All Chapters of To my Romeo, I am dying: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

28 Chapters

The Boy I Couldn't Lie To Forever

Chemo always left me cold in a way no hoodie could fix, some deep-under-the-skin cold that stuck around no matter how high the nurse cranked the heated blanket or how tight I wrapped both hands around the paper cup of tea Mom bought from the hospital café on the way out.By the time we got home the sun had finally climbed over Cedar Bluff, painting the rooftops gold, and it should have looked beautiful. Instead it just looked normal, which felt unfair somehow. The world hadn't changed a bit. People still drove to work. Mrs. Hargrove was out trimming her roses like any other Tuesday. Somebody down the street laughed at something. Meanwhile I'd spent the whole morning watching poison drip slow into my arm, and life apparently had zero interest in checking whether I was ready to keep up with it.Mom parked outside and reached across the console. "You don't have to go to school today."I stared through the windshield. "If I stay home, Gray'll come over.""He might anyway

Last Updated : 2026-07-28

The Wrong Partner

People stopped talking when I walked into the corridor before first period, not the whole hallway, just a cluster of juniors by the lockers who got very interested in a noticeboard right as I passed, and two girls from choir who whispered something and smiled at each other in a way I didn't love the look of. Maybe it wasn't about me.Dana caught up with her backpack sliding off one shoulder and asked if I'd seen Gray, and when I said no she told me he was looking for Marcus, which made me actually stop walking. I asked why and she said she didn't know, but she looked at me a beat too long first, like she was checking whether I really didn't know either. I didn't. She said maybe I should talk to him if I saw him, and before I could ask what that meant the warning bell cut the whole thing off and everybody scattered into classrooms.English dragged the way it always did with Mrs. Holloway on a symbolism kick, forty straight minutes of it, and my phone buzzed twice in my bag wh

Last Updated : 2026-07-29

Every Tuesday

"What happens every Tuesday, Josie?"The question sat there. Quiet. That was the thing about Gray, he never asked the big stuff loud, he asked it soft and then just waited, which was somehow worse than yelling would've been, because yelling you could argue with.Behind him the hallway had mostly cleared out, cast members gone home, one laugh echoing out of the auditorium before the doors swung shut on it.I looked at the script in my hands instead of at him."I asked you something.""I heard you.""So answer."My fingers pressed into the pages hard enough to bend the corners. "It's nothing."He laughed, short, no actual humor in it anywhere. I hated that sound coming from him. "You disappear every Tuesday. Phone goes off. You come back looking..." He stopped, hunting for the word, didn't find it. "Different.""Appointments.""What kind.""My mom's.""My mom has appointments," he said, and his eyes narrowed on the word, because we both

Last Updated : 2026-07-30

The Silence Between Us

Nobody prepares you for silence.Arguments, maybe.You expect arguments.You expect slammed doors and raised voices and dramatic speeches that only happen because somebody still cares enough to fight.Silence is different.Silence doesn't ask for anything.It just moves in and starts taking pieces of your life one by one....Monday morning, Gray didn't wait outside my house.For seventeen years one of us had knocked on the other's front door before school.Sometimes it was me.Sometimes it was him.Sometimes neither of us bothered knocking anymore because our parents had long ago decided we were basically extra children living across the road.This morning my porch stayed empty.I kept looking through the curtains anyway.Five minutes.Then ten.Then I watched him leave alone.He never looked towards my house.Not once.Mom noticed."You'll miss the bus.""I'm coming.""You can still stop hi

Last Updated : 2026-07-31

The Space Between Us

Monday showed up the way bad Mondays always do, too early, too bright, too ordinary for what it actually was. I stood in front of my wardrobe longer than I needed to, staring at clothes that all somehow looked identical.Mom knocked once before pushing the door open. "You'll miss first period.""I know."She looked at me a second. "You don't have to go.""I do.""You don't.""I really do." School was the last place left where pieces of my old life still existed, even if they were coming apart one at a time.The drive was quiet. Mom didn't turn the radio on, and neither of us seemed interested anymore in pretending things were fine. When we pulled into the lot she reached over and squeezed my hand. "You'll get through today."I smiled because she needed me to. "I'm getting pretty good at pretending."Her face fell. "Josie.""I'm joking." I wasn't, and we both knew it, but neither of us said so o

Last Updated : 2026-08-01

The Empty Seat

Monday mornings had always gone the same way. Gray waiting on his porch with his backpack hanging off one shoulder, pretending he hadn't been watching my bedroom window for the light to come on. Some mornings he'd throw a tennis ball across the road until I finally came out. Some mornings he'd start complaining about chemistry homework before we'd even hit the end of Maple Avenue. Some mornings we just walked the whole fifteen minutes without much to say at all, and it never mattered, because the point was never really the conversation. The point was that we walked together.That morning his porch sat empty. For one hopeful second I figured I'd just left late. I checked my phone, 7:18, the exact time I'd been leaving since freshman year, not a minute off. Then his bedroom curtains shifted and I looked up on instinct, and he was there, standing at the window, and he saw me see him. Neither of us moved for a heartbeat. Then he grabbed his backpack, disappeared from the window, and

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Someone Who Listens

Gray had forgotten how loud silence could be.It followed him everywhere now.Across Maple Avenue.Down the halls at school.Into the auditorium.Even onto the football field.For years, every part of his day had carried the quiet certainty that Josie would be somewhere nearby. Maybe not talking. Maybe buried in one of her sketchbooks. Maybe laughing at something only the two of them understood.She'd simply... be there.Now every place she wasn't felt wrong.Monday slipped into Tuesday, then Wednesday, and nothing changed.He still woke before his alarm.Still glanced across the street before pulling his curtains open.Still caught himself expecting to see Josie fumbling with her backpack as she hurried down her front steps.Instead, he found an empty sidewalk.He stopped looking after three days.Or at least he told himself he had.---Football practice ran late.Coach Reyes kept blowing his whistle, barking instructions nobody seemed interested in hearing.Gray usually stayed behin

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Cozy With Sable

Sable rolled the bottle between her palms. "I used to think you and Josie would end up married." Gray let out a quiet laugh. "So did everybody else." "I'm serious." "I know." "You were..." She searched for the right word and shrugged when she couldn't find it. "Easy." Gray stared across the empty backstage corridor. "Were." The word slipped out before he could stop it. Sable didn't correct him. Didn't rush to fill the silence. She'd learned something over the past few weeks. People usually started talking again if you gave them enough room. "You still care about her." He looked at the floor. "I don't know how to stop." "Then don't." His head lifted. She smiled, but it wasn't a triumphant smile. It looked almost sympathetic. "You can love someone and still admit they've shut you out." He frowned. "She hasn't..." The words died halfway out. Hadn't she? Every Tuesday she disappeared. Every question ended the same way. I'm fine. It's n

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

The Best Kind of Liar

Tuesday mornings always smelled the same.Coffee from the hospital café.Bleach from the polished floors.The cinnamon gum Mom chewed whenever she was trying not to look worried.I used to think hospitals had one smell.Turns out they collect people the way libraries collect books. Every hallway carries something different.The children's oncology wing smelled faintly of crayons.Someone had taped paper butterflies across one wall since last week. There were more now. Purple. Yellow. A few had glitter that caught the lights whenever someone walked past.A little boy in dinosaur pajamas was trying to count them.He got to thirty-eight before his IV pole rolled into a chair."Again," he announced.Like losing count wasn't losing at all.I liked him for that.Mom squeezed my shoulder."You ready?"Nobody ever waited for the answer.The nurse already knew my name."Morning, Josie.""Morning.""Love the hoodie."I looked down.Gray's old navy hoodie.The sleeves still covered half my hand

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Doing it again

The lunch bell had barely finished ringing when my phone buzzed.MomRunning ten minutes late.Wait in the library.I slipped the phone back into my pocket.The library sounded easier than another hour pretending I was hungry.Mrs. Everett looked up from stamping returned books as I walked in."Back again?""I've got a free period.""You've had a lot of those lately."I smiled."Lucky me."She wasn't convinced, but she pointed toward the back corner anyway."Don't fall asleep.""No promises."I settled into the chair beside the window and opened Dana's sketchbook.The page I'd started the night before stared back at me.A park bench.Two stick figures.Too simple.Too honest.I turned the page instead.Blank.Better.Blank pages couldn't tell on you.The pencil hovered for a while before it moved.Not because I had an idea.Because my hand started drawing before my brain did.A pair of trainers.Untied laces.One shoe facing forward.The other turned slightly away.I frowned."What is

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

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