Before I Leave, Say You Love Me is a bittersweet romance about hidden illness, quiet love, and words that come too late.
Lillian Hart has only one wish before she dies: to hear her boyfriend say, “I love you.”
Ethan Shaw has loved her quietly for three years. He remembers everything—the little things she likes, the things she says and forgets, the dreams she once mentioned in passing. He loves her in a hundred silent ways. He just never says it.
When Lillian learns that her inherited heart disease is getting worse, she hides the truth from him and makes a desperate decision: she will teach the man she loves how to say the words she has waited so long to hear.
A bittersweet romance about quiet devotion, hidden pain, and love that arrives just a little too late.
Before I Leave, Say You Love Me – Chapters 1–5
Chapter 1: Do You Love Me?
I had one wish.
Before I left this world, I wanted to hear Ethan say, “I love you.”
We had been together for three years. In those three years, he remembered everything about me—my coffee with less sugar, my love for anything strawberry flavored, the way I always forgot an umbrella on rainy days. If I casually mentioned craving cake from some little bakery, he would bring it home the very next evening after work.
He remembered everything.
He just never said those three words.
I had asked him before.
“Ethan, do you love me?”
He would glance at me, lower his eyes back to his drawings, and answer in that quiet, steady voice of his, “You know I do.”
“I don’t.”
A pause.
Then, “…You know.”
That was always the end of it.
The truth was, I did know.
Of course I knew.
But I was running out of time.
Three days earlier, I had come back from the hospital.
The doctor said my heart was getting worse. Maybe I had a year. Maybe less.
Inherited heart disease.
My mother had died from the same illness when she was twenty-eight.
I was twenty-eight too.
I hadn’t told Ethan.
Not because I thought he would be heartbroken.
Because I knew he would blame himself.
That was just who he was. He buried everything inside, but his sense of responsibility was heavier than anyone else’s. If he found out I didn’t have much time left, he would tear himself apart in silence. He would think he should have noticed earlier, should have gone with me to the hospital, should have taken better care of me.
I didn’t want that for him.
I only wanted one thing before I was gone.
To hear him say those three words.
Just once.
At dinner that night, I tried again.
“Ethan.”
“Hm?”
“We’ve been together for three years.”
His chopsticks paused. He looked up at me and then lowered his gaze again. “Yeah.”
“Do you ever think…” I bit lightly on the end of my chopsticks. “Some things should be said out loud?”
He went still.
Then he put his chopsticks down and looked at me properly. “Lilly, is something wrong?”
My heart skipped.
I shook my head and smiled. “No. I was just asking.”
He studied me for a few seconds, then picked up his chopsticks again.
“I’m not good at saying things like that,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“I know you know.” He stopped, as if there were more words trapped in his throat. “But I…”
He didn’t finish.
I looked at him, at the way he always stopped right at the edge of honesty, and my chest ached with tenderness.
That was Ethan.
He loved me. He knew I knew. So to him, saying it or not saying it made no difference.
But it mattered to me.
That night, I lay awake for a long time.
Then I made a decision.
If he didn’t know how to say it, I would teach him.
A year should be enough, right?
I took out a brand-new notebook from my bedside drawer and opened to the first page.
Day 1
Ethan, you still didn’t say “I love you” today.
But you remembered I don’t eat scallions and picked them out of my bowl for me.
I saw that.
I know that was your unspoken way of saying “I love you.”
So it’s okay.
We still have time.
I closed the notebook and hid it in the back of the drawer.
Then I shut my eyes and forced myself to sleep.
What I didn’t know was that Ethan had been standing outside the door for a long time.
His phone screen was still lit in his hand.
He had just searched: inherited heart disease, early symptoms.
He didn’t know what I had written.
But he knew something about me had changed.
And still, he couldn’t say those three words.
He never had.
The next morning, I woke up early and put breakfast on the table.
When Ethan stepped out and saw it, he stopped short.
“Today I’m taking care of you,” I said brightly, pushing a cup toward him. “Sit.”
He looked surprised. Usually, breakfast was his territory.
He sat down, took a bite, and I watched him expectantly.
“Well?”
“…Not bad.”
My smile stiffened. “That’s it?”
He hesitated. “It’s good.”
I sighed. “Do you know you’re terrible with words?”
He went quiet.
Then, softly, “Sorry.”
I shook my head. “You don’t have to apologize.”
That night I wrote again.
Day 2
Still no “I love you.”
But you said, “It’s good.”
That counts as progress.
Hang in there, Lilly.
There were 363 days left.
I could do this.
Lately Ethan kept looking at me as though something was wrong.
One evening, he finally asked, “Lilly, are you hiding something from me?”
I blinked and smiled. “No.”
“Really?”
“Really. I just suddenly thought… maybe I should be better to you.”
“Why?”
I looked at him with all the tenderness in my chest.
“Don’t ask,” I said softly. “Just think of it as practice.”
“Practice for what?”
I smiled.
“Practice loving you well.”
He went still.
That night, I wrote:
Day 3
Today you asked if I was hiding something.
I said no.
I’m sorry. I lied.
But I can’t tell you.
If I do, it will hurt you.
And I don’t want to hurt you.
I only want you to look at me and say “I love you” once.
Once is enough.
I pressed my hand over my chest and waited for the pain to ease.
There were 362 days left.
I had to teach him before it was too late.
Chapter 2: His Way
Ethan was an architect.
He worked late almost every night. But no matter how late he got home, he always checked on me first. If I was asleep, he would stand quietly at the doorway for a moment and leave. If I was still awake, he would sit beside me without saying much at all.
Sometimes I thought he just wanted to be near me.
On the fourth night, I pretended not to be sleepy.
I leaned against the headboard with a book in my hands. When I heard his footsteps, I didn’t look up.
He sat down beside me.
Only then did I lower the book and meet his eyes.
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
“I was waiting for you.”
His brows lifted slightly. “Why?”
“I wanted to see you. It’s been all day.”
He fell quiet.
I studied his face in the warm yellow light. Ethan was handsome, but he rarely smiled. Even when he did, it was restrained, like he wasn’t used to showing emotion where anyone could see it.
“Were you happy today?” I asked.
He thought about it. “It was okay.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means… it was okay.”
Trying to get more than a few words out of him was like trying to coax sunlight from stone.
That night, I wrote:
Day 4
He came home very late.
He sat by my bed and said almost nothing.
But I know he missed me.
He just doesn’t know how to say it.
It reminded me of the time I mentioned wanting strawberry cake. The next day he brought one home and only said, “I passed by the bakery.”
That’s Ethan.
He does everything, but never says why.
The next morning, I found him already in the kitchen, frying eggs.
“Did you know how to cook before?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then how did you learn?”
He set one egg on a plate and cracked another into the pan.
“You once said you wanted a boyfriend who could cook.”
I froze.
It had been a throwaway line, said during some silly drama we watched together.
I had forgotten it.
He hadn’t.
Later that night, I asked him, “Do you remember the first time we met?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“At the company annual party three years ago.”
“And?”
“You wore a blue dress.”
I stared at him.
“You remember the color?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Because you were beautiful.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
That was the first time he had ever said something so direct.
Not nice.
Not okay.
Not pretty good.
Beautiful.
That night, I wrote:
Day 5
Today, he called me beautiful.
It was only one word, but it meant so much.
Ethan, I’ll wait.
I just hope time will wait with me.
As I finished writing, I noticed my hand trembling slightly.
Later, the pain in my chest lingered longer than it had before.
There were 360 days left.
For the first time, I wasn’t sure a year would really be enough.
Chapter 3: The Secret
On the seventh day, I went back to the hospital.
Ethan didn’t know.
I told him I was meeting a friend. He only nodded and said, “Be careful on your way back.”
He trusted me so completely that sometimes it hurt.
The doctor looked at my results for a long time.
“Lillian,” he said at last, “your heart function has dropped again.”
I nodded. I had expected that.
“How long?” I asked.
He hesitated.
“Tell me.”
“Maybe six months. Maybe less. If things worsen quickly… three months is also possible.”
I went very still.
Shorter than I had imagined.
Much shorter.
“Does your family know?”
“No.”
“You should tell them.”
“I know.”
As I left the hospital, I stood by the roadside for a long time, the wind biting through my coat.
Halfway home, my phone rang.
Ethan.
“Where are you?” he asked, and there was something urgent in his voice.
“On my way home.”
A pause.
“Okay.”
He didn’t say I miss you.
He didn’t say I was late.
But when I got home, he was standing at the door waiting for me.
“Who did you see today?” he asked.
I blinked. “A friend.”
“What friend?”
He had never asked things like that before.
“An old coworker.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “Lilly, are you hiding something from me?”
My heartbeat stumbled.
“No.”
“You’ve changed lately.”
“How?”
“You’ve been…” He searched for the words. “Treasuring me more.”
He had noticed.
I stepped closer and looked up at him. “Maybe I just suddenly realized how good you are.”
He stared at me, visibly at a loss.
Then all he said was, “I made dinner.”
That night, I wrote:
Day 7
The doctor said maybe six months.
Maybe three.
You asked if I was hiding something.
I lied again.
I’m sorry.
But I don’t want you to look at me with pity.
I only want you to look at me and say “I love you” once.
That would be enough.
The pain in my chest was sharper that night.
There were about 180 days left.
Maybe less.
On Day 8, I made a plan.
If Ethan wouldn’t say “I love you,” then I would teach him how.
Teaching Plan
Phase One: Get him used to expressing himself.
Phase Two: Get him to say what he feels.
Phase Three: Get him to say those three words.
I stared at the page and laughed softly.
It looked less like romance and more like a lesson plan.
But Ethan was hopeless.
He would have to learn slowly.
Chapter 4: His Past
On Day 15, I was organizing the closet when an old paper box slipped out from behind Ethan’s clothes.
Photographs spilled onto the floor.
In one, a little boy stood beside a smiling woman in a park.
In the next, that same boy stood alone in front of a gravestone.
I recognized him instantly.
Ethan.
The name on the gravestone was his mother’s.
There were also a few yellowed slips of paper in the box.
One of them read:
Rangrang,
Mom has to go very far away.
Be good and listen to Dad.
Mom loves you.
I held the note in my hand, my throat tightening.
So that was it.
Ethan hadn’t been born incapable of expression.
He had simply lost the person who had once told him she loved him.
That night, when he came home and saw the box on the table, he stopped.
“You saw them?”
I nodded.
“How old were you when your mother died?”
“Seven.”
“And after that?”
“My father got busy.”
“Did he ever say he loved you?”
He looked down.
“He said it to my mother,” he said quietly. “Every time he visited her grave.”
“But not to you?”
He shook his head.
I stepped closer and wrapped my arms around him.
He stiffened, startled.
“I’ll teach you,” I whispered.
“Teach me what?”
“How to say love.”
I put the photographs and the note back into the box and closed it gently.
“I’m learning too,” I told him. “So you can learn with me.”
After a long silence, he nodded.
“Okay.”
Chapter 5: The First Crisis
On Day 20, I collapsed at work.
One moment I was stepping out of the elevator. The next, pain seized my chest, my vision went black, and the floor rushed up at me.
When I woke, I was in the hospital.
Ethan was sitting at my bedside.
His eyes were bloodshot. Stubble shadowed his jaw. He looked as though he had been awake all night.
“You’re awake.”
“What happened?”
“You fainted. Your coworker called me.”
I tried to sit up, but he pressed a hand to my shoulder. “Don’t move.”
Then he looked straight at me.
“The doctor said there’s something wrong with your heart. You already knew?”
I looked away and nodded.
“How long?”
“A year since the diagnosis.”
He stared at me.
“A year?”
“It got worse quickly in the last three months.”
He stood and turned toward the window, shoulders shaking.
After a long time, he came back with a paper cup of warm water in his hand. His eyes were still red.
“Drink.”
I held the cup and looked at him.
“Ethan… I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say that.”
He sat down and took my hand.
“Don’t hide things from me again.”
“Okay.”
“Anything happens, you tell me.”
“Okay.”
“I may not know how to say pretty things,” he said, voice rough, “but I’ll stay.”
Tears spilled down my face.
The next day, after I was discharged, he looked at me and said, “From now on, your body is my responsibility.”
And he meant it.
He monitored my meals, my pills, my sleep.
He asked the doctor questions I hadn’t had the courage to ask.
That night, I wrote:
Day 22
Ethan has started managing everything.
My food. My medicine. My sleep.
He knows I’m sick.
He still doesn’t know how little time there really is.
You still haven’t said those words, Ethan.
But I’ll wait.
If you enjoyed Before I Leave, Say You Love Me, continue to Chapters 6–10.