Five. Five months was only how long we had left together. Four. Four weeks of happiness before it started to kick in. Three. Three sessions in which I was there by his side supporting him. Two. There were two days of goodbyes and gifts before one. One moment in which what I thought was my entire world, came crashing down before my eyes.
His name was Jeremy. We met at a little coffee shop across the street from my apartment where I was a regular. The shop was a quaint little place with quirky decorations all around the walls.
It was a Thursday afternoon, I had just gotten off of work and decided to grab a cup of tea.
“Ding!”
Hearing the bell on the door, I naturally turned around to see who came in. Standing in the doorway was a male in his mid-twenties, medium build, and about 6 feet tall. I suddenly realized that I was staring and quickly turned around before he could notice. Because of the way the café looked from the outside, every day passerby’s wouldn’t care to give it a second glance. That’s why I thought it was so odd to see a new face coming in. 
“How’s it going?” he said as he got in line behind me.
“Not bad, you?”
“I just moved into the apartment building across the street and needed some coffee to help me stay awake to unpack.” he said, chuckling.
“Oh really? I live in that building too. If you need some help, I’d be happy to come over if you would like.”
“Yeah, that’d be great! I live in 218.”
When the barista called for the third time that it was my turn to order, I realized that we were both holding up the line. I ordered my chai and paid as quickly as I could. I left, giving him a smile before closing the door behind me.
Walking back to my apartment, I couldn’t stop thinking about how attractive he was. Granted it was poorly lit in the shop, but that didn’t really matter.
I unlocked the door to my apartment to find the piles of paperwork that I still needed to get done that night. Realizing that I agreed to help him way too quickly to remember that I had other duties, I got to work.
I tried for three hours, and after that I decided to put off the rest because I had the entire weekend.  I walked down the stairs, and through the dirty hallways to the second floor to go see him.
I knocked on the door, and got a sudden knot in my stomach for some reason. I didn’t usually get nervous when meeting new people, but this time was different. He opened the door with a grin on his face, which sent the message that he was excited that I was there too.
As I walked in, I saw that he only had 3 or 4 boxes left to unpack, and that the rest of the place was already furnished.
“I’ve gotten a lot done in the last three hours” he said while laughing.
“Yeah I can see that. Your decorations are absolutely beautiful though.”
“Thank you,” he said, “most of them I’ve accumulated over the years as I traveled to different countries.”
“Where have you been?”
“Here and there, mostly everywhere. I stopped keeping track after my third week backpacking through Asia.”
He was cute, cultured, lived on his own, and traveled the world? I was starting to think that maybe meeting him at the shop that day was a message sent to me from somewhere above that this was meant to be. (I know that sounded really desperate and corny, but hey, he was perfect).
That’s when the ornament I was holding slipped out of my hands and shattered on the ground. I felt awful because it looked one of a kind.
“I’m so sorry, I can’t believe I let that happen.”
“Don’t worry about it, it wasn’t my favorite anyway.”
After that day, we started meeting up with each other at the coffee shop more often. Gradually, we started dating, and it was the best few months of my twenty-something year old life.
Life, however, caught up to us soon thereafter.
After six months together, we knew that each other were “the ones”. We knew that would end up spending the rest of our lives together. Although most people would say that six months wasn’t enough time to tell, they weren’t the ones feeling the way we had felt. We knew each other inside and out, like how he only washed his lucky sweater once every two weeks because he didn’t want it to get worn out, or how I had to have exactly three ounces of cream in my coffee each morning.
***
It was a Thursday afternoon when we agreed to meet at the coffee shop after our day concluded. As he walked in with a grim face, I could tell that something was off. 
He sat down, and looked at me with his hazel eyes as if he was trying to tell me something but it wouldn’t come out. He tried to play it off and instead, asked me about my day and brought up other things, but I wasn’t fooled. I decided not to push it and waited until he was ready to tell me to hear it.
The next day, I went to his apartment to drop off some freshly baked cookies that I had hoped to make him feel better. As I walked in, I saw some pamphlets on the table.
“What are you doing?” he said, as he came out of his bedroom.
I could tell by his face that he was scared and angry at the same time.
“Is it true?”
At that point, I had tears in my eyes, and my stomach felt like someone had just punched me right in the gut.
“I was going to tel-“
I left before he could finish, and ran back to my apartment, locked the door, and laid in bed for the next twenty-four hours without contact to the outside world whatsoever. I couldn’t find a way to describe what I was feeling. It felt like my heart was empty.
***
“I’m afraid you’re not going to have much time left, Mr. Grant.”
“How much time do you estimate?”
“A year at most.”
***
Our wedding date was set for five months after we found out together.
Jeremey had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer the day that he looked grim in the coffee shop. Those pamphlets that I’d found on his table? Information on chemotherapy.
***
Five months couldn’t come any faster. Our time together was slowly fading away, and at four months into his treatment, he fell more ill and had to stay at the hospital for a while.
It was his mom who called me in. I could hear her holding back the tears over the phone, and as I rushed to my car, I was prepared for the worst.
He was already unconscious when I got there, and the pain was too much to bear. The doctors said that he fell into a coma after falling while trying to get out of bed to use the bathroom.
***
He was on life support for the next week before his family had to make a decision.
***
He died on the third of March.
***
I found out I was pregnant a month later, and on the third of December, our son was born. In honor of his father, I named him Jeremey.
It has been eighteen years, and my son and I are still living in the same apartment building where his father and I fell in love. Not a day goes by where I don’t miss Jeremy, and all the good times that we had.
***
“Hey mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
“I met this really cute girl today at that really sketchy coffee shop across the street.. Do you think I could invite her over?”
“Of course. Just make sure she doesn’t break any of the decorations”
***