Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Maybe it’s blood filling spaces it shouldn’t.
Maybe this is what the end feels like.
A slow fade into nothing.
Zach shifts against me again, his weight a reminder that I’m not completely gone. His nails scrape against the floor with a frantic sound, like he’s trying to dig me out of something. Or trying to keep me here.
I want to tell him I’m sorry. Sorry I won’t be there to fill his bowl tomorrow, to throw the ball he loves chasing. Sorry he’ll wait by the door and I won’t come.
And Tabitha.
I want to tell her I’m sorry too. Sorry for being too much of a coward to say the words when I had the chance. Sorry for letting her believe I didn’t care when the reality is that I care too damned much.
I picture her face, the way she looked the last time I saw her, sleeping in my arms.
The darkness shifts again. It’s deeper now. The edges of me start to blur. Thoughts unravel and scatter. First words and then only letters and sounds. I try to hold on to something—anything—but it all keeps slipping.
Except her.
Tabitha.
She’s the one image that stays.
I wonder if she’ll even know. If someone will tell her what happened. If she’ll care.
I think she will, though maybe she shouldn’t. I never gave her what she deserved.
Zach barks again sharply. It drags me back, like my dad’s strong hands pulling me out of the water when I ventured in too deep when I was a kid.
I fight to stay with my dog, with the sound, with the warmth pressed against me.
My chest burns.
Tabitha. I love you.
The words echo inside me, though I can’t force them out.
Too late to matter.
Too late to change anything.
Or maybe not.
The dog’s—what’s his name again?—weight shifts again, and I cling to that small piece of reality. If I can still feel him, if I can still think of her, maybe I’m not gone yet.
Maybe there’s still a chance.
But it’s slipping.
I hover at the edge, teeter between letting go and clawing my way back.
Part of me wonders what’s waiting if I fall, if there’s peace in surrender.
But then I see her again, her amazing eyes locking on mine.
I can’t let go. Not yet.
I need to tell her. I need her to know.
The darkness swells, and my body feels like lead. The dog whines, and if I spoke dog, I’m pretty sure he’d be saying he’s scared.
I try to reach, to move, to prove I’m still here. Nothing.
Until…
I no longer feel him.
The dog.
My companion. My friend.
He’s gone.
And with him…the image of Tabitha.
Along with my last flicker of thought.
Three
Tabitha
My heart sinks as I look at the phone.
It’s just a text from the senior surgical resident who’s working with Professor Landers, reminding participants to be on time tomorrow.
I sigh and put the phone back down, feeling like I’ve been kicked in the gut.
“Stop it!”
I’ve got to stop talking to myself like this, but it seems to be the only way I can get out of this funk.
I inhale deeply, gather myself, and try to put the text from not-Henry behind me. I force my mind to focus on the words before me, on the stark black of the text against the sterile white of the paper. I allow the scientific jargon to wash over me like a soothing balm, covering the raw wound of my heart.
I force myself to read and reread pages, to understand every word, every diagram, every case study. But the letters blur into each other and form a frenzied jumble in my mind.
Which, of course, morphs into Henry Simpson.
I should eat something. I haven’t eaten since breakfast at the Simpson ranch house.
Angie and Jason were already gone, of course, and Henry was nowhere to be found.
I sat with Marjorie, resisting the urge to ask where her son was. Sage was still in bed, and Bryce had gone over to see his best friend, Angie’s uncle Joe.
Marjorie was wonderful, of course, and asked if I truly had to leave so soon.
I told her about the seminar, and she was ecstatic for me and made me promise to let her and Bryce know how everything went.
Funny.
She had no idea what her son and I had been up to all weekend.
Just as well.
I won’t be joining Angie’s family anytime soon.
Probably never.
The pang of loss hits me again. It’s a blinding stab that leaves me breathless.
I push back from my desk and walk into the kitchen, opening cupboards in search of something to eat. I settle for a can of soup and some stale crackers. It’s not much, but it’s something. After two days of rich and decadent food, it works.
Soup and crackers. The ultimate comfort food.
Except it doesn’t comfort me.
As I eat, my mind churns, and I’m unable to escape the endless loop of what-ifs and might-have-beens.