Chapter 32
GRIFFIN
FIVE YEARS AGO
“We’re sorry, Mr. Hayes.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, but somehow they still don’t make sense.
My brain refuses to process them properly, like if I just stand here long enough, one of the paramedics will suddenly look up and tell me they made a mistake.
That Lila’s breathing again. That she’s waking up. That everything is fine.
But nobody says any of that.
The hallway around me is still chaos—medical bags spread across the floor, radios crackling somewhere behind me, footsteps moving in and out of the house—yet all I can focus on is Lila lying motionless on the rug.
Her hair is spread around her head like a halo.
She looks asleep.
That’s the part that destroys me.
If her skin wasn’t so pale, I could almost convince myself she’s just unconscious. That any second now she’s going to blink up at me and laugh weakly about how dramatic this all became.
My knees nearly give out beneath me.
“She’s gone,” I hear myself whisper.
Sylas is still crying against my chest, tiny fingers twisted in the fabric of my shirt while I stand there completely frozen, staring at my wife’s body like if I look hard enough, I’ll find some sign that this isn’t real.
A twitch. A breath. Anything.
“She’s gone,” I say again, louder this time, and something inside me cracks wide open.
One of the paramedics says my name, but I barely hear him over the roaring in my ears. The room suddenly feels too small, too bright, too loud. My lungs physically hurt, as if my body forgot how breathing works.
I don’t even remember grabbing my phone.
I just know that suddenly Worth is answering.
“Griff?”
“She’s gone.”
“Who’s gone, Griffin?”
Reality settles deeper into my chest and starts hollowing me out from the inside.
“She’s gone,” I repeat, my voice breaking so violently I can barely get the words out. “Worth—fuck—Lila’s gone.”
His tone changes instantly. “Where are you?”
“At home.” I drag a shaking hand over my face, trying and failing to breathe normally. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m coming.”
The line disconnects.
On autopilot, I head down to the kitchen to get Sylas some milk. Then, I sink against the kitchen cabinets while my son cries into my shoulder, and for the first time in my entire life, I completely fall apart.
My chest heaves hard enough to hurt while tears blur my vision. I clutch Sylas tighter because he’s all I have left of her, and somehow that realization only makes the grief worse.
Worth gets there fast. I don’t know how fast because time stopped making sense a while ago, but suddenly he’s there in the kitchen doorway taking in the flashing lights outside, the paramedics still moving through the hallway, and me sitting on the floor holding my son.
The second I look at him, another sob tears out of my chest.
“Worth,” I choke out.
He crosses the room and crouches in front of me.
And the second his hand lands on my shoulder, I lose whatever fragile grip I still had.
“She’s gone,” I repeat again, gripping the back of his shirt hard enough to wrinkle the fabric. “She’s fucking gone.”
Worth wraps an arm around me, mindful of Sylas still in my arms.
My chest burns. My throat feels shredded raw. Every breath comes out broken and uneven while the reality of what just happened keeps crashing into me over and over again like waves I can’t survive.
Lila is dead.
My wife is dead.
The mother of my son is gone.
And I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
Worth doesn’t try to stop me. He just stays there holding me together while I come apart piece by piece in the kitchen.
After the paramedics leave and the house becomes unbearably quiet, Worth looks down at Sylas sleeping against my chest and says, “We should take him to my place. Maggie is there with Brianna.”
The thought of letting my son out of my arms sends panic clawing up my throat, because if I let go of him, too, I think I might genuinely lose my mind.
But I also know I can barely stand right now, so I nod.
Worth grabs Sylas’s diaper bag; my brain isn’t functioning enough to think about things like diapers or clothes.
All I can think about is the fact that Lila’s coffee mug is still sitting beside the sink and her sweater is still draped over the chair, like she’s going to walk back in any minute and ask why everyone looks so upset.
I carry Sylas out to the truck.
The cold night air hits my face, but I barely feel it.
Worth drives; my hands are shaking too badly to hold the wheel properly.
Halfway there, Sylas wakes up sleepy and confused in his carseat.
“Dada?”
My throat tightens. “I’m here, buddy.”
His little face crumples. “Mama.”
The sound I make after that doesn’t even sound human.
Worth grips the steering wheel tighter beside me but says nothing.
What could he possibly say?
When we get to his house, Maggie opens the front door. The second she sees my face, all the color drains from hers.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Griffin.”
I can’t answer her.
Worth explains what happened while I stand there, numb, clutching Sylas against my chest as if he’s the only thing tethering me to reality.
Maggie takes him from my arms and Sylas immediately starts crying again.
“No. Dada.”
“I’ll be back soon,” I whisper, kissing his forehead. “I promise.”
He reaches for me while Maggie carries him inside, and I genuinely almost follow them.
Worth stops beside me. “Come on, Griff. We need to go, brother. He’ll be fine here, I promise.”
At the hospital, the doctors speak about assessing the cause of death, about seizure complications, paperwork and timelines, but the words slide past me without meaning anything.
I think about Lila dancing barefoot in our kitchen, stealing fries out of my bag before I even sat down and laughing loudly while I pretended to be annoyed, even though I loved every second of it.
When they finally let me see her again, I almost can’t walk into the room.
She looks peaceful.
Beautiful.
Still.
I sit beside her and take her hand on instinct, and the second I realize how cold it is, fresh grief rips through me all over again.
I press both my hands around hers as if I can somehow warm her back up if I try hard enough.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, tears blurring my vision again. “I should’ve been there.” My voice shakes. “I should’ve come home sooner.”
The silence in the room is unbearable—because Lila was never silent. She filled every space she walked into. Music in the kitchen. Talking to strangers in grocery store lines. Laughing at her own jokes before anyone else even reacted.
Now there’s nothing.
Just me sitting beside her body, trying to understand how the love of my life can suddenly be gone while the entire world keeps moving.
“I don’t know how to do this without you,” I admit brokenly, bowing my head against our joined hands. “I don’t know how to raise Sy without you.”
Another sob tears through my chest.
“You were supposed to be here for all of it. Birthdays. School plays. Graduation. Everything.”
Then my eyes land on her wedding ring still resting on her finger, and suddenly the thought of life without her—the thought of moving on one day, of ever loving anyone else—feels impossible.
I squeeze her hand tighter.
“I swear to you,” I whisper hoarsely through tears. “I’ll spend the rest of my life loving you. I’ll honor our marriage. Always.” My voice breaks. “I promise, Lil.”
What the fuck did I just do?
I’m sorry, Lila.
I’m so sorry.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I walk straight to my office, open the bottom drawer, and pull out the photo album I never look at unless I’m losing my grip, from a time before I learned how quickly a life could split into before and after.
The first pages are of just Lila and me. Young and smiling, unaware of how rare smiles would become. Her hair sunlit and wild, her arms around my neck. My hand on her stomach—we had just found out about her pregnancy.
The next pages are newborn pictures of Sylas. Me, exhausted, wide-eyed, holding a tiny bundle that didn’t feel real yet. Lila glowing yet tired. Fragile and strong at the same time.
Then—us three. Days at the park. Messy first birthday cake. A selfie of all three of us on the couch, blurry and perfect. The last family photo. I know it by heart. Every detail.
My chest feels tight.
“I’m sorry,” I say, running my thumb over her face.
I don’t even know what I mean by it anymore. I’ve apologized for everything so many times—for not being home, for not seeing the signs, for not… something. Anything. Everything.
A tear falls onto the page. I don’t bother wiping it away.
“I didn’t know how bad it was getting,” I whisper. “I didn’t know what you needed. Or maybe I did and I just—” My voice cracks, so I stop.
Grief and guilt twist in my chest, and I press my fist over my heart like I could hold it all in place.
“I miss you, Lila,” I whisper to the picture.
I close the album gently. My fingers rest on the cover, unmoving.
Seconds pass, and I wipe my face with both hands, breathing in. Eventually, I set the album back in the drawer.