Lesson Learned✔

Bonus 4

*After Nydia, before wedding*

Christian

Aspen is snoring softly next to me, her chest rising and falling in rhythm, lips slightly parted open with each breath she takes, sleeping peacefully as I laid- sat- wide awake next to her, unable to sleep any more.

It had been five days since all the chaos, since giving my statement, the funeral, since getting called by the hospital board and getting- for better choice of words- 'time off' from working and in all honesty, I wasn't doing well.

Not because I wasn't working, though it did have something to do with it but because each day it was the same thing. The thoughts are the same, my head filled with all I did and didn't do, with what I could have done but didn't, with what I had and didn't have. I was fucked up to be exact but trying so hard not to show it, to hide it from the woman that slept next to me each day, peacefully, safely.

That's what mattered, her safety, Aspen, my children, my family. She was everything, they were everything, I shouldn't be feeling this guilt, this heaviness, this gut wrenching feeling, not with what she would have done to them given the opportunity but I did.

My whole world revolved around the idea of saving lives, around helping people, of making a change. I had taken this path for a reason, because I saw the bad, the ugly, I saw it and I wanted different. I had strived for years for this, to work in a prestigious hospital, to be known, to be good and now...

I thought about it a lot, about how it started and how it was going, about what I could have done differently, not just with Nydia but with Aspen too.

I knew that if I had just looked at Aspen in the way I was intended to look at her, none of this would have happened. I knew she would have gone off to college, far away from me. She would have found herself a nice boy who would put her first, who would love her, marry her, give her everything. I knew that if I had seen her as what she was supposed to be- my ward- she wouldn't have ever gotten mixed up in any mess.

Maybe if I had let it go that way I would have gotten married eventually, maybe I would have found Nydia interesting enough to marry. Or not. Maybe I wouldn't ever get married or have children. I should have gone that way but the more I thought about that path, the worse it felt, wrong.

It felt wrong. Everything did.

Blinking away the heavy thoughts, I turn to see the hour, the lateness or rather earliness- three in the morning- before turning back to her, Aspen.

The room is lit by the soft glow of the hallway light, making it possible to see everything in front of me, from the boxes that still litter the floor to Aspen who is still asleep next to me.

I see everything, I see her dark lashes as they rest close, I see each breath she takes in, how her chest moves in rhythm. My gaze falling to her stomach, seeing the skin, the swell of her stomach, one hand on the side while the other rested on top, my jaw tightening as I see the lack of ring on her hand.

I had it, Giovanni- Nydias son- had given me the ring after the funeral, telling me he was sorry. I knew where it sat, in the glove compartment of the car, I knew I could have given it back to her to wear, it was hers after all but it didn't feel right.

When I bought it, I had been thinking of Aspen, of how it would look on her hand, of the promises I'd make to her. Promises that I couldn't keep before I vowed them, not when she was taken from me and hurt. Now all I wanted to do with the ring was burn it but I couldn't because even when it had been tainted by Nydia, the ring was Aspens and maybe she wanted it back.

But I doubted it. The ring was a show of my love, it held good memories but also bad. I didn't want Aspen remembering the bad, only the good.

I needed to buy her a new ring, one fit for her, one that she'd love, I needed to do so many things...