Chapter 10: Staying
We sat there in that hallway, two broken people trying to find the pieces of a life we had discarded too soon.
I knew the road ahead was steep and uncertain.
Treatments.
Tests.
Fearful phone calls.
Long nights when neither of us would know what to say.
I also knew that staying one day would not erase the day I left.
Love was not a dramatic speech in a hospital corridor.
Love was showing up the next morning.
And the morning after that.
And the morning after that, even when guilt became uncomfortable, even when fear returned, even when Emma had every right to doubt me.
She leaned her head carefully against my shoulder.
I stopped breathing for a second.
Then I rested my cheek against her hair.
I had walked away from the fire, only to realize that in the cold, I had nothing left to live for.
Now, I was finally ready to stay. Continue Reading ⬇️