Page 143 of What Should Have Been Ours

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At some point—hours later—the hospice nurses step in, voices low, gentle hands touching my shoulders, murmuring something I can’t process.

Wes has to pick me up and walk me out of the bedroom and out onto the couch, where I lay with my mom and Kinsley, who’s now stroking my hair.

And then I hear the soft, distant click of the stretcher wheels rolling over the hardwood floor, and suddenly, my body snaps back to life.

“No—NO—” I try to get up, to run to him, but Kinsley grabs me before I can reach him, wrapping her arms around me tightly as I thrash in her hold. “Please, please, don’t take him! Don’t take him!”

My body fights her, fights everything, but I’m weak, too drained, too broken to win against her hold.

She just holds me, pressing my head against her shoulder as I shake, as I sob harder than I ever have in my entire life.

I watch them roll him away.

I watch him disappear.

And then—

There’s nothing.

No sound. No feeling. Nothing.

Just an emptiness.

I go still in Kinsley’s arms, my body numb, my mind shutting down now in preservation.

My breath slows, but I don’t even feel like I’m breathing. My heart is beating, but I don’t feel alive.

I just want to go with him.

I don’t want to be here.

Not in a world where Cameron Hayes doesn’t exist.

Not in a world where I don’t get to be loved by him anymore.

66

Gabrielle

I don’t know what day it is anymore. Time doesn’t properly register in my brain. The sun rises. The sun sets. People come and go. They bring food, clean, talk to me—even though I’m not listening. I hear the clinking of dishes, the murmured conversations just beyond my door, the weight of everyone trying so hard to take care of me. But I can’t make myself move. I can’t exist outside of this bed, outside of these sheets that still smell like him.

It feels like life is passing by around me, but I can’t focus enough to be part of any of it. I just lay here, numb, waiting for something to make me feel alive again.

Kinsley is the only person I’ve been able to talk to since Cam passed. She comes in quietly, sliding under the blanket beside me without saying anything. I don’t turn to her at first, just stare up at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the paint.

After a while, I roll onto my side, facing her. And I don’t even realize I’m crying until I feel tears dripping onto my arm, and I hear my voice come out hoarse.

“How am I supposed to do this?”

Kinsley watches me, her eyes glassy, but she doesn’t rush to answer. She lets the question sit between us for a moment.

“How do I go back to life like I’m not missing half of myself?”

She doesn’t tell me I have to move forward. She doesn’t give me any empty reassurance that time will heal.

She just pulls me into her arms and holds me. “You don’t have to do anything normal,” she whispers. “Because going back to normal would just be you putting on a show. And you don’t need to do that for anyone.”