked me where my mother was. On Christmas Eve.”

“I remember.” The television went black and now June knew he was listening. God, why had she waited this long? “I don’t need you to explain, June. I never expected you to be loyal to all of this. We haven’t even known each other for a year.”

“My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease when I was fifteen. I saw her sick and I hated every second of it. When you got sick, I felt the same way as I did back then. I was scared.” A rush of words.

“But you’ve been so good about everything. Why wouldn’t you have told me this?” She hadn’t been so good. She’d been late to appointments because she was sitting in the parking lot. She’d pretended not to recognize his bad days because she was too scared to cope.

“Because I’m scared too. I don’t want to get sick and I can’t lose someone else –” Nathan stopped her, absorbing everything she had told him. He was doing the thing where he ran his hands through his hair.

“It was just an errand?”

“Of course, it was just an errand.”

He reached across the sofa to collect her in his arms and whispered, “I’m so sorry about your mom. I was waiting until you got home to tell you it’s done. The tumor is gone. It’s done.”

With an enormous sigh of relief, she decided then that it was the right time to say, “I got the internship.”

- - -

“It’s crazy,” June says, scanning the diner, remembering the piano and the people and the warmth. “It feels like I’ve known you forever and it’s only been a year since we met at the counter over there.” Nathan follows her fingertip. Someone is tending the espresso machine. Coffee beans romanticize the diner with their sweet perfume.

“It really does.” There’s a visible hint of a smile across his face. He’s wearing a black long-sleeve, June’s favorite color on him. “So, it’s everything you hoped it would be?”

“And more.” It’s the truth, the internship had started off on a perfect note. She half laughs, half sighs. “I miss living with you. I don’t know what I’ll do if they give me an actual position. The Times is no joke.” She shakes her head, thinking about the papers she left all over her apartment. They’ve stuck to their plan of seeing each other every three weeks. “I just feel like we can’t get a break, me and you.” June is still snuggling the latte in her hands before Nathan takes them in his own. “Why are you smiling?”

His blue eyes burn into hers. “Maybe not, but we’ve been doing our best. After everything, I’ve finally found my place at the firm, and you’re practically skipping in the right direction. But, I couldn’t sleep because I was too excited to see you, June bug. You know where my head is.” The tear she hadn’t known had fallen is brushed from her cheek with his thumb.

“Skipping?” She teases. He nods and gives a knowing grin through a bite of toast.

“So, what did you write? I want to know. Your ‘nothing major’ is the next headline of the paper.”

“Fine, fine, fine.” Impossible to resist, she thinks. Laying her journal beside his plate, she sips while he reads the three lines.

“Why didn’t you want to show me that?”

“Because I don’t know the answer.” The expression that appears on his face is unreadable, but only for a moment. He reaches behind him to fetch a little slip of wrinkled paper tucked deep into the pocket of his jacket.

“I found this in your sweater one morning and I kept it on me while I was sick.” He unfolds it and lets her read. The paper is worn so thin that it’s almost transparent. Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. “I sometimes regretted falling in love with you because I knew that if my cancer got worse, I’d have a hell of a time saying goodbye, and when you said you were scared of getting sick like your mom, I knew I had to keep it for both of us.” He tries to smooth a permanent crease. “I’m sorry if you needed it for something.”

June is frozen, numb to the sadness and amount of love he’s pouring out to her. “That’s the answer, then.” Without being able to help herself, she leans across the booth to kiss him. When their lips touch, a hint of a yellow promise is made. Remission.