Page 121 of The Last Kiss

Aw, he’s so damn cute. Stupid big hulk of a man.

“Hold me until I sleep.” I snuggle down, ignoring the beep of the machine as it shouts in dismay at my moving the tubes in my arm and airways.

Tears roll from his lashes and absorb into my skin.

My time is nearly up.

Every breath.

Every stuttered beat of my heart takes me one moment closer to the end. I’m so tired now. So drained. Energy is like treacle, moving too slow through my veins. Slug. Slug. Slug.

God, if you are there…

Thank you for bringing me the greatest gift I ever could have hoped for.

I close my eyes. Henri’s hand brushes through my hair and I focus on the sensation: soothing, reassuring.

He plants a kiss on my mouth. My last kiss.

The last kiss.

On the cusp of nothing, I hold everything as my lips whisper their last word, exhaustion tying me into a final bow I know I can’t undo.

“Henri.”

31

The price of life

I often wonder what it would have felt like to never have woken up. Would that dark abyss have just stretched forever? My search for a bright white light had only revealed more dark, more emptiness.

I guess no one wants to know that’s what greets them.

I would never have wanted to wake up if I’d known the chair next to the hospital bed was empty and would never be filled again.

That inside of me belonged a B negative heart that shouldn’t have been mine.

I would never have sat on that bar stool, never would have said yes to dinner, never have succumbed to that first kiss if I’d known that our last would have been so bitter.

Six months of ground zero. Six months of walking into my grey cube of a flat, feeding my cat and then staring at the ceiling.

Six months of grief that is insurmountable.

No amount of Charlie’s health juices will ever lift this doom.

Six months of listening to the whoosh in my ears like the sea that just won’t go away. Whispers chase me, his voice, over and over, telling me to wake, telling me to live, telling me I’m his everything.

The price of love is too high for me. The price of life is beyond comprehension.

The kicker comes in the form of those thoughts, voices that spring into my head, normally when I’m staring at a blank TV screen. Live, Julianna. Live, ma petite fleur.

The voices don’t end.

The scar on my chest will never stop hurting. Every pill I take to keep this heart is a bitter pill to swallow.

“I’m coming in,” Liv calls through the letterbox. “If you’re naked you’d best get moving.”

I don’t bother to answer.