My Husband 387

GUILT JOSH

The hallway outside her room felt too long. Too bright. Too goddamn sterile. My footsteps barely made a sound against the polished floors, but inside my head, everything was roaring. Laura was alive.

The words kept looping over and over, but my body hadn't caught up yet. It felt like if I let myself believe it too much, the universe would take it away again.

A doctor had tried to stop me at the nurses' station, spitting out words like stable condition and still on a ventilator, but none of it registered. I'd shoved past them, past the concerned voices, past the fucking security guard who grabbed at my arm. Nothing was going to stop

me.

And then I saw her.

The doors burst open, loud voices calling after me, but none of it mattered.

My heart stopped.

Laura.

Her pale, thin frame was bundled into a wheelchair, her body swallowed up by hospital-issued clothes that hung from her like she was nothing but skin and bone. Her hair was limp, her cheeks hollowed, and her skin too pale under the harsh 0.00%

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GUILT

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fluorescent lights.

But she was looking at me.

Those eyes-those beautiful fucking eyes-were staring right at me, and I swore I felt something crack wide open in my chest.

Laura was alive.

she wasn't the same. She

shoved him off, barely sparing him a glance. My feet moved before my brain

felt it. My hands found hers, wrapping around them

so

her knuckles, anything I could reach,

her too much, afraid she'd break, but I needed to. I

"Laura," I choked out.

something at her side. The nurse beside her passed her a small whiteboard and a marker, and with a shaky

III

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Hi, babe.

left me. Something between a

I was smiling even as my

as I could have when guilt was busy

all at once, spilling from my mouth like

raw, broken. "I-I fucked up, Laura. I gave

hitched, my hands tightening

my head, squeezing

I kept going, unable to stop the words. "I should've held out. I

dropped my head onto her

fragile beneath me, but her fingers-her beautiful, delicate fingers-moved through my hair, soft and slow, like she wasn't

forgiveness, for a chance

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GUILT

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