Remnant [h.s]

chapter twenty

To be beside you once more.

☆ ☆ ☆

Harry Styles

The dreaded day was upon us. Though today was never supposed to be so cursed. Today was supposed to be full of love and sunshine, full of happiness and family laughter.

But today had been wrecked from the beginning. Today would always hold such a sense of sadness.

It was Sully's birthday, his first birthday specifically, one that held so much significance. Because although my baby boy made his entrance into the world exactly one year ago today, it was also a turning point for Jazz's health.

When Sully had been brought into this world, that was when Jazz was never quite the same. She was strapped to a hospital bed for three months after, machines breathing for her, needles in her skin, monitors beeping and whirring.

It was a year ago today that I was told there was no coming back from this. I was sat down with my mum and Jazz's mum, and I was told that her condition was now terminal. There was nothing they could do. Her heart was too strained for any surgery and the survival rates weren't promising. She wasn't strong enough for anything else. It was just a course of letting time do it's thing.

I still remember the exact moment they told me, when they called us into a room and I felt like the universe was falling at great speed. I suppose I already knew it was going to be bad by the way Jazz had been whisked away with our little boy, her heart rate barely perceivable. So I knew it would be bad, I was expecting bad news.

But I don't think anything would quite match the way everything just froze when they told me. Everything just stopped. Life came to a standstill as the doctor was explaining it all to us. I just remember feeling so empty, like my own heart had stopped and there was just this huge gaping hole in my chest. And it wasn't pain, it was just nothingness.

It took a while for the reality to set in.

And here we were a year later, without our Jazz in our lives. Without that sparkle and excitement.

I don't think any of us thought a year later she wouldn't be here.

We had been told that the doctors didn't think she'd still be here and that her months were limited. But none of us ever wanted to believe it. None of us actually processed the fact that just eleven months after being told her life was going to be cut short, she would be leaving us so soon. We didn't think that death would creep up on her so soon.

I at least thought we'd get another few years with each other. I thought she'd get to witness Binx and Sully grow up, I definitely didn't think that I'd be celebrating Sully's birthday alone.