After the Last Tear: Rising from the Ashes of a Broken Marriage By Cassila K

Chapter 39

When I woke up, the faint scent of antiseptic lingered in the air.

I had been transferred to a hospital back home.

The doctor told me I had spent two full weeks in the ICU.

My internal organs were severely injured, and I had taken a bullet to the shoulder.

But by some stroke of luck,

my spleen wasn't ruptured, and the bullet hadn't caused an exit wound.

The blood loss wasn't severe, and that's how I managed to survive until the peacekeepers rescued me.

I knew clearly in my heart-it was because Joseph shielded me twice.

He saved my life.

I reached out to everyone I could, trying to find any trace of him.

But they all said the chaos at the time made it impossible to recover Joseph's body.

With casualties mounting, Doctors Without Borders had suspended its projects in North Kivu.

I had no chance to go back and look for him.

Just like that, Joseph vanished.

Every night, I woke up screaming, gripped by terror.

His dying moments replayed endlessly in my mind, refusing to fade.

The doctor diagnosed me with PTSD.

began taking medication, attending therapy

But nothing worked.

try starting anew, to stop dwelling

But... how could I?

He died for me.

became an unshakable shadow,

being alive, hate that it wasn't

world for not granting

times, I stood on the edge of

the very last moment, I would pull

Joseph gave everything to

the right to abandon

I returned

I could no longer

up requesting a

passed, day by day, yet I remained a walking corpse,

to meet new people, even dragging me to a

had no interest and only wanted to say a

then I

moment I

face identical to

every ounce of strength I had not

found out he was the brother

first, treating him as a stand-in did bring me some

mundane, ordinary days were

dinner and

off, we'd curl up

the nights when nightmares woke me in

him lying quietly beside me