Tears rolled down her cheeks, which were bruised from the hands of darkness. “I’m so sorry, Graham.”

“Please,” he cried, running over to her and wrapping his arms around her waist. “Please don’t go.”

“I can’t stay here,” she told him, her voice shaking. “My sister is waiting outside, and I just wanted to tell you face to face.”

“Take me with you!” he begged, tears falling faster and faster as the panic of her leaving him with the darkness set in. “I’ll be good, I swear. I’ll be good enough for you.”

“Graham.” She took a deep breath. “I can’t take you…you’re not mine.”

Those words.

Those few and hurtful words cracked his heart in half.

“Please, Rebecca, please…” He sobbed into her shirt.

She pulled him back a few inches and bent herself down so they were eye level. “He told me if I take you, he’ll send his lawyers. He told me he’d fight. I have nothing, Graham. He had me quit my job years ago. I signed a prenup. I have nothing.”

“You have me,” he told her.

The way she blinked and stood up told him he wasn’t enough.

In that moment, the young boy’s heart began to freeze.

She walked away that evening and never looked back. That night Graham sat at his window, staring out at where Rebecca had driven off, and he felt sick to his stomach as he tried to understand. How could someone be there for so long and then just let go?

He stared at the road covered in snow. The tire tracks were still on the ground, and Graham didn’t take his eyes off them once.

Over and over again in his head, three words repeated.

Please don’t go.

His eyes were swollen when he walked back into the waiting room. Karla and Susie wandered off to find coffee, and Graham gave Mary a fake smile and a quick hug before she went to visit Ollie.

“Hey.” I stood up and walked over to him. “Are you okay?”

He grimaced, his stance strong, but his eyes so heartbroken. “If anything happens to him…” He swallowed hard and lowered his head. “If I lose him…”

I didn’t give him a chance to say another word. I wrapped my arms around him as his body started to shake. For the first time, he let himself feel, let himself hurt, and I was there to hold him close.

“What can I do?” I asked, holding him closer. “Tell me what I can do.”

He placed his forehead against mine and closed his eyes. “Just don’t let go. If you let go, I’ll run. I’ll let it overtake me. Please, Lucille, just don’t let go.”

I held him for minutes, but it felt like hours. Against his ear, I softly spoke. “Air above me, earth below me, fire within me, water surround me, spirit becomes me…” I kept repeating the words, and I felt his emotions overtake him. Each time he felt himself slipping, he held my body closer, and I refused to let him go.

It wasn’t long until Talon woke up in her car seat and started fussing. Graham slowly let go of me and walked over to his daughter. When her eyes met his, she stopped her fussing and she lit up as if she’d just met the greatest man alive. There was complete love in her eyes, and I saw it happen—the moment of relief she had delivered to her father. He lifted her up into his arms and held her close. She placed her hands on his cheeks and started babbling, making noises with that same beautiful smile that matched her father’s.

For that one moment in time, for that small second, Graham stopped hurting.

Talon filled his heart with love, the same love he had once believed didn’t even exist.

For that one moment in time, he seemed okay.

Mary decided to wait to see if things changed. She lived those weeks with a knot in her stomach, and Graham stayed by her side throughout it all. He showed up at her house with food, forcing her to eat, and forcing her to sleep when all she wanted to do was stay in the waiting room at the hospital.

Waiting for a change.

Waiting for a miracle.

Waiting for her husband to come back to her.

Karla called me when it came time to make the toughest decision of her family’s life. When we arrived at the hospital, the light in the hallway flickered repeatedly, as if it were going to die any moment.

The chaplain walked into the room and we all stood around Ollie, our hands joined together as we prepared for our final goodbyes. I wasn’t certain how anyone would come back from a loss like this. I’d only known Ollie for such a short period of time, but I knew he’d already changed my life for the better.

His heart was one that was always filled with love, and he’d be missed forever.

After the chaplain’s prayer, he asked if anyone had any final words to say. Mary couldn’t speak as the tears flowed down her cheeks. Karla’s face was wrapped in Susie’s shoulder, and my lips refused to move.

Graham held us all up. He became our strength. As words flowed from his soul, I felt the squeezing of my heart. “Air above me, earth below me, fire within me, water surround me, spirit becomes me.”

In that moment, we all began to crumble into the realm of nothingness.

In that moment, a part of each of us left with Ollie’s soul.

Everyone was gone. Mary, Karla, and Susie had left to deal with the next steps, and I knew I should’ve gone with them, but I couldn’t force myself to move. I stood still in the hospital hallway with the flickering light. His room had been emptied, and there wasn’t anything else that could be done. He was gone. My professor. My hero. My best friend. My father.

Gone.

I hadn’t cried. I hadn’t processed it at all.

How was it possible for this to be the outcome? How could he fade so fast? How could he be gone?

Footsteps were walking in my direction, nurses moving on to their next patients, doctors checking in on those who still had a pulse, as if the world hadn’t just stopped spinning.

“Graham.”

Her voice was deep, drenched in pain and sorrow. I didn’t look up to see her; my head wouldn’t turn away from the room where I had just said my final goodbye.

“He was right,” I whispered, my voice shaky. “He thought if I knew about his heart, if I knew he was about to die at any moment, I would’ve run. I would’ve been selfish, and I would’ve left him, because I would’ve closed myself off. I wouldn’t have been able to mentally deal with him dying. I would’ve been a coward.”

“You were here,” she said. “You were always here. There was nothing cowardly about you, Graham.”

“I could’ve talked him into the surgery, though,” I argued. “I could’ve convinced him to fight.”

I stopped speaking. For a moment, it felt as if I were floating, as if I were in the world, but no longer a part of it, floating high in disbelief, denial, guilt.

Lucy parted her lips as if she were going to offer some kind of comfort, but then no words came out. I was certain there weren’t any words that could make this better.

We stayed still, staring at the room as the world kept moving on around us.