Chapter Seven
Liam Hemsworth
Dying should be the last thing any man my age should be thinking about.
I've known very little illness my entire life and have had my share of risky adventures. I've gone on bungee jumps, climbed mountains worldwide, and slept with strange women after a drunken binge.
Yes, I've lived, and I've outgrown some things and put them aside as the foolishness of youth. Today I run a billion-dollar tech industry with hundreds of employees depending on me for their sustenance.
So, how could I die?
I had just returned from a business trip in New York when I began to experience shortness of breath, chest pain, and weakness.
I wouldn't have thought anything of it at all except that it got worse instead of it to go away.
I managed it with pain relievers, but when I couldn't get out of bed Saturday morning, I had no choice but to cal my physician to run some tests. He looked worried about the results and insisted I go for further tests.
But I called Dr. Robinson instead. This was a man I had known all my life as an outstanding surgeon leading a team of the best doctors in the US to tackle only the worse cases that other hospitals could not handle.
Dr. Robinson had been a good friend of my father's. And over the years, he and his wife had been constant visitors at our house, and even more so after my dad passed on when I was eleven.
I always admired his tall, well-built frame and handsome features that made him look more like Sean Connery than a brilliant doctor.
It's amusing that as the years went by, when people saw us together, they'd ask if I were his son and then be amazed when we shook our heads.
I had grown to be at least half a foot taller than Dr. Robinson and by other people's standards, good-looking.
Beauty, they say, rests in the eyes of the beholder, and I can tell you that I have always been a man who dated tall, shapely blondes.
I've had several girlfriends over the years, and I've never really thought about any of them as 'serious'.
I assume a girl wants to be pampered and treated like a princess, so I let them spend as much of my money on whatever they wanted. But still, I found it difficult to commit to any of them.
Maybe it was because despite the physical connections, there was never any real connection of the heart, or mind, or spirit, or whatever it was that made people want to live with one person all the days of their lives.
But thinking about any real, lasting relationship was a luxury I longer had.
Dr. Robinson referred my case to a private cancer specialist clinic. After several tests, I'd been diagnosed and given less than a year to live.
How did I feel? Shattered, to say the least. And immediately lonely.
My mother had been my only family and she passed three years ago.
The first thing that came to my mind when Dr. Robinson told me the results was that I had no one to share it with.
I would die and no one would care in a deep, personal way.
I ran through the ladies I'd dated over the years and wondered which of them I could have possibly had a long-term relationship with, even if I'd wanted one.
Which of them would want to return to my life just to care for a dying man?
The answer was obvious in my mind.
Sure, I had Dr. Robinson. He'd done his best to fill the void in my life overthe years. And maybe the void in his own life as well, because he never had any children.
We went to games together, drank beer together, and fished together. But I wasn't too young to have forgotten my dad. And though I knew he wasn't trying to replace him, I also knew it was not the same.
Some days later, we were sitting in his office talking about the best form of treatment when I saw Emilia for the first time.
The wall to Dr. Robinson's office was made of glass and I could see her walk across the hall.
Dr. Robinson's words faded and I stared at her until she disappeared. There had been something immediately different about Emelia that compelled me to her.
"Who's she?"
"Who?" Dr. Robinson seemed surprised and almost choked out the question.
I waved a finger in the direction of the hallway."The doctor. She just walked past. Dark long hair with curls. Tall."
"Oh, that's Dr. Emilia. She's the best neurosurgeon this hospital has ever had but, um, she's special."
You bet she is, I thought.
I suppose Dr. Robinson expected some reaction from me, and when he didn't get one, he cleared his throat and said clearly, "I mean she's on the spectrum. Emilia is autistic."
"Hmmm. I find her interesting."
"Liam", Dr. Robinson's voice had become soft. "Emilia isn't even your type. I think you should focus on getting better than anything else right now.The diagnosis gave you only a few more months."
As though to buttress his point, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I leaned back and waited for it to ease up. He was right, of course. A dying man didn't think about life with a young, beautiful, brilliant surgeon.
But I knew immediately I laid eyes on Emilia that it wasn't like any other feeling I'd had.
At that exact moment, I knew that I couldn't die.
I knew I would do anything to save my life so I could share it with Emilia.
I listened to Dr. Robinson talk about a procedure they would do to remove as much of the cancer as possible. I heard him tell me that it was a 50-50 possibility of increasing my life span in any way. I heard him add that if anyone could do it, it was his team here at the hospital.
I heard but I wasn't processing any of it. I would go through the procedure Dr. Robinson wanted out of respect for his relationship with my mom. But I wasn't banking on it to save my life. At best, it would only give me a few months more.
My hand reached for the card in my overcoat. I'd been walking around with it for days now. Since the day I went to the cancer clinic.
After the tests, I was escorted into a well-furnished office where the director waited for me.
After I sat down, he explained a new experiment to me. One that was unauthorized by the Medical Association but had saved multiple lives so far. And he'd told me it was expensive, but it could also save my life.
He said they would simply cut off the part of my body that had cancer and replace it with a new harvested part they would create in their labs.
I asked him how many people it had killed.
He said several people had died as a result of the procedure but quickly went on to add that the statistics were no different than the number of deaths as the hospital.
I stood up, shook his hand, and left.
But I knew I was going to call Dr. Michaels. I was prepared to do an save my life now that I had met Emilia.
I also knew that if anyone gave me a higher chance of surviving the procedure Dr. Michaels had described, it was Emilia.
I fumbled with the card. Emilia had to be there when I got out of the hospital.
Our future together depended on it.