Page 155 of What Should Have Been Ours

Kinsley cuts me off before I can spiral further. “Don’t go there. You’re okay. I’ll be there in twenty. If going to the hospital will give you peace of mind, then we’ll go.”

I nod, even though she can’t see me. “Okay.”

* * *

The waiting room is too bright. Too warm. Too cold. Too much. Too familiar.

I sit in one of the plastic chairs, trying to keep my breathing steady, not wanting to fall apart.

I keep falling apart.

When will I stop falling apart?

Kinsley is next to me, her arm around my shoulders, trying to keep me calm. But my mind won’t stop racing.

I’ve sat in waiting rooms like this before. I’ve felt this exact fear before, it just wasn’t for myself.

As if my own mind is punishing me, the memory hits me like a wave crashing down—the night we brought Cam here. The night everything changed. The night he collapsed at the clinic’s event and I held his hand in the back of an ambulance, begging him to stay with me.

The beeping monitors. The sterile smell. The waiting.

The stupid waiting.

The panic rises in my throat.

“Gabrielle, look at me,” Kinsley says firmly, shaking my knee. “You’re here. You’re okay. You are not Cam, and this is not then.”

I nod, blinking fast, trying to pull myself back to the present.

A nurse steps out, clipboard in hand. “Gabrielle Hayes?”

I stand, my legs unsteady beneath me.

Kinsley stands with me, her hand gripping mine.

“I’m right here.”

And together, we follow the nurse inside.

I tell them everything—my medical history, my symptoms, my worries.

I tell them I just need some tests for peace of mind, and the nurse nod, understanding. Then they start running through every possible test. Scans, blood work, everything they can do given my history.

And then we wait.

And it feels like forever.

I chew on my thumbnails, my knee bouncing up and down. Kinsley leans against the wall, arms crossed, watching me carefully.

Finally, the doctor comes in with a chart in hand. “All your scans and tests came back normal,” he says. “Everything looks good.”

Relief rushes through me so fast I feel lightheaded.

But I still don’t understand. “Then why have I been feeling like this?”

The doctor gives me a small, knowing smile. “We did find one thing that explains your symptoms.”

My heart clenches, scared. “What?”