Chapter 51
JIYA
Cole was struggling to breathe.
I shot upright, my heart slamming wildly against my ribs as I reached for the nightlight and switched it on. The soft glow flooded the room, and I turned to him, my voice wavering.
“Cole… are you okay?”
My hands trembled as I grabbed the pulse oximeter from the nightstand and clipped it onto his finger, holding my breath as the numbers flickered before settling.
120 beats per minute.
His breathing was rapid, uneven. His skin felt cool and damp under my touch.
Panic surged through me, but I forced myself to stay calm for him. My chest tightened, my heart racing wildly as a tingling sensation spread through my body.
I had heard that sound before—the gurgling, uneven breaths that had started the night before.
The death rattle.
I had read about it.
I had prepared for it.
But not from him.
It was louder now.
Closer.
Real.
My fingers trembled as I lifted his head gently and placed another pillow beneath it, trying to ease his breathing.
I knew what this meant.
I knew exactly what was happening.
And still… I wasn’t ready.
Tears blurred my vision, but I kept wiping them away, over and over again.
I couldn’t let him see me break.
I couldn’t let him feel my fear.
He didn’t need that.
Not now.
But inside, I was crumbling.
A paralysis held me in place even as every part of me screamed to do something—anything—to stop what was happening.
This was my worst nightmare.
And it was unfolding right in front of me.
I reached for my phone and dialled Liam.
“Get here as fast as you can,” I said, my voice breaking despite my efforts. “He… he is taking his last breaths.”
I ended the call before I could fall apart completely and dialled Jack next, forcing the words out again.
Then I went back to Cole.
I took his hand in mine, holding it tightly.
Minutes felt like hours.
Jack and Maureen arrived first, their presence filling the room with a quiet, heavy understanding. Not long after, Liam rushed in with Jessica, his face pale, his eyes already filled with grief.
They all gathered around the bed.
No one said much.
There were no words for this.
Cole’s skin had turned pale, his eyes open but distant, glassy.
I stayed right beside him, never letting go of his hand.
Liam sat on the other side, while Jack and Maureen remained at the foot of the bed, the room wrapped in a silence that felt almost sacred.
Time slowed.
The world narrowed to this room… this bed… this moment.
As the first light of morning began to seep through the curtains, Cole looked at me.
Really looked at me.
His fingers tightened faintly around mine, and then he glanced around the room, taking in everyone who had come to be with him.
And then…
he took his last breath.
An unbearable pain tore through my chest as tears streamed down my face, unstoppable, relentless. I leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his forehead, my lips trembling against his cooling skin.
“I love you, Cole,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “You’re not in pain anymore… go in peace. Eva and Chloe are waiting for you.”
The words broke me even as I said them.
Because loving him meant letting him go.
A part of me felt relief that he was no longer suffering, that the pain that had consumed him was finally gone. That he was with his wife and daughter again.
But the rest of me…
The rest of me was drowning.
Nothing—no amount of preparation, no prayers, no research—prepared me for this kind of grief.
I had lost my husband.
My best friend.
The man who had chosen me.
The man who had loved my children as his own… who had become the only father they had ever truly known.
And now he was gone.
I sat there, still holding his hand, even as the warmth slowly faded from it, unable to move, unable to process that he was gone.
My whole world had just ended.
And I didn’t know how to pick up the pieces and start again.
Because in that moment…
My soul was shattered, and I felt completely and utterly broken.