Life After Luc

Prologue

I was inconsolable. I couldn't believe what I had just seen. My future, my boyfriend, thrown off that stupid fucking motorcycle I told him not to buy.

I knew he was gone. I hadn't seen him up close yet, but no one survives an accident like that.

I pulled over and jumped out of my car to see him. I was hyperventilating and crying, breaking down. He couldn't be gone. He couldn't be gone. I knew he was gone, but I prayed he wasn't. I couldn't have him gone. I needed him. I loved him.

I remember a man running from his house to the road, his phone in his hand. The truck driver got out of his cabin, in shock. Paramedics and Fire Fighters were there within minutes. Two dragged me away from his body while the rest of the paramedics worked on him, and the fire fighters worked on the uninjured truck driver.

The paramedics gave me oxygen in the back of an ambulance. Once deciding I needed medical attention, they closed the ambulance doors, closing me inside, and took me to the hospital, taking me away from him.

A few hours later, once I was calmer, they let me know that my boyfriend didn't make it, that he was dead. By this point, his Mom had come to see me at the hospital.

We cried for an hour solid. The doctors left us alone. There was nothing physically wrong with me.

I tried so hard, so hard for him to not buy that motorcycle, but he didn't listen. He had only had his license ten days. He was unexperienced, just a kid. The weather wasn't great, it was windy and a little rainy, but he was just so excited, no one really wanted to tell him no. I really wish we had now. I wish he would have realized how bad it really was outside.

From this day forward, we would have to live our lives without him. Neither of us wanted to believe that, let alone do that. But we had to. I thought I was never going to be able to live another day without him. But I had to, and I had to be strong for his Mom. He was really all she had. His Dad was gone, and he was her only child. Her world had pretty much just ended.

Luc was gone. I was never going to be Charlene Bourdon one day. I would always be Charlene Ward.