My hand came up to cover my mouth as sobs raked my body.
“Trent!” I screamed as a nurse tried to pull me out of the room. “Trent!” I screamed his name over and over again—at least it felt like it. “Come back to me! Trenton! Please! You can’t leave me! Trent!”
But the line stayed flat.
The nurse shoved me out the door and slammed it in my face.
I pounded on the small glass window in the door, which was covered in black paper so that no one could see in. I continued to shout his name until I lost my voice and felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Eventually I left, unable to stay there and continue to hear the high-pitched shriek of his heart not beating.
I didn’t quite make it back to the waiting room. I guess my feet decided to stop working. I sunk to the ground, my back against the wall. My wails filled the halls. I didn’t care who heard me or who saw me. I couldn’t stop them. I needed to let it all out. I couldn’t keep this pain bottled inside me as I was tormented with one thought…
Everyone leaves me.
I pulled at my hair, kicking my feet against the floor.
My cries began to draw attention.
I saw Trace come out of the waiting room to investigate the noise, and when his eyes landed on me his mouth fell open in horror.
I shook my head, my throat clogged with tears, to tell him that Trent hadn’t made it.
Tears streamed from his eyes as he shoved his fingers through his hair, making it stick up wildly around his head.
He looked back at the waiting room and then at me.
I watched as he walked a little ways down that hall from me. He reared his hand back and it shot forward, punching the wall repeatedly. His anger and sadness was palpable. A male nurse came running towards him and restrained Trace so he couldn’t do any more damage to his hand. They led him away—no doubt to clean it up, and maybe
even stitch the wound closed.
It made me think of the injury to my hand on New Year’s Eve—when Trent had so tenderly taken care of me. It had been our last night together. It was sweet and perfect and over far too soon. Here we were four months later. He’d found out the truth and now he was dead.
Fuck.
Dead.
He was gone.
Like, really gone.
As in never coming back gone.
My heart hurt and my soul felt incomplete.
How on Earth could I be expected to live the rest of my life without him?
I’d have to.
I was going to have to take every day one step at a time. I’d live and love that much harder, because Trenton couldn’t.
He’d always live on in our son.
And in my heart.
epilogue
three months later…