Page 142 of What Should Have Been Ours

I press my lips to his temple, my tears spilling onto his skin. My whole body is shaking as I whisper, “It’s okay…you can rest now.”

I need him to know he doesn’t have to keep holding on for me, keep hurting for me. He can let go, even if it’ll break me.

And I watch.

I watch as his chest rises. Then falls.

Slows.

Slows.

Slows.

Stops.

The world tilts, and the air vanishes from the room as he vanishes.

He’s gone.

Actually gone.

A sound rips from my throat—something so raw, something I don’t even recognize as my own voice.

I clutch onto him, my hands grasping at his shirt, his face, his arms, anything, as if I can hold him here by sheer force. As if I can will him back to me.

“Cameron,” I sob, shaking my head violently, pressing my forehead to his. “Wait! Please! I don’t think I can do this without you.”

His body, the one I have spent almost my whole life memorizing and loving, doesn’t hold the warmth it did just moments ago.

It completely shatters me.

I’m gasping, screaming, clutching at him like I can pull him back from wherever he’s gone to.

My body curls over his as the sobs tear through me so violently I feel like I might die too.

Wes is beside me in an instant, his hands on my shoulders, his voice urgent and pained. “Gab, come here—”

“No!” I scream, thrashing against him, shoving his hands off me. “No, I can’t—I can’t let go!”

Kinsley is crying now, trying to help, but I shove her away too. “Don’t! Don’t touch me! I can’t—I can’t leave him!”

* * *

I don’t know how much time passes. Minutes. Hours. An eternity maybe.

The world around me just blurs. I don’t hear what anyone is saying anymore. Everything becomes muted, distant—like I’m trapped underwater. My body is trembling as my hands grip Cameron’s lifeless body like he’s the only one who can save me from this grief.

Because he is.

But he’s not here to save me anymore.

I don’t know which is worse—the unbearable, suffocating, all-consuming grief, or the numbness that’s starting to creep into my mind and forcing it to shut down to protect me from the pain.

I want to feel nothing. I want to disappear with him.

But I’m still here.

Even though he isn’t.