Chapter 1: The Five-Year Plan

 

The notebook was blue, dog-eared, and currently collecting dust on the nightstand. On the cover, in Jenna’s looping, optimistic script, were the words: The Master Plan.

Alex stared at it from the uncomfortable plastic chair in the corner of the oncology ward. He knew exactly what was on page one. It was a timeline, drawn in colorful markers two years ago, back when “sick” meant a hangover or a bad flu.

Year 1: Graduate. Move to the city.

Year 2: Entry-level grind. Save $5k.

Year 3: Backpack through Europe (Eat everything in Italy).

Year 4: Promotions. Get a dog (Golden Retriever named Waffles).

Year 5: The Big Wedding.

They were supposed to be in Year 2 right now. They were supposed to be grinding at jobs and complaining about rent prices. Instead, the only grinding was the mechanical whir of the infusion pump pushing poison and salvation into Jenna’s veins.

Jenna was asleep. She slept a lot these days. The chemo, a cocktail of drugs with names too long to pronounce, was waging a scorched-earth war inside her body. It was killing the cancer, yes, but it was taking everything else with it.

Her hair, once a cascading river of chestnut curls that smelled of vanilla, was gone. She wore a soft gray beanie now, pulled low. Her skin, usually flushed with the energy of a girl who ran half-marathons on weekends, was translucent, the blue veins beneath visible like a roadmap of her fragility.

Alex leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He was twenty-four, but he felt eighty. He felt the weight of the fluorescent lights pressing down on him.

“Alex?”

The voice was a whisper, dry and cracking.

He was at her side instantly, grabbing the plastic cup of ice chips. “I’m here, Jen. I’m here.”

She opened her eyes. They were the only thing the cancer hadn’t touched—a piercing, intelligent green. But lately, even the light in them was dimming. It wasn’t just the exhaustion; it was the resignation.

“What time is it?” she asked, taking a small chip of ice.

“Just past seven. Dr. Evans said your counts are a little low, but stable.”

Jenna sighed, sinking back into the pillows. She looked at the blue notebook on the nightstand. “You should throw that away.”

Alex froze. “What?”

“The book,” she said, closing her eyes again. “The plan. It’s stupid. We were stupid.”

“Jen, don’t say that. It’s just… it’s just on hold.”

“It’s canceled, Alex,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion, which was worse than if she were crying. “I can’t even walk to the bathroom without getting winded. I’m not going to Italy. I’m not getting a dog. And I’m certainly not…” She trailed off, gesturing vaguely at her own body. “I’m not a bride. I’m a patient. That’s all I am now.”

“You are not just a patient,” Alex said fiercely, gripping her hand. Her fingers felt like bird bones.

“I am to everyone else,” she whispered. “And soon, I will be to you, too. You should go, Alex. You should go find a girl who has a five-year plan that doesn’t involve a hospice.”

“Stop it.”

“I’m just being realistic.” She turned her head away, facing the window where the sun was setting, painting the sky in colors she didn’t seem to care about anymore.

Alex sat back, the rejection stinging. He knew it was the exhaustion talking. He knew it was the depression that came hand-in-hand with the diagnosis. But he also knew she was slipping. Not just physically.

She was drowning. She was sinking into a dark, cold ocean where the light of their future couldn’t reach her. And if he didn’t do something soon, she would let go of the surface entirely.

Chapter 2: The Memory of Blue

 

Two nights later, Alex was back at their apartment. It felt too big without her. He was microwaving a frozen dinner, staring blankly at the rotating plate, when his phone buzzed. It was a “On This Day” notification from his photo cloud.

3 Years Ago.

He tapped it. The screen filled with blue.

It was a selfie. Jenna was pressed against the thick glass of the Ocean Voyager tunnel at the city aquarium. A massive whale shark was gliding over her head. Her mouth was open in a laugh of pure, unadulterated wonder. Her eyes were lit up by the refraction of the water, making them look like gemstones.

He remembered that date. It was their third date.

Jenna had been obsessed. She dragged him to every exhibit, reading every plaque. “I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was ten,” she had told him, her nose practically touching the glass of the reef tank. “It’s so quiet down there. No noise. No gravity. Just… life.”

She had called it her “Happy Place.” She said it was the only place where the world made sense.

Alex looked at the photo, then at the empty apartment. He thought about the girl in the hospital bed who wanted to throw away the Master Plan. She had forgotten this girl. She had forgotten the wonder.

He needed to remind her. He needed to bring her back to the water.

But she was too weak to travel. She was immunocompromised. A trip to the aquarium, with its crowds and germs, was impossible.

Unless…

An idea struck him. It was insane. It was logistical suicide. It would require money he didn’t have and time he couldn’t spare.

But as he looked at Jenna’s smiling face under the whale shark, Alex felt the first spark of hope he’d had in eight months.

He didn’t just need to take her to the aquarium. He needed to be the aquarium. He needed to show her that he could survive in the deep, too. That he was willing to go down there with her.

He grabbed his laptop and typed in a search query: Scuba certification fast track.

Chapter 3: The Secret Life

 

The next two months were a blur of deception and exhaustion.

Alex worked his IT job from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. From 4:30 PM to 7:00 PM, he was at the hospital with Jenna, holding her hand, reading to her, trying to keep her spirits up as she endured a particularly brutal cycle of chemo.

Then, from 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM, he was at the local dive shop’s indoor pool.

“Regulator in. Purge. Breathe,” the instructor, a gruff man named Mike, barked. “Don’t hold your breath, Alex. You hold your breath, your lungs explode on the ascent. Rule number one.”

“Got it,” Alex sputtered, spitting out chlorine water.

It was harder than it looked. Alex was fit, but the equipment was heavy, and the physics of buoyancy were tricky. He spent nights studying pressure charts and nitrogen narcosis while sitting in the hospital cafeteria, hiding the manuals under piles of sports magazines whenever a nurse walked by.

Jenna noticed he was tired.

“You look terrible,” she said one evening, tracing the dark circles under his eyes. “Are you sleeping?”

“Just work stress,” Alex lied, kissing her forehead. His hair smelled faintly of chlorine, but the antiseptic smell of the hospital masked it. “Big project.”

“You’re working too hard,” she murmured. “You don’t have to come every day, Alex. Go home. Rest.”

“I’d rather be here.”

It was true. But the “project” was becoming all-consuming.

After he got his certification, the real challenge began: The Aquarium.

He sent an email to the events coordinator at the City Aquarium. Then he called. Then he showed up in person.

When he finally got a meeting with Sarah, the Director of Guest Experience, he was shaking.

“So,” Sarah said, looking at his certification card. “You want to dive in our main reef tank. During public hours.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t usually allow civilians in the tank, Alex. It’s a liability. There are sharks. There are delicate corals.”

Alex took a deep breath. He pulled out his phone and showed her the photo of Jenna from three years ago. Then he swiped to a photo taken last week—Jenna in the hospital bed, pale and gaunt.

“This is Jenna,” he said. “We had a five-year plan. We were going to travel. We were going to get married. Now… now we’re just trying to get to next week.”

Sarah’s expression softened.

“She’s stopped talking about the future,” Alex continued, his voice cracking. “She thinks her life is over. She loves this place. It’s her sanctuary. I need to show her that we still have a future. I need to propose to her, Sarah. And I need to do it in the water, because that’s where she feels safe.”

Sarah looked at the photos. She looked at Alex’s desperate, tired eyes.

“You’re certified?”

“Advanced Open Water. Just finished.”

Sarah tapped her pen on the desk. She sighed, then smiled.

“Okay. But you need a rehearsal. And you need to sign a mountain of waivers. If a grouper bites you, you can’t sue us.”

“I’ll sign anything,” Alex said. “I’d sign my soul away.”

Chapter 4: The Setback

 

Three days before the planned date, Jenna spiked a fever.

102 degrees.

In the cancer ward, a fever isn’t just a temperature; it’s a siren. It means infection. It means the immune system, battered by chemo, has let the gates open.

Alex stood in the hallway while the nurses swarmed. They started antibiotics. They packed her with ice.

Dr. Evans came out, looking grim.

“She’s septic,” he said. “We caught it early, but she’s weak, Alex. Very weak.”

Alex felt his world crumbling. The ring was in his sock drawer. The aquarium team was ready. The sign was printed.

He walked into the room. Jenna looked small. So incredibly small. The wires and tubes seemed to be the only things holding her to the bed.

“I ruined the mystery date,” she whispered, her teeth chattering.

Alex had told her he had a surprise for her on Saturday, a “Mystery Date” to get her out of the house.

“Shh,” Alex soothed, brushing a cold cloth over her forehead. “We can reschedule. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” she cried, a tear leaking out. “I wanted… I wanted to be normal for one day. I just wanted to be your girlfriend, not your cancer patient.”

That broke him.

He found Dr. Evans at the nurses’ station.

“I need to take her out on Saturday,” Alex said.

Dr. Evans looked at him like he was insane. “Alex, she’s fighting sepsis.”

“If her fever breaks. If her counts go up. Please. I have… I have something planned. Something that might save her. Not her body,” Alex touched his chest. “But her.”

Dr. Evans sighed, rubbing his temples. He had seen many young couples torn apart by this disease. He knew that sometimes, hope was a more potent drug than anything in his pharmacy.

“If she is afebrile for 24 hours,” Evans said sternly. “And if she is in a wheelchair. And if you have a car waiting to bring her back the second she feels tired. Then… maybe.”

For the next two days, Alex prayed. He wasn’t religious, but he prayed to the universe, to the cells in her body, to the water.

On Friday morning, the fever broke.

On Saturday morning, Dr. Evans checked her vitals. He looked at Alex.

“Two hours,” Evans said. “Maximum.”

Chapter 5: The Journey

 

Getting Jenna ready was a marathon. She was exhausted just putting on clothes—a soft blue sweater and leggings. She tried to put on makeup, but her hands shook too much, so Alex did it for her, carefully applying blush to her pale cheeks.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

“I look like a ghost in a wig,” she joked weakly, adjusting the beanie.

He lifted her into the wheelchair. The drive to the aquarium was quiet. Jenna stared out the window, drinking in the sight of the city, the trees, the people walking dogs. She hadn’t been outside in three weeks.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“You’ll see.”

When he pulled into the aquarium parking lot, a small smile touched her lips.

“The fish?”

“The fish,” Alex confirmed.

He wheeled her through the entrance. The smell of saltwater and popcorn hit them. The ambient noise of children shouting and water rushing was overwhelming after the silence of the hospital, but Jenna didn’t shrink away. She leaned forward.

“I missed this,” she whispered.

They went through the tunnel, the sharks circling overhead. Jenna’s head tilted back, watching them. For the first time in months, the lines of pain around her eyes smoothed out.

“Okay,” Alex said, checking his watch. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. “We need to get to the Main Reef tank. It’s feeding time.”

“I know,” she smiled. “I remember the schedule.”

They arrived at the massive viewing window. It was a wall of glass, twenty feet tall and fifty feet wide, holding back a million gallons of water. It was a cathedral of blue light. Colorful fish darted through the coral. A sea turtle glided past, ancient and serene.

There were a few other people around, but Sarah, true to her word, had roped off a small section right in the center, placing a “Reserved” sign there.

Alex wheeled Jenna into the spot.

“This is perfect,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “Thank you, Alex.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Alex said abruptly. He felt like he was going to throw up from nerves. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

“I’m in a wheelchair, Alex. I’m not going far.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Watch the tank. Closely.”

He ran.

Chapter 6: The Plunge

 

Backstage at the aquarium was a maze of pipes, pumps, and the smell of low tide. Sarah met him at the dive locker.

“You’re late,” she said, tossing him a wetsuit. “She’s there?”

“She’s there.”

Alex struggled into the neoprene. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely zip the boots. He strapped on the weights. The tank. The regulator.

“Remember,” Mike, the dive master, said as he checked Alex’s air. “Slow movements. Don’t scare the fish. And for god’s sake, don’t drop the ring.”

The ring was tied to a lanyard on his wrist, which was tucked inside a waterproof pouch, which was clipped to his BCD vest. It wasn’t going anywhere.

He walked to the edge of the platform above the massive tank. The water was dark and churning from the filtration systems.

“Ready?” Mike asked.

Alex adjusted his mask. He took a breath from the regulator. The dry, compressed air filled his lungs.

“Ready.”

He giant-strided into the water.

The splash was cold, shocking him into focus. He gave the ‘OK’ signal and descended.

The noise of the surface world vanished, replaced by the rhythmic hiss-whoosh of his breathing and the bubbling of his exhaust. He equalized his ears.

He followed the dive master down the line, toward the sandy bottom. The blue deepened. He saw the shapes of sharks patrolling the perimeter. A stingray the size of a dinner table rippled past him.

He turned toward the main window.

From the inside, the glass looked like a movie screen. He could see the dark silhouettes of the people on the dry side. He swam closer.

He saw the wheelchair. He saw the gray beanie.

Chapter 7: The Question

 

Jenna was watching a school of yellow tangs when the crowd started to murmur.

“Look at the divers!” a kid shouted.

She saw them descending in a column of bubbles. It was always cool to see the divers. She watched them check the coral, expecting them to start scrubbing the algae or feeding the rays.

But one diver broke away from the group.

He swam straight toward the glass. Straight toward her.

Jenna frowned. Was he checking the seal?

The diver hovered in the water, buoyant and weightless. He was only inches from the glass. He looked right at her.

He drifted down, his fins settling gently on the white sand substrate. He knelt.

Jenna’s heart skipped a beat. What is he doing?

The diver reached into a bag at his waist. He pulled out a long, rolled-up scroll made of waterproof canvas.

He held it up with both hands and let it unroll.

The letters were painted in bold, black waterproof ink.

JENNA

WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Time stopped.

The ambient noise of the aquarium faded into a buzzing silence. Jenna stared at the sign. The letters swam before her eyes.

Marry?

But they had canceled the plan. There was no future. There was only chemo and blood counts and the end.

Why would anyone want to marry a ghost?

The diver reached up with one hand. He grabbed his mask.

He shouldn’t do that, her brain registered automatically. You can’t clear a mask that easily.

But he didn’t take it off fully. He just pulled it away from his face for a split second, pressing his nose against the glass, squishing his features, eyes squeezed shut against the saltwater sting.

It was only for a second before he sealed it back and purged the water, but she saw him.

The brown eyes. The goofy grin she loved.

Alex.

It was Alex.

Her hands flew to her mouth to stifle a sob. The shock hit her like a physical wave.

Alex, who hated cold water. Alex, who worked IT. Alex, who had been “working late” for months.

He wasn’t working late. He was doing this. For her.

He re-settled his mask and looked at her. He pointed to his wrist, unclipped a small pouch, and held up a ring. It shimmered in the blue light, a beacon of silver.

Jenna looked at him. Suspended in the blue, surrounded by sharks and rays, he looked like an astronaut. He looked like a hero.

He wasn’t looking at a patient. He wasn’t looking at a tragedy. He was looking at his wife.

He was telling her, without words, that he wasn’t afraid of the deep end. He was telling her that the five-year plan wasn’t dead; it had just changed. He was promising her that there was an “after this.”

The despair that had choked her for eight months cracked open. Light flooded in.

Tears hot and fast streamed down her face. She couldn’t speak. Her throat was closed tight.

But she nodded. She nodded frantically, her whole body shaking with the force of it.

She leaned forward, pressing her hand against the cold glass.

Alex mirrored her, pressing his gloved hand against hers from the other side.

She mouthed the words, her voice raw and silent, screaming through the glass.

“Yes. Yes! Of course, yes!”

Inside the tank, Alex pumped his fist. He did a clumsy backflip in the water, bubbles exploding around him.

The crowd around Jenna erupted into applause. Strangers were crying. A woman patted Jenna’s shoulder.

Jenna wasn’t looking at them. She was looking at the boy in the tank, her fiancé, who was swimming back to the surface to come get her.

Chapter 8: The Surface

 

Alex burst into the locker room, ripping the mask off. He was shivering, adrenaline coursing through his veins.

“She said yes?” Mike asked, grinning.

“She said yes!” Alex yelled.

He shimmied out of the wetsuit in record time, threw on his clothes—his hair still soaking wet—and ran out to the main floor.

Jenna was waiting by the glass. She had turned the wheelchair around.

When she saw him running toward her, wet hair plastering his forehead, smelling of ocean water, she lifted her arms.

He fell to his knees in front of the wheelchair. He buried his face in her lap.

“You’re crazy,” she sobbed, running her fingers through his damp hair. “You are absolutely crazy.”

“I love you,” he said, looking up at her. He fumbled for the ring, which he had clipped to his belt loop. “I love you, Jenna. I don’t care about the counts. I don’t care about the hair. I want the next five years. And the five after that.”

He slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

“You learned to dive,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “You hate swimming.”

“I learned to breathe underwater,” he said. “Because you’re my happy place.”

Jenna looked at the ring. Then she looked at the tank behind him. The blue light washed over them.

“I thought we were done,” she whispered. “I thought I was just waiting to die.”

“No,” Alex said firmly. “We’re just swimming through the rough part. We’re going to surface, Jen. I promise.”

Epilogue: The New Plan

 

Three Years Later.

The beach was windy. The sand was white and cool.

Jenna sat on a towel, watching the waves roll in. Her hair was short—a pixie cut of curly chestnut. It had grown back darker, thicker.

She took a deep breath of the salty air. Her lungs expanded fully. No pain. No rattle.

“Hey!”

She turned. Alex was walking up the beach, a golden retriever puppy bounding clumsily at his heels.

“Waffles keeps trying to eat the seaweed,” Alex laughed, dropping down beside her.

“He’s a retriever,” Jenna smiled. “He’s retrieving.”

She reached out and took Alex’s hand. The ring on her finger caught the sunlight.

She pulled a small blue notebook from her bag. It was new.

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“The new plan,” she said.

She opened it.

Year 1: Remission. Get Waffles.

Year 2: Scuba trip to Belize.

“Belize?” Alex raised an eyebrow. “You think you’re ready to dive with me?”

“I think I have to,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I have to see if you’re actually any good at it, or if the water just distorted how cool you looked.”

Alex laughed and kissed her.

“I’m great at it,” he said. “I had the best motivation in the world.”

They sat there, watching the ocean, two survivors on the shore, ready to dive back in.