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Chapter forty-four

Damien

‘Margaret (feat. Bleachers)’ – Lana Del Rey, Bleachers

I'm clawing through this bag like a kid on the beach thinking they just found buried treasure. My whole world, the rest of my life is in this bag somewhere. The life I’ve always wanted, with the most incredible woman in the universe, is hiding in this fucking bag.

There!

I fucking found it. I can barely stand as I look at this bullshit package. I feel a wave of adrenaline rush over me as I chuck the piece of shit across the living room towards the other side of the house. I'm going to be a husband…and a father…she may not be pregnant yet, but God damn she will be by the end of the night.

I reach into my pocket and fish out Nana’s ring. I look at it as it shines in the sunlight coming in through the windows. It reminds me of the first time I saw her. The sunlight hitting her eyes just right, a beacon to light my way home.

“I was going to wait, plan some huge thing, and then bring you home and tell you everything I love about you while I leave no inch of your body untouched. Tell you how I’ve waited my entire life for you and promise you that as long as time exists, there will never be another minute that I won’t love you. I want to do all of that, but I also can’t wait another second. Fuck, Ashia, will you…”

I turn, and my whole world suddenly comes crashing down…my breath flees from my chest and my heart stops beating…something is wrong…very wrong…she’s grabbing her chest…it’s like she can’t breathe…her eyes are so heavy, and she’s swaying gently…I watch as she closes them and falls off of the counter…my heart sinking with it…I drop the ring and sprint to catch her, but I'm not fast enough…her lifeless body smacks the floor before I can get to her…the sound echoing between my ears…I fall to my knees on the floor beside her. Crawling desperately to her as fast as I can. I stare at her unconscious form....my limbs running cold.

“CARTER!” I scream for him, for anyone… someone help me…I place my shaking hands on her face and try to tilt her head upward…what is on her face? Is that blood? Or vomit?...I can’t tell…I don’t understand…we were happy…the little bit of time I had with her isn't enough…just a god damn taste… “Ashia? Baby, wake up! Stay with me! CARTER!” I hear multiple footsteps running down the stairs and over to us…please don’t be dead…please, God, don’t be dead…She’s motionless. I can’t tell if she’s breathing. “No….no. no. No. Baby, please!”

“What the fuck happened!?” I hear Serena scream as she dives to her knees, sliding over.

“I…I…I don’t…”

“Damien! I need to know what happened!” She starts checking her pulse and places her ear to her chest.

“I don’t know…she was just s-sitting on the counter, and then I looked back…” I can’t calm my hands, and I’m so shaky I can’t fucking speak straight. I just want her to be okay, why isn’t she okay!?

“Was she drinking this?!” Carter asks as he holds her Malibu bottle out to me. I shakily nod and Carter starts looking it over.

“I was…I-I was going to ask her to marry me…” This is not how this was supposed to go. I was supposed to hear her siren’s voice tell me she loves me, and that she’d be my wife. We’re supposed to be upstairs creating our future family or having a hell of a good time practicing. I’d tell her the story of my Nana’s ring, and she’d appreciate the significance of it. Not any of this. Not the love of my life lying half dead in the middle of our home…

“There’s a fucking pin hole in the top of the lid!” Carter yells.

“What?...” A hole? What do you mean a hole? ...I can’t manage to say those words out loud. That can only mean one thing…Serena yanks the lid from him and looks at it.

“Damien, get her in the fucking car!” She yells at me and I pick her up as fast as I can…one arm under her legs…the other around her back…but her arms aren’t wrapped around me this time…and my face feels the cold void away for hers…her arms are dangling, swinging back and forth with every sprint step. “Yes this Serena Anderson, nurse ID 5271, I'm bringing in a twenty-six-year-old female suspected of poisoning! Patient is tachycardic, with shallow breath sounds. She’s possibly aspirated vomit and blood.” Carter throws open the garage door to reveal the charger, the bike, and the utility van Carter used to bring Henry’s things from the Basement.

Serena and I load her into the back of the van and lay her flat onto the floor as Carter jumps into the driver’s seat, and immediately backs out. I think I hear Serena talking, but everything sounds muffled behind my heart beating in my ears…I run my hands over her cheeks trying to wake her, but it’s no use…my hands are so shaky, her lifeless lips match my trembling as I run the pads of my fingers over it…

“DAMIEN!?” I look up to meet Serena’s piercing, predatory green eyes. “How long was she showing symptoms!?” She asks sternly and professionally.

“I-I don’t know. She was fine one second…and then she just…she just…” She was more than fine. She was elated. Content. Peaceful…I turn my attention back to her as I feel her move, but she’s not just moving…she’s shaking…her body jolting erratically.

“She’s seizing!” Serena then turns her on her side. “Damien keep your hand under her head!” She moves my hand under her head, and I hear her start to count the last bits of my life away….one…two…three…a tear falls from my face with every digit. She gets to nineteen before she stops shaking…Serena puts her fingers on her neck and gasps. “I lost her pulse!” She rolls her onto her back and tilts her chin up. “Damien every three seconds you’re going to hold her nose and breathe into her mouth!” I nod and put my hands on her face. Serena then begins to pump her chest with one hand on top of the other. Desperately trying to keep any shred of life coursing through her veins.

“Don’t leave me, baby. Stay with me okay?…Ashia, stay with me please…” I breathe into her mouth like she said, and she keeps going. Every three seconds, and if Serena wasn’t counting, I wouldn’t be able to keep track. I keep waiting, my stomach flipping over and over again, for the jump scare moment where she suddenly sucks in a gasping breath. But she doesn’t…

“How far out!?” She yells at Carter.

“Three minutes!”

“Make it one!” We feel the engine rev. She moves her phone to her ear again. “Bring out a stretcher! ETA is two minutes!” In between each breath, I whisper in her ear that it’s going to be okay. That’s she’s going to be fine. That we’ve got her. I don’t want to be a liar. Please don’t make me a liar…

“We’re here!” Carter yells as two doctors open the back doors with a stretcher, and I pick her up and lay her on top to see Serena hop on top of her and keep pumping. Carter and I run behind them as we rush inside, and more doctors run up to us.

“We can take over, Serena.” I hear one of them say as we walk up to the emergency doors inside. She snaps her head at him, and then shakes her head as she keeps pumping. Tears now running down her face. God, please don’t stop… “Serena, you’ve been at this for fifteen minutes, let us take over.” Another nurse runs over and practically tears Serena off of her, hopping on herself. Serena tries to go back to her, but another nurse grabs her arms and holds her still.

“Sir, you need to wait here.” A doctor in a white coat puts his hands on me to push me back and away from her… No, you can’t fucking take her from me… I shove his arms aside and barrel through him.

“You’ve lost your fucking mind! I'm not leaving her!” I go to step again when feel two arms wrap around me from behind. They pull me backward as they push forward, a squeezable oxygen mask now covers her mouth. Did I do it right? Did I help her? Is she going to be okay? When the fuck are we going to know something?!

“D, you have to let them work.” Carter says as he holds my arms behind me, tearing me away from the doors.

“No! I'm not leaving her!” I push back forward, but Carter uses all of his strength to practically throw my body in the opposite direction.

“D! Stop! Let them go.” I watch as they run with her down the hallway behind closed, glass doors… I can’t see her anymore. Everything fucking hurts, every last muscle in my body aches. I need to know how she is…

“What did you do!?” Serena screams and runs up to me as she starts hitting my chest. Her small, balled fists aim with as much force as physically possible for her…but I don’t feel it. All I feel is the cold void that now occupies my chest. “What did you do to her!? Why would you do this!?” She thinks I did this?... She couldn’t possibly… I love her. I’d never hurt her…not intentionally…Carter releases me and pulls her away.

“Stop, Ser. He would never hurt her!” He says as her arms continue to flail, even as he drags her a few feet away.

“She’s my sister! What did you do!? Why couldn’t you have just left her alone!” I don’t even like this woman, but the pain in her face as he drags her away hits me in the gut. She’s right. I did this to her. Her being in that house. She’s susceptible to anyone who wants to harm me. Why her? Why such an innocent, wholehearted woman? Because she’s my world that’s why…just by loving her, I did this to her…

I back into a wall…the room spinning…spiraling… I'm spiraling …none of this feels real…it feels so hazy. My knees feel weak. It’s like I can’t feel her anymore… I see Carter walk up to me and I see his mouth moving, but I don’t hear anything…only my blood rushing over my eardrums…not until I feel his hand shake my shoulders violently…

“D! Wake the fuck up, man! You can’t do this now! There was someone in your goddamn house! What do you want me to do!?” What can I do? What can I do? It’s too late, they already got to her… My men. Could they have gotten to them to?

“Send a crew to the house and test everything. Every last thing in that fucking house…” I try to take a deep breath; a wave of rage begins to flow through my body. “Send a separate crew to the Basement and do the same, then evacuate it. How the fuck did they get in…” I ball up my fists to try and contain my rage from lashing out at Carter.

“Zander’s checking cameras for abnormalities now.” Every time I close my eyes I see her face…she looked so scared …

“I WANT THEM FUCKING DEAD!!” I turn and hit the closest thing to me. Which happens to be the glass wall behind me blocking the nurses’ station from my rage. It shatters under my hand, and I feel Carter’s arms around me again. I just want to feel something other than this agony…this pain…

I am going to kill them all. No Dust member is safe from me…my mind begins to wander to all of the ways I can torture them…they’ll pay for what they did to her…I will find every. Last. One.

“D! You can't do this man! They’ll make you leave, you hear me? They will arrest you, and you won’t be here for her! You've got to keep cool.” I fall to my knees. I've never felt such emptiness before. Every inch of my being is quaking, a frozen stream shoots through my core, and my head is weightless…

“I need to see her…” He squeezes my shoulders in a sad attempt at comfort.

“They’ll come get us when you can, D.” He helps me up and moves me over to a chair. “They’ll tell us something as soon as they can.”

“Whoo! That’s my girl!” Dad screams from my left as Emma runs down half the field to score a goal for their team.

“Now John, you know she doesn’t like us yelling too…COME ON REF! THAT’S A FOUL!” My mom screams from my right. Emma does hate it when we yell too loudly, but only because the other families stare at us.

She should know that we don’t care. Emma is the best player on the team, and we’ll always cheer her on. We just also want to make sure she can hear us do it.

Her bright blue eyes look over at me as her blonde ponytail swings around. She moves her pointer finger to her lips as if to tell us to shut up, but I shake my head at her. Her eyes roll playfully, and she makes a heart symbol with her hands. I nod back to her in response like I always do, and she turns to join her team for a quick huddle.

“I'm telling you, she’s going to Penn State or Stanford with how well she plays.” My mom says to us.

“She can go wherever she desires, Leanne.” My dad says in a grumpy tone.

“Yeah, anywhere as long as it’s within a three-hour drive.” I say out loud.

“Now Damien, what if Emma wants to get out and see the country?” My mom exclaims.

“They have the internet now.” My dad chuckles as my mom roughs my hair. The players get back in formation, Emma right in front. She looks determined. Focused. Whoever comes down the field with the ball, she’s going to kick that girl’s butt.

She runs, taking off towards Emma and her team before she passes it to a girl on the left. This girl only has it a moment before she passes back to the middle, and Emma is already on her. She runs up, but once she reaches the girl, she stops, and lets her run right past her. I stand up, wondering why the hell she’d let that girl go.

Even as the play continues behind her, she still stands there. Something isn’t right. She’s just standing there. Not looking around, not breathing weird. Nothing…

“Em?” I yell out to her, and she turns to look at me, but only meets my eyes for a second before her knees give out and she falls to the ground. “EMMA!”

I’m rocking back and forth in this God forsaken chair. This bullshit waiting game is killing me. My hands are sweating. Well, everything is sweating. I’ve been bouncing my leg at such a rate and for so long, I'm surprised the muscle hasn’t doubled in size.

We haven’t heard anything, not a fucking word. Serena told us that’s a good thing. That it means they’re still working on her, and that means she’s still alive. Ashia is so strong…she’s survived everything else. She’ll survive this. I bet she’s awake and screaming at them to let me back there right about now…

Carter said it’s only been forty minutes…it feels like forty years. I keep trying to think of something else. Anything else. The only times I haven’t been next to her was when I’ve been working. I can’t think about work right now either. The urge to drag someone into an empty room and start swinging is already in full throttle, but I can’t leave. I can’t leave her here. I have to see her. Hold her. Smell her, even. Tell her I'm sorry, and how much I love her…

We look up to see security and one of the doctors that was with her walking through the doors. I scramble to my feet, barely able to stand. My knees shake, but I stand tall. Even as security and police officers approach me with cuffs in hand.

“He’s fine boys.” Serena says to security as she holds up her hands.

“We have some questions for him.”

“Well, you can ask later.” She says sternly.

“With what you said…”

“I didn’t say shit.” She interrupts them. I wonder why the sudden change of heart? She turns to the doctor who was working on her and crosses her arms. “What’s going on Derek?” Serena walks up with me and asks.

“She was most definitely poisoned.” My heart sinks. I'm not sure why hearing it out loud makes everything worse, but it does… “With the short amount of time it took the poison to take effect, there was only one antidote we could give her. We did, and we got her heart beating again, and we got her breathing. The effects of the poison itself seem to be wearing off.”

“What effects?” Serena asks as she wipes away a tear. She’s been so calm. Well, after hitting me, anyway. I suppose with her job, composure is a skill she’s learned, but now she’s starting to lose it. I don’t blame her. I know she loves Ashia too, and I'm sure this is tearing her apart inside.

“It started to erode the lining of her stomach, and numbed the muscles in her chest, which is why she had trouble breathing. Her vitals were starting to stabilize.” His eyes soften at us, but more so at Serena. It’s clear he knows her, and doesn’t want to be the one to tell us this…what is he not saying?

“Starting to?” Serena asks, her voice cracking.

“Until she seized again.” My heart drops to my feet…last time her heart stopped…

“W-why would she seize again?...” I ask, my voice shaking as much as my hands.

“Some poison patients have adverse reactions to the antidotes. She did. After the seizure, she stopped breathing, and we lost her pulse again.” Don't fucking say that… “We had to intubate, and we were successful at resuscitating her, but…”

“I-intubate?” I interrupt and Serena puts her hand on my arm. Either trying to comfort me or shut me up.

“They had to put a tube in her throat so she could breathe, Damien. Derek, how long does she have to stay on the vent?” He’s silent for a moment as he looks away from her. “Derek, how fucking long?”

“We’ve already tried to remove the vent, but she can’t breathe on her own. It could still be that her lungs just aren’t ready, or she sustained more damage than we originally thought. The poison affected the lining in her stomach, which then triggered her gag reflex. She did aspirate blood and vomit, so we have her on I.V. antibiotics.”

“W-What does that mean?” I ask.

“Her body’s gag reflex tried to push the poison out once it started to damage the stomach. However, she wasn’t conscious, so she was not able throw it up, and it traveled down her windpipe into her lungs.”

“Is the aspiration the reason she can’t breathe?” I ask quietly, I can’t force much else from the choking feeling in my throat.

“Possibly, but seizures can hurt the brain in ways we don’t understand. We won’t know much until we run some tests. There is brain activity, but so far she hasn’t been very responsive to our physical stimulation. The only clear way to tell at this point is brain scans, and to try physical stimulation again, if she wakes up.”

“What do you mean if?” Serena says. I feel my stomach drop and my chest tighten as I feel my hands begin to shake more than previously. My face runs cold…do not fucking say it…do not fucking say it… “Derek!” She yells at him.

“We are doing everything we can for her, but to be extremely honest, it’s not looking well. We think it’s best if you two prepare yourselves.” Serena’s hands drop and she takes a staggered step backwards. He can’t fucking mean that… Does she actually believe this mother fucker?!

“Oh, God.” Serena puts her hand over her mouth and walks away.

“P-prepare ourselves? What the fuck are you saying?” I step up to him. He’s full of shit. This wouldn’t kill her. Not Ashia. Not my girl…

“There is good chance she may not…”

“No. No you’re fucking lying!” I push past him and through the doors, almost sending them flying off of their hinges. “Ashia? What room are you in, baby?”

“Sir, you need to…” He yells at me and I snap around to face him.

“Fuck you!” I turn back. “Ashia?!” I have to find her…she’s not dying…she’s not dying…I look at all of the rooms and I don’t see her, until I get to the end of the hall and notice her clothes in a bag on the chair. Her dress clearly cut open and torn. She’s going to be so pissed; she really liked that dress. My mom gave that to her to wear to the funeral.

“Baby, would you tell this mother fucker…” I turn into the room, and I see her lying there, but I can barely see her face…there’s so many wires and tubes. I hear the slow beeping from the heart monitor echo in my head right next to the hissing and other noises coming from the machines. This can’t be happening…

I slowly make my way to her, and if it wasn’t for the tube sticking out of her mouth, she’d look peaceful. She’s just sleeping. That’s all…She’ll wake up any moment…I run my shaking hand over her forehead and through her hair, but she doesn’t even flinch…not a twitch of her finger, not a slight squint of her eyes…nothing.

My legs give out, and I fall into the chair next to her. This can't be happening. Where’s her smile? Her gorgeous golden eyes? Her divine laugh? The agony is overwhelming…I feel sick…

“Derek, call my parents.” I hear Serena say as she walks in and sits next to me. Her hand gently laying on my arm. “I'm sorry I hit you, and said those things…” She says softly, her voice barely audible through her tears.

“She’s going to be okay. Right?...She has to be okay…” I want to reach out and shake her. Tell her to stop fucking with me, that this isn’t fucking funny… This is all my fault…

“I've worked with Derek for a long time…” Her voice cracks again. “It’s not often he’s wrong.” She breaks down and sobs, my tears accompany hers. “I don’t understand…how could someone have done this…”

“I’ll find them…they’ll pay for this…” Images of her falling off the counter flood my mind again. How could someone so light hit the ground as hard as she did? She’s not more than one hundred twenty pounds, yet it was as if a grown man smacked concrete from a three story building… “I'm normally so good in a crisis…I-I don’t…”

“It’s different when it’s someone you love, Damien. Take it from me…” Now she acknowledges that I love her? Where the fuck was that two days ago? “I wasn’t that quick the first time I saw her lying on the floor. That night Cooper assaulted her for the last time, I was already on my way there to see her…I got there right as Tony was pulling up.” She clears her throat to stop the cracking of her voice. “I was already nursing, so I should’ve known what to do. How to react. But I didn’t.”

“Well, you did this time. Thank you.” I reach over to Ashia’s hand, and hold on for dear life, even if hers isn’t present… “I was going to ask her to marry me…”

“Damien? Can I get you anything, sweetheart?” I think I hear Serena’s mom, Marla, ask me. Her parents arrived a couple of hours ago. They’ve tried to talk to me, but I haven’t been able to move…I'm frozen, staring at her…holding my breath for the moment she opens her eyes. I haven’t let go of her hand, and she hasn’t moved…not an inch…

Carter called Zeke and told him to take point until further notice…I can’t think right now, and I'm certainly not in the right head space to be working…our lungs are working on a machine…I can't breathe. I stood up to stretch my legs, and I knew that if I walked out of this room, or let go of her hand, even for just a moment, that I’d never see her again…So I immediately sat back down. I'm not letting her out of my sight…

Her words from the past few weeks keep playing in my head over and over… when you're done with this game I'll either be dead or wish I was …she isn’t just a game, she is everything to me, she knows that…right?

When…if…she wakes up, she’ll blame me for this. Hell, how could she not? I blame myself.

Fuck, why didn’t I tell her I love her sooner…why couldn’t I have just said it? I didn't want her to think I only said it in lust, I wanted her to know I mean it. We were going to do so many things. She was going to be so happy. No, she is happy…was…

I try to think of her face standing in the doorway this afternoon, the bright sun shining over her. She was so relaxed…I watched as her fears left her body, only to be replaced minutes later… You can’t promise to put me back together then break me again. I won’t survive it …I'm sorry…I'm so sorry baby…Her face, when she couldn’t breathe is haunting me…as she closed her eyes, it was like her soul left her then…the world just seemed so dark…

Serena’s words run through my head next… Don’t take her feelings for you lightly, because if I have to pick her up off the floor again, I’m not sure she’ll survive it …how could I have let this happen? How did I not know someone was in our house?… Why couldn’t you have just left her alone! ...

I feel like I'm losing my mind…that haunting look in her eyes flash every time I close my mine…I don’t want her last moments being scared…those weren’t her last moments, they couldn’t be…I look at my phone at our pictures and it seems like an eternity ago now…even though it was just last night…her smile and genuine laugh as she played Uno. The cute way she taunted Zander after she faked him out playing football. How she genuinely loved my dramatics, and the way she smiled and cooed over Melanie’s son…it all had my heart soaring…

And now I see her, lying in front of me…yet she feels so far away…can she feel my hand in hers? Did she hear me beg her to stay with me? I'll scream it if that’s what it takes...I’ll kneel to God and wager with whatever he wants…please don’t leave me…

I jump to my feet as the heart monitor starts beeping loudly and sounds an alarm as her body starts jerking…my stomach turns, and a wave of frozen fear washes through me…I reach out for her, but in the same instant I'm being drug back by Carter and two other men. They can’t take her from me…Her hand slips from mine, and I lose it.

I start flailing my arms, and jerking my elbows back, trying to break free. I manage to make contact with someone before they literally throw me out of the room.

“ASHIA!” I scramble back up and fight past them for another nurse to slam the door in my face. “FUCKING LET ME IN!” Carter tries to hold me back as I ram my shoulder into the door, but it doesn’t budge. So, I ram into it again…and again…

“D! Stop! They’re trying to help her!” I feel two more arms wrap around behind me again and forcefully pull me away from the door.

“That’s enough, Damien!” His familiar voice cracks against my ear, and a warmth washes over my body. Suddenly I'm twelve years old again…

“Dad?...” My voice breaks.

“I'm here, son. I'm here.” I feel my knees buckle as he pulls me back and into the chair in the hall. He then grasps the back of my neck with his hand and presses our foreheads together. “Take a deep breath, son. They’re going to do everything they can for her.” I try to catch my breath.

“She’s dying…” I choke out.

“You don’t know that, but you have to let them work or she will.” He lets me go and starts pacing with his arms crossed. Serena walked her parents back to the waiting room. They said they couldn’t watch this…I don’t blame them. This is torture…

An eternity flies by, it seems, before the doctor steps out and the other nurses leave…I catch a glimpse of her as they open the door, and they removed the tube from her throat…I remember what that means…

Images of Emma’s death flash in my head…we watched as they pumped her chest and shocked her. Only to watch them remove the tube shortly after…I didn’t know what it meant then…all I remember was my mom screaming that she was dead… NOT MY DAUGHTER! ...she’s gone…Ashia’s gone…

Time slows as I see the doctor talking to me, but I don’t hear anything other than the constant ringing in my ears…I don’t hear my heart in my ears anymore, my heart has stopped…I don’t feel cold, or warm, and I don’t feel myself shaking…hollowness has taken over…there’s nothing anymore. My life is gone…

I eye the security guard walking by, and I pull his pistol from his holster, pointing it at the doctor. They’re going to let me in that God damn room. I'm going to hold her before I go. I hear Serena say something as she holds her hands out to me, but it’s very muffled, and I don’t give a fuck what she has to say…

Nothing matters anymore. I don’t feel the weight of the gun, or the normal heat my chest emits when I kill…nothing…there’s nothing…any remnants of humanity I had left, she took with her.

Still pointing the gun, I back my way into her room and lock the door. My life is gone. My breath was taken from me five hours ago… Five hours of hope, now mean nothing. It took sixty seconds for my life to end, and five more hours to realize it. I'm just a shell now. A shell of a failure. A shell of the man she loved. I look at her and immediately feel dizzy once more.

“This isn’t real…” I whisper to myself as I make my way to her and hold my free hand to her cheek…she’s still warm. God I already miss the way I could feel her smile grow under my hold… “I love you…” my vision of her is blurred by tears. “I should’ve just said it. The moment you started slinging your head around, when you shot the straw wrapper at me and laughed so hard you shed tears…and later that night when you nestled your face against me in your sleep…I knew then…” I reach down and press my lips to hers, wishing more than anything she could kiss me back. I'd give anything for it. I stand up straight, and run my hand over her beautiful hair one last time…

“I love you, Ashia…I promised to crawl from the depths of hell back to you. I promised that nothing would separate us, not even heaven or hell. So, I'm coming for you…” I raise the pistol to my head…

“I…” I gasp and drop the pistol as I hear something groan it’s way out of her mouth. Did I just fucking hear that?... Is my mind playing tricks?

Suddenly everything comes rushing back. I hear my heartbeat flood my head and the slow beeping from the monitor plays through. The heart monitor is beeping… Her fucking heart is beating… Shaking immensely, I grab her face and wipe my tears falling on her face, her eyes twitching with the movement…

“Ashia, baby, open your eyes…” I watch her struggle to flutter her eyes open, but she does it. Those beautiful golden eyes try to focus on me… “That’s my good girl…” She struggles to keep them open, and I see her mouth move as she tries to speak… “Don’t talk baby, it’s okay…you're okay…just save your energy.”

“I…love you too…” I release the breath I’ve been holding for hours…before today, I don’t think I’ve cried since Emma’s funeral…but I don’t care…I press my forehead head to hers as I feel her hand reach up and touch my arm…I can breathe again…