Chapter 59
ELIJAH
Coach Hopper's voice fades in and out like a badly tuned radio as he paces in front of us, his pre-game speech hitting all the usual notes about grit and determination. I'm only half-listening, my mind already on the ice, already thinking about plays and positions, already imagining what it will feel like to tell Sam we won. Then the locker room door crashes open, and every head snaps toward the sound.
And there's Zach, standing in the doorway like a man who's just watched the world end.
His face is drenched, tears carving raw paths down his cheeks, his eyes swollen and red-rimmed. But it's the expression that dumps buckets of ice water down my spine. His features are twisted into something I've never seen before, something so broken. His eyes hold the vacant stare of someone who's looked into an abyss and can't unsee it. His mouth hangs slack, as if the muscles have forgotten how to hold it closed.
I know.
Somehow, I know.
Before a single word leaves his mouth, my body understands what my mind refuses to accept.
"No," I choke out, the word scraping against my throat like broken glass. My legs turn to concrete, anchoring me to the bench. "N...no."
Zach takes a staggering step forward. His chest heaves with the effort of trying to breathe through the sobs that wrack his body. The lights of the locker room cast harsh shadows on his face, making him look skeletal, haunted.
"Eli...jah," he finally manages, my name fractured between a strangled sob. His hand reaches out, grasping at air, as if he's drowning. "We have... to go back. S...Sam... my sister is... gone."
The word "gone" lands like a wrecking ball against my chest.
Something inside me snaps with an almost audible crack. The invisible thread that's connected me to Sam since the moment we met, that silver cord I could always feel tugging between us even when we were miles apart—it severs completely.
I feel it unravel, dissolve, vanish.
My heart doesn't break—it disintegrates. It crumbles like ash, scattering inside my chest cavity, filling my lungs with choking dust until I can't breathe, can't speak, can't even scream.
The locker room tilts and spins around me. Someone's saying something—Coach, maybe—but their voice sounds like it's coming from underwater, distorted and meaningless.
I don't remember how I get to my feet. Don't remember who guides me out of the locker room, who helps me gather my things. Don't remember the drive to the airport or how we board without tickets. The world has compressed into a narrow tunnel where time loses meaning, where nothing exists except the desperate prayer looping through my mind: Please let this not be real.
The hospital corridors stretch out before me like something from a nightmare—too bright, too sterile, too final. My legs move automatically, following Zach, who seems to know where he's going. Every step feels like walking through deep water, my body resisting the direction we're heading.
"She was fine just an hour ago," I hear myself saying, my voice strange and distant to my own ears. "We FaceTimed. She was laughing. She said...she was fine."
Zach doesn't respond. He doesn't need to. We both know that with Sam's condition, "fine" has always been a relative term, a fleeting state that could change in minutes.
We reach a door—her door—the one I've walked through dozens of times, always with a smile, always with hope, always with my wife waiting on the other side. I pause, my hand on the handle, gathering courage that refuses to come.
I push the door open.
The room is dimly lit, quieter than I've ever heard it. The usual beeping of monitors is absent. The machines stand dark and silent. Mrs. Westbrook is crumpled in a chair by the window, her body convulsing with soundless sobs while Caroline holds her, her own face streaked with tears. They both look up as we enter, their expressions confirming what I still can't accept.
My steps falter as my eyes drift to Sam's bed.
And there she is. My wife. My beautiful, fierce, impossible Sam. She looks like she's sleeping—her face peaceful in a way it rarely was in life, always too animated, too full of plans and ideas and dreams. Her skin is pale, impossibly pale, with a bluish tint that makes my stomach lurch.
"S...sam," I whisper, and then I'm running to her, falling to my knees beside the bed, cupping her face between my trembling hands. Her skin is still warm beneath my hands, but it feels wrong—too still, too unresponsive, like the life that used to meet my touch is just... gone.
"Hey, hey, wake up." My voice cracks as I stroke her cheek. "Sam, sweetheart, I'm here now. You can wake up."
Nothing. Not the flutter of eyelids, not the quirk of her lips that always came when she heard my voice.
"Sam, please." I beg, my thumbs brushing over her closed eyelids as if I could physically lift them. "Open your eyes, sweetheart. Look at me. I came back, just like I promised. I'm here now."
I press my lips to her forehead, her cheeks, her cold, unresponsive lips. "This isn't funny, Sam. Stop playing around. Wake…up."
I take her limp hand in mine, pressing it to my chest where my heart is shattering. "Feel that? It's still beating. Yours should be too. It has to be."
I press my ear against her chest, searching for the sound that's been my lullaby for the past few months. Silence. Absolute silence.
"No, no, no," I cry, gathering her in my arms, cradling her against me as if my body heat could somehow bring her back. "Please, Sam, please. Don't do this. Don't leave me here. You promised me more time. You promised."
But my wife's eyes remain closed, her body lifeless in my embrace. And somewhere deep inside, in the place where truth lives even when we deny it, I know she's gone.
My wife, my heart, my future—gone.
And I'm left holding nothing but the shell of the woman who taught me how to love, how to live, how to hope.
I bury my face in her neck, inhaling the fading scent of lavender, and I scream her name against her neck until my voice gives out.
*****
It's been a week since my wife died.
The sentence plays in my head like a broken record, the words becoming more foreign each time they cycle through. A week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours since I held her warm and breathing. Since I heard her voice. Since I was a person who knew how to exist in this world.
Dr. Wilcott sat us down the day after and said the words like they were something she had practiced saying a thousand times, calm and measured, her hands folded neatly on her lap as if she were discussing the weather instead of the end of my universe.
Septic shock, she explained. It happened fast. Even with constant monitoring, there are moments when the body just... collapses in on itself. The infection spread too quickly. Her immune system was already compromised.
She said they tried. She made sure to say that part more than once, her eyes seeking mine for some sign of absolution I couldn't give. That they responded immediately. That they did everything they could. That Sam's heart stopped and they worked to bring her back, that they pushed medication after medication into her system, that they called in more hands, more help—but Sam never responded.
"It wasn't anyone's fault," she told us, her voice soft but firm. "Sometimes this just happens."
Sometimes. Like her life could be reduced to something that small. Something that accidental. Something that just... happens. As if the sun deciding not to rise one morning could be explained away with a "sometimes."
We gave her a beautiful, intimate service a few days later. That's what everyone keeps telling me, anyway. That it was beautiful. That it was a fitting tribute. That Sam would have approved.
I don't know. I was there but I wasn't there—a ghost haunting the periphery of my own life, watching from a distance as my body moved through the motions.
People came and went, a parade of sympathetic faces and murmured condolences. They touched my shoulder, squeezed my hand, hugged me. I felt none of it.
I was numb everywhere except for the constant, hollow ache in my chest where my heart used to be. I stared at the coffin—polished cherry wood that seemed too formal, too elegant for my Sam who preferred things messy and real—and couldn't connect it to her.
Couldn't believe she was inside it. Couldn't believe she was anywhere but just out of sight, about to walk through the door with that smile that felt like sunlight breaking through, knocking the breath out of me every time.
While people around me wiped away tears and shared memories, my mind played its own private film reel of Sam, scenes from our life together flickering behind my eyes.
Sam bursting into my dorm like she owned the place, talking too fast, smiling too wide, telling me we were meant to be like it was the most obvious thing in the world and I was the only idiot who couldn't see it yet. I'd rolled my eyes, still in denial about my feelings, but let her sit right next to me anyway, talking non-stop while I pretended not to hear her.
"You know what I think, Eli? I think you're going to fall in love with me. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday you're going to wake up and realize you can't imagine a world without me in it."
She'd been right. God, she'd been so right.
Sam dragging me out to that frozen rink in Duluth, snow falling around us while she laughed like she had the whole world in her hands, her cheeks flushed pink, her fingers laced with mine like letting go wasn't even an option.
Sam standing in front of me the day I proposed, eyes wide, shining, like I had just given her everything she'd ever dreamed of—and then hours later, standing across from me again, saying her vows, becoming my wife in the span of a single, perfect, impossible day.
I keep replaying it.
Over and over and over again.
Like if I loop it enough times, I can stay there. Like I can trap myself in those moments where she's still alive, where her voice still fills the space around me, where her hand still fits in mine like it was made for me and only me.
Because this—this world where she's gone—doesn't feel real.
It feels wrong.
Like I've been dropped into the wrong timeline and nobody told me how to get back.
After the service, I don't remember leaving. I don't remember how I got here. I just know that at some point, I ended up in our room at the Archer beach house, and I haven't really left since.
I don't want to.
Everything in here is still her.
Her scent still clings to the sheets, faint but there if I breathe deep enough. Her clothes are still folded where she left them. Her sketchbook sits on the nightstand, half-finished drawings frozen in time like she was just going to come back and pick up where she left off.
This room still believes she's alive.
So I stay.
I lie in our bed, her pillow clutched against my chest, the scrapbook I made her pressed between us like something sacred, like if I hold onto it tight enough it might hold me together too.
I bury my face into the pillow sometimes, inhaling until my lungs burn, chasing what's left of her, trying to convince myself she's still here, that she just stepped out for a second and she'll be back any minute.
But she doesn't come back.
And she never will.
And that thought—it doesn't land. It doesn't settle. It just circles endlessly in my head, refusing to make sense, refusing to become something I can accept.
I told her I'd be okay. I fucking promised her, held her hands in mine and swore I'd find a way to keep living.
I said it like I meant it. Like I understood what I was promising. Like I had any idea what "okay" would look like in a world without her.
I didn't know.
I didn't know it would feel like this—like someone reached inside my chest and hollowed me out, left me standing but took everything that made me a person. I didn't know grief could be this loud and this empty at the same time, like a constant scream trapped in a body that can't make a sound.
I'm not okay.
I don't think I ever will be.
Because how am I supposed to be okay when the person who made everything in my life mean something is gone?
How do I wake up tomorrow knowing there's no version of the day where she exists in it?
How do I breathe, knowing she can't?
Zach comes in sometimes, his eyes red-rimmed and worried. "Elijah, man, you've got to eat something," he says, setting a plate on the dresser. "Sam wouldn't want you to—"
"Don't," I cut him off, my voice rusty from disuse. "Don't tell me what she'd want."
Their mom tries too, sitting on the edge of the bed, her hand cool against my forehead like I'm a child with a fever. "Honey," she begins, but I turn my face away, and eventually, she leaves with a soft sigh.
They've been trying for days, but I don't want to get up from this bed—the bed where I held her in my arms as we both whispered "I love you" to each other a hundred times, where we talked about the future, where we consummated our marriage.
It was only just seven days since she died, and her lavender scent still clings to the pillow, to the sheets. How can I get up when this is the closest thing I'll ever have to feeling her again, to breathing her in as though she was still here, as though she was back in my arms again?
How can I get up?
How can anyone ask me to get up when it just fucking hurts too much, when it feels like I died with her? My chest is a black hole, collapsing in on itself with such force that I'm surprised the entire world hasn't been sucked into the vacuum where my heart used to be.
My lungs feel shredded, like each breath is drawn through razor wire. My skull is too small to contain the screaming in my head—the endless howl of her name that reverberates through every empty corner of my being.
I close my eyes and press my face into her pillow, inhaling deeply, desperately, trying to capture whatever molecules of her remain. I whisper her name into the fabric like a prayer, like an incantation that might somehow bring her back.
"Sam," I breathe, my voice breaking on that single, sacred syllable. "Sam, Sam, Sam."
But there's no answer. There will never be an answer again.
When I shift on the bed, the scrapbook still clutched tight against my chest, something slips loose between the pages and flutters down onto the mattress beside me.
I frown, blinking at it for a second, like my brain can't quite catch up.
It's a card.
I don't remember putting anything like that in here.
My chest tightens as I reach for it slowly, my fingers brushing over the familiar handwriting on the front—my name, written in the way only my wife ever did.
I sit up too fast, the room tilting slightly as my pulse spikes, and I open it with hands that won't stop shaking.
To my Eli,
If you're reading this... then it means the transplant didn't work. And I hate that. God, I hate that so much.
Because it means I'm not there with you. It means I left you, and I never wanted to. Not for a second. Not in any version of my life did I ever imagine a world where I'd have to leave you behind. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for so many things, but most of all... I'm sorry I made you fall in love with me.
I know that sounds awful, but I mean it in the way where I wish I could've protected you from this. If I had known my story was going to end this early, I would've stopped chasing you a long time ago. I would've left you alone before you ever had the chance to love me back, before I became something you couldn't lose. But I was selfish.
I loved you too much to walk away.
And I don't regret loving you—not even for a second. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. You made my life so full, so bright, so much more than I ever thought it could be. I just wish loving me didn't have to hurt you like this.
We never really talked about this part, did we? What would happen if I didn't make it. We always avoided it. Partly because it hurt too much, but mostly because we believed—really believed—that we wouldn't have to. That I would get better. That we'd have more time.
I wanted that so badly, Eli. I wanted that life with you. And I'm so sorry we didn't get it.
I know you're hurting right now. I know you're probably shattered in a way that feels impossible to put back together. And God, I wish I could take that pain away from you. I wish I could be there, holding your face the way you always held mine, telling you it's going to be okay. But I can't. So I need you to do something for me.
Don't think of me too much. I know that sounds cruel, but I mean it in the gentlest way. I don't want my memory to become something that keeps hurting you over and over again. You can miss me. You can cry. You can mourn me. But not forever.
Please don't stay stuck in that pain. I don't want to be the reason you stop living your life. I want you to be happy.
I know that probably feels impossible right now. I know it feels like the world ended with me. But it didn't, Eli. Your life is still there, waiting for you. And I believe—more than anything—that one day, you'll find your way back to it. And when that day comes... if you ever fall in love again, I want you to let yourself.
Don't hold back because of me. Don't feel guilty.
I promise you, I won't be hurt. I won't be replaced. What we had is ours, and nothing will ever take that away. If anything... I'll be the happiest for you. I'll be cheering you on, wherever I am, because all I've ever wanted is for you to have a life full of love—even if I'm not the one standing beside you anymore.
You gave me everything, Eli. More than I ever deserved. And I will carry you with me—always.
I love you.
-Sam
The words blur before I even reach the end.
"Sam..." Her name breaks out of me, raw and wrecked, and I press the letter against my chest like it might bring her back to me, like I can somehow hold onto her through ink and paper.
A sob tears out of me, ugly and uncontrollable, my whole body folding in on itself as I hunch forward on the bed.
It hurts.
It hurts so much I can't breathe.
"I can't do this," I choke out, shaking my head like I can undo it, like I can rewind everything if I just say it enough times. "I can't... I can't do this without you..."
My fingers clutch the letter tighter, pressing it harder against my chest like I'm trying to force it into me, like if I hold it close enough it might fill the empty space she left behind.
"I miss you," I sob, the words breaking apart as they leave me. "I miss you so fucking much..."
Her name falls from my lips again...and again. and again...
"Sam..."