The Stray I Took In Corners Me on the Couch

From the back cover

On a rainy day, Emily finds a soaked young man curled up behind a pillar on the sidewalk. She buys him hot food, and when she turns to leave, he asks her to take him home. She agrees, thinking of her own loneliness: two months ago she was diagnosed with leukemia, and in her final days she wants company and to do the things she once only wrote in her notebook.

She learns his name is Ethan. He settles into her apartment, and together they shop, cook hot pot, watch movies, and plan a trip to see the sunrise over the mountains. On the journey, strangers mistake them for a honeymooning couple, and Emily plays along, resting her head on his shoulder. A booking error leaves them sharing one room, and there Ethan finally tells her about the argument with his parents, the drunk driver, and the day he planned to end his life before he met her.

As her illness worsens, Emily hides her nosebleeds and her fading strength from him, while Ethan's quiet devotion grows harder to ignore. Neither dares to name what is forming between them, even as the time she has left runs short.