I see her in flashes. Her blond hair glinting under the summer sun. The fire in those amber-brown eyes when she looks at me, like she sees straight through the wall I’ve built around myself.
I didn’t mean to let her in. I wasn’t supposed to. I can’t be what she deserves when I’m only a shell of what I used to be.
But Tabitha.
She slipped past every barrier I built. She didn’t even try to. She was just herself.
Determined. Brilliant. Funny. A little reckless. A lot beautiful.
I let myself fall until I looked up and realized I couldn’t go back.
And now? Now it’s too late.
The darkness presses tighter, squeezes the air from my lungs.
Except…
Maybe that’s not the darkness.
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.
