I didn’t know if I should kill the doctor or faint in relief.
My head pounded, desperate to shed the fog and get away from these morbid riddles.
I rubbed my eyes. “Wh-where is she?”
“She’s here. She’s been patched up and settled in a room above this one. I can take you to her if you’d like.”
For a second, I was weightless, grateful, comforted.
She was okay.
I wasn’t alone.
But then, a wracking heave worked its way from the depth of my belly, wriggling through my ribcage, gathering pressure and power.
Black power. Ruthless pressure. Cremation coal and shadowy caskets, just waiting for me to step into the pyre and burn.
Flames engulfed me as the hellish force imploded in my chest.
An explosion of everything I’d been running from my entire life.
The terror of losing loved ones.
The pain of giving them my heart.
The aching, quaking knowledge that I would rather die than endure another funeral.
And the horror that I’d condemned myself to all of it because I loved Hope.
I loved her.
And I didn’t know how to process that.
I didn’t have the skills to put away my panic and breathe.
I’d lost enough.
I was done with the roulette of burying loved ones and being unable to move on.
And now, I faced a worse reality.
A thousand times worse because I’d willingly chosen to suffer by handing over my hole-patched, torn-stitched heart that still carried agony from decades ago.
A heart that never healed. A heart that would rather hide than be whole. A heart that now belonged to a girl who had all the power to kill me.
I love her.
It’s not possible.
But…I love her.
Barbwire slithered around my chest, dragging me deeper into unmarked graves and weeping forests.
Hope was alive…but for how long?
I loved her.
I had no choice but to accept that tragedy.
All my fears had come true.
But how long would I love her?
When would she leave me?
Who would die first?
Me or her?
Who would be left behind—a shell, a figment…alone?
Oh, God.
My panic crept higher, overriding the sludge of whatever drug they’d given me, making me shaky and breathless and clutching starched sheets as if they could protect me from the impending attack.
Yet another attack.
Because I was weak and broken and so fucking scared of losing her.
I can’t lose her.
My heave turned into a growl, which tangled with a sob, escaping my lips with the sound of something mortally wounded. Something that was only seconds away from ceasing to exist.
I crumpled over my knees.
My mind filled with pictures of my dead family.
My ears rang with coughs and laughs and ‘I love yous.’
And I lost myself to the panic that was my oldest friend.
I wanted to be alone.
I needed space to shatter and pick up the pieces, but the doctor didn’t give me space—she stole more of it.
The hospital bed shuddered as she pressed close. I flinched as her arm landed over my shoulders. Violence commanded I shove her back, but instead, I curled forward, bowing to touch, condemning myself to grief.
Grief over Grandpa John dying.
Grief over Hope dying.
Relief over Hope still alive.
Horror at knowing she’d die anyway.
I gasped for breath, hating myself for such weakness but unable to stop the panic, the memories, the fears.
“It’s okay. Get it out.” The doctor rubbed my arm like any kind mother.
Her sympathy made me shatter worse because I no longer had a mother.
I was a twenty-five-year-old man who’d avoided the steadily compounding issues of death since childhood. I’d bottled it up. I’d swallowed it down. I’d used distance as a shield and loneliness as invisibility against love.
Yet in that bed, as a stranger stroked me in comfort, I couldn’t fight it anymore.
I wasn’t strong enough.
I couldn’t hide.
I couldn’t run.
I broke.
My body sagged.
My panic stole me…and I sobbed.
I cried for my father, my mother, my grandfather, for Hope.
I cried for all the days I’d pushed them away and all the moments I hadn’t appreciated. I cried for all the hugs I’d refused and the family kindness I’d pretended I didn’t want.
And I cried for me.
For my phobias and panics.
For my tempers and torments.
I cried for all of it.
And the doctor’s touch transformed from something I hated into something I needed. Touch was an affirmation of life, and life hadn’t taken Hope from me.
She was still alive.
And…I love her.
Pain could find me anywhere—regardless of where I hid.
Therefore, I wasn’t safe anywhere.
There was relief in that.
To know I would feel this agony if Hope was with me or away from me. I would feel it now and in the future. I would feel it. I would permit myself to feel it because pain was the price of love, and I finally saw that.
Finally accepted that it was the cost of being human.
My belief that I could endure a life without another wasn’t healthy. Being alone was no way to live.
I was still the same ten-year-old mess my father had left behind.