He’s trying to lighten the moment, bring teasing to the turmoil.
So authentically Charlie.
I lean down to kiss him, a new wave of anguish spilling from me as our mouths collide. “I love you. Stay with me, okay?” I kiss him again and again, repeating those words, carving them into his bones, so he can’t forget. “I love you so much.”
“Don’t cry, Mel.” Charlie raises one unsteady hand to my cheek, thumb dusting over the tears, a gentle caress. “The sun doesn’t cry.”
We say it at the same time: “The sun only knows how to shine.”
But I’m the sun, and he’s the sky, and I don’t know how to exist without him.
What happens to the sun when the sky falls?
No, no, no.
Stop it, Melody.
He’s going to be fine.
Charlie starts coughing then, sputtering in my lap, blood misting my face like a grisly rainfall. “Charlie, Charlie… oh, God, Charlie.” I shake his shoulders and squeeze him to me, holding tight to keep him warm… because that’s what I do.
I’m the sun, after all—a beacon of warmth.
His throat bobs as he swallows, one lone tear collecting at the corner of his eye and gliding down his temple. Blood tinges the droplet as it makes a slow descent and lands near his ear. It just sits there, like it’s trying to hang on for dear life.
Charlie inhales a jagged breath. “You smell like peaches, Mrs. March.”
He’s still smiling. He’s still smiling, despite his broken body and blood-stained skin. “Your eyes remind me of peach pie,” I rasp, trying to stay strong. Trying to stay so strong.
Just like him.
“It’s meant to be.”
That singular tear finally falls, collapsing onto the cement, and then the ambulance and police cruisers pull up while people scatter like the clouds above us. As the medics approach, the sky explodes with thunderous lightning, a piercing crack that rattles my bones.
Freezes my bones.
And when the rain pours down like grief, drenching me in its sorrow, I shiver and shake, teeth chattering, warmth eclipsed.
I cradle Charlie in my arms, rocking us back and forth, side to side, drowning in rainwater and blood and bitter tears.
He is cold now, and so am I.
Today was supposed to be beautiful—a new beginning, a new chapter, a new year of dreams and possibilities.
Our wedding anniversary.
But now it’s just the day the sun died.
—TWO—
When I open my eyes, I’m fucking pissed.
All I wanted was peace.
I wanted to fade away and drown myself in darkness, but instead, this brassy, artificial light is scorching my goddamn eyeballs. I blink back the hospital fluorescents, mentally cursing my insufferable luck, while strangers who are getting paid to give a shit about me wheel me down the long corridor.
This is her fault.
She put me here. She spit me out, branded me with all these scars and ugly stains, then left me here to rot with a stubborn death wish that won’t abate and won’t come true.
A growl erupts from my chest, an angry, embittered roar, and a baby-faced man in scrubs leans over to quiet me as we roll down the bright hallway.
Why is it so fucking bright?
“You’re okay, sir. Try to stay calm.”
Calm.
I try to remember the last time I felt calm, and I’m momentarily whisked away to one of my very first memories, shoulder blades pressed to the bark of a cherry tree as a young Border Collie licked the sticky fruit juice off my chin. The sky danced with pillowy white shapes, and I laughed when the grass tickled my bare toes, much like the puppy teeth nicking my jaw.
I’ll never forget that the midsummer breeze smelled like daylilies.
I only knew that because my father loved lining the front of our porch with daylilies, and he’d sit outside and watch them, eager to catch the first sign of life. They only stayed in bloom for one day—one day—before the yellow and orange petals closed up and went to sleep for another year.
It confused me.
Out of all the flowers in the world, why did he love daylilies so much? Their beauty was so short-lived.
I asked him once—why he loved them, why he enjoyed temporary things.
His reply has always stayed with me: “Fleeting beauty is the most precious kind. You appreciate it more.”
It’s one of my few good memories, and I wish it were strong enough to replace all the others.
I’m ripped from the reverie by a needle jabbing into the underside of my elbow, a lifeline of sorts, to keep me bound and tethered to this mortal Hell. My fingers curl around the cords in an attempt to pull it out, but I’m hindered by hands and arms and words of protest, words to sedate me while they poison my veins.
While they try to calm me.
I want to laugh, a crazed, maniacal laugh, but I can’t recall the last time such a sound escaped my throat, and I wouldn’t even know how.
So, I just lie there instead, as apathetic as ever.
Just fucking over it.
And that’s when I hear it. That’s when something other than my own dispassion, my own resignation, burrows inside and invades me.
An intrusion.
It crawls along my skin like decay. Something visceral, raw, unhinged.
It’s a woman’s scream.
She’s mourning—howling with an anguish that some fucked-up part of me wishes I could relate to.
It’s a ballad for the dying.
I don’t know why I let it in, why I let it cling to me like a dark passenger, but I feel compelled to carry it with me.
It’s comforting somehow. I’m not alone in my misery.
As I continue to lie there, the doctors and nurses transform into a blur of flashes and movement, their voices drowning out, words incoherent.
Maybe it’s the shit they fed me through the IV, polluting my veins.
Or maybe it’s my new companion.
Whatever it is, I’m grateful for it, because I realize for the first time in decades that I am calm.
—THREE—
I’ll never forget the look on her face when she walks into the small, delicately furnished room, her eyes like acorns, hair dark and curly—a mess of chaos, like my petrified heart.
Her nametag tells me she is Dr. Whitley, but I think it’s a lie.
Her expression tells me she’s the Grim Reaper.
My legs are physically trembling as I stand from the chair, hand planting against the wall for support, while the other grips my chest. I still feel him in there, settled beneath my ribs, beating and warm. The vibrations tickle my fingertips, a soothing lullaby to outplay the dirge.
“Mrs. March… I’m very, very sorry.”
Her voice is sweet, so gentle and kind.
A sympathetic whisper.
It’s the antipode to the hideous moan that erupts from my core, like I’m a weeping volcano, exploding with denial, disbelief, and hot lava tears.
She catches me before I hit the ground, but it’s not enough. Her arms weren’t built to hold the weight of my grief, so I fall—I fall so hard, I know there’s no crawling out of this black abyss, this endless hole of disrepair. The sun has permanently set inside me, hijacked by a cruel winter.
Dr. Whitley wraps her arms around my shaking shoulders as I wail and sob, begging for it to not be true, cursing and blaming and self-destructing in her embrace. She’s trying, I know she’s trying, but her efforts are futile—she did not prepare for this winter, and neither did I.