Page 91 of Broken Dream

She left a note.

I sit down in the leather chair behind the desk, the envelope trembling in my hands. Do I really want to know what’s inside? The last words of a woman who saw no way out but to take her own life?

Inhale, exhale. It’s just another worst day.

I open the envelope and pull out Lindsay’s final goodbye.

I don’t read it.

I can’t read it.

I simply sit, holding the paper, tempted to burn it.

But I don’t. I put it back in the envelope and stuff it in my pocket.

While my wife lies lifeless in our bathroom, blood congealing around her.

I sit in denial.

My breath hitches as a single tear rolls down my cheek, landing with a soft pat on the white paper. I gaze at it blankly, watching as the moisture soaks into the paper.

A sob rips through my throat, raw and jagged. The sound echoes around the room, bouncing off the walls and slicing through the heavy silence. It’s an alien sound, one that doesn’t belong in this office filled with accolades and prestige.

The letter lies forgotten on the desk as I lean back in my seat, staring blankly at the ceiling. The pain, long delayed, breaks free from its confines and washes over me in a relentless tide. It’s crushing, suffocating. I can hardly breathe.

I rise from the chair, the letter fluttering down to the hardwood floor. I pace, back and forth, my own footsteps echoing in time with the ticking of the clock.

Every tick, every tock, a reminder.

A reminder of the numbness that grips me, a deafening silence that fills my ears and clouds my mind. A reminder of Lindsay. Of her laughter, her smile…her lifeless body in our bathroom.

“Damn it!” I rake my fingers through my hair.

I’ve lost everything now.

I’m no longer a promising surgeon.

No longer a devoted father.

No longer a loving husband.

Just Dr. Jason Lansing, a broken man with a broken dream.

And a broken heart.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Angie

Of course I’m meeting Aunt Mel at Flagstaff House, the most lavish restaurant in Boulder.

I’ve been here before, but not for a while, since most of my med school friends—if you can even call them friends—can’t afford this place and probably wouldn’t take kindly to me offering to pay.

I didn’t make any good friends during my first semester. Just kept to myself mostly, and though I was lonely every once in a while, mostly I was just alone.

My entire life was spent as one of the awesome foursome. We were inseparable in high school and in college, where we all pledged the same sorority.

Brianna is now married. Seriously married, and to a rock star, Jesse Pike.