I entered my junior year completely uninterested in dating. I was focused on staying healthy and seeking therapy to deal with the repercussions of cancer. I took classes I was passionate about, including film production. Unlike most seminars at my college, this one was mostly men. Eli, with his six-foot-four, lanky frame, shocked-straight blond hair, and clear blue eyes, stood out. He could have been a Viking in a former life. To me, he looked more like a model. He wasn't ruggedly handsome; rather, he had a kind of masculine beauty that was striking. But he was shy, and never really spoke in class. I actually thought he was gay until that day when he pulled me away from my friends, and we agreed to meet for tea.

The following week, classes were on a short break, so I went home for a CT scan, the last in a long line of tests, to try and find an answer to a mystery pain that had dogged me for years. The morning afterwards, an unknown number popped up on my cell phone. It was my oncologist.

It was noisy where he was. I could hear muffled announcements for a final boarding call in the background.

"I want you to listen to me very carefully. I have some bad news," he said. My breath caught in my throat.

"Okay," I managed. It seems cliché to say that all sound except for my pumping heart died away, but it's true. Everything else was white noise and the doctor's voice became painfully loud.

"Your scan reveals what looks like a tumor on your liver and nodes in your lungs. You need to set up an appointment with your surgeon. Can you repeat that to me?"

Mom and Dad got out of work to accompany me to the hospital that afternoon. Eli called on the drive in. I did a lot of crying. In the exam room, my surgeon hugged me and said the tumor was benign and my lungs were fine. We all did some more crying. Then, he revealed that even though it wasn't cancerous, the tumor needed to come out. At that moment, surgery didn't faze me. After spending five hours convinced I was dying, all I cared about was that I was going to wake up tomorrow, that I could meet Eli for tea.

We spent several hours in the coffee shop near campus. The next week, I went to his annual Halloween party where he booked a film screening room and showed horror movies. He was still so painfully shy that I couldn't tell if I had any feelings for him — the real him — but I wanted to give him a chance.

The knowledge that I had another tumor and needed another major surgery only complicated things. By day, I was nervous and distracted — a single smell or sound could instantly transport me back to when I was ten years old and trapped in a hospital bed. Every night I had nightmares dripping in blood. Should I tell Eli? We had only been on two dates. It wasn't fair for me to burden him with this. It could overwhelm him, sending him running like so many others. At the same time, I was a mess, and maybe if he knew why I was so preoccupied, he would understand. I struggled with this decision. In the end, I chose option C: I would tell him I couldn't see him right now.

The night of the Halloween dance, I went over to his room to break the news. Dressed as Wendy from Peter Pan, I smoothed my blue dress underneath me and sat down on his bed. He wasn't in costume. Starting out calm and collected, I began to explain why I couldn't see anyone right now, but image of scalpels, IV machines, and bleached hospital hallways kept floating to the top of my mind. I broke down into tears. He wrapped his arms around me and didn't say a word as I told him everything. He said a few words of comfort, but it was his actions that really spoke to me. He wasn't going anywhere.

Seven months later, when I woke up from anesthesia, he was holding my hand. Over three years later, he's been with me during doctor appointments, bouts of debilitating Hooksexup pain, cross country road trips and conversations where we laugh so hard we cry. He's sleeping next to me as I write this. Like spider silk, he's strong but flexible; simple but layered; supportive and beautiful. He's caught me in his web, and I'm not going anywhere.

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