Chapter 2
Two
Henry
Darkness swallows me whole.
Not the kind you see when you close your eyes to sleep. This is heavier. Denser. It has weight. It presses on me the way the beam pressed down before everything went black, as if the universe itself has pinned me to the ground.
It all makes a strange kind of sense.
The weight of taking a man’s life has pressed down on me for so long.
This is simply more of the same. The physical as well as the mental.
Like my body has finally caught up to my head. To my soul.
I let myself believe I’d made peace with it. That what I did was justified, that Angie and Jason walked away alive because I pulled the trigger.
But there’s no escaping it. The image comes back every time I close my eyes.
The sound.
The silence that followed.
The way it’s never left me.
Now I’m truly crushed under something I can’t fight.
I don’t know where I am exactly. Somewhere between the moment of the crack, the groan of old wood, the sickening rush of air…and here.
Here feels like nowhere.
But then I sense it.
Warm breath against my palm.
A nudge.
Gentle at first but then more insistent.
A whine.
A low and mournful whine.
It cuts through the disorder in my head.
My dog. Zach.
Loyal. Always loyal.
He’s here, which must mean I’m not completely gone.
I try to move my hand, try to reassure him the way I always do—scratch behind his ears, murmur “good boy”—but nothing happens.
My body doesn’t obey my mind.
Another whine.
A paw pressing into my chest.
The vibration of his throat when he lets out a bark that sounds sharp. Desperate.
And then…
Her.
Tabitha.
A rush of warmth breaks through the numbness.
I see her in flashes. Her blond hair glinting under the summer sun. The fire in those amber-brown eyes when she looks at me, like she sees straight through the wall I’ve built around myself.
I didn’t mean to let her in. I wasn’t supposed to. I can’t be what she deserves when I’m only a shell of what I used to be.
But Tabitha.
She slipped past every barrier I built. She didn’t even try to. She was just herself.
Determined. Brilliant. Funny. A little reckless. A lot beautiful.
I let myself fall until I looked up and realized I couldn’t go back.
And now? Now it’s too late.
The darkness presses tighter, squeezes the air from my lungs.
Except…
Maybe that’s not the darkness.
Maybe it’s blood filling spaces it shouldn’t.
Maybe this is what the end feels like.
A slow fade into nothing.
Zach shifts against me again, his weight a reminder that I’m not completely gone. His nails scrape against the floor with a frantic sound, like he’s trying to dig me out of something. Or trying to keep me here.
I want to tell him I’m sorry. Sorry I won’t be there to fill his bowl tomorrow, to throw the ball he loves chasing. Sorry he’ll wait by the door and I won’t come.
And Tabitha.
I want to tell her I’m sorry too. Sorry for being too much of a coward to say the words when I had the chance. Sorry for letting her believe I didn’t care when the reality is that I care too damned much.
I picture her face, the way she looked the last time I saw her, sleeping in my arms.
The darkness shifts again. It’s deeper now. The edges of me start to blur. Thoughts unravel and scatter. First words and then only letters and sounds. I try to hold on to something—anything—but it all keeps slipping.
Except her.
Tabitha.
She’s the one image that stays.
I wonder if she’ll even know. If someone will tell her what happened. If she’ll care.
I think she will, though maybe she shouldn’t. I never gave her what she deserved.
Zach barks again sharply. It drags me back, like my dad’s strong hands pulling me out of the water when I ventured in too deep when I was a kid.
I fight to stay with my dog, with the sound, with the warmth pressed against me.
My chest burns.
Tabitha. I love you.
The words echo inside me, though I can’t force them out.
Too late to matter.
Too late to change anything.
Or maybe not.
The dog’s—what’s his name again?—weight shifts again, and I cling to that small piece of reality. If I can still feel him, if I can still think of her, maybe I’m not gone yet.
Maybe there’s still a chance.
But it’s slipping.
I hover at the edge, teeter between letting go and clawing my way back.
Part of me wonders what’s waiting if I fall, if there’s peace in surrender.
But then I see her again, her amazing eyes locking on mine.
I can’t let go. Not yet.
I need to tell her. I need her to know.
The darkness swells, and my body feels like lead. The dog whines, and if I spoke dog, I’m pretty sure he’d be saying he’s scared.
I try to reach, to move, to prove I’m still here. Nothing.
Until…
I no longer feel him.
The dog.
My companion. My friend.
He’s gone.
And with him…the image of Tabitha.
Along with my last flicker of thought.