Before the sleep

Chapter one

Mommy

            Lup dub! Lup dub! Lup dub! It sounds so steady, so alive. Upon hearing it, anyone would believe it to be the heartbeat of a healthy human being. Then, comes the context: the freezing cold hospital room, the hospital gown covering the sound's host, the machine illustrating the rhythm while projecting it around the room for everyone to hear, and the handsome man sitting by the bed with his eyes and muscles straining with fatigue while he holds my unmoving hands.

I'm not healthy at all, in fact I'm in the bridge of death. The doctors say it's a miracle that my heart still beats on its own. They say I shouldn't be having any brain electricity left. I should have been rotting underground by now. I'm a human mystery. Aren't we all?

It's not like I can be any other way. I have to keep fighting. I have to stay alive. If not for me, for them – my two loving boys. My husband, Joseph, won't survive if I give up now. I have to keep my body strong until that second heartbeat doesn't need it anymore.

My baby, my sweet darling baby. I won't be here for you. I'm not going to watch you grow, make mistakes, fall in love, and live your life. I won't be here but your daddy will. He'll teach you all the things he taught me. He'll protect you like he protected me. It's not his fault I'm here. He has done everything in his power to keep me alive. I'll miss him when I'm gone. I'll miss our story, our love.

I can't believe it's already been five years since he cursed me out. Yes, that was his way of saying I'm into you.

I was going to wait till you're older to tell you the story but the way things are developing you might grow up never knowing my side. Your daddy always skip over the good stuff when he's the one telling it. We don't have a lot of times left together so I'll hurry up.

It all started with a shopping trip on my first day at FU (Don't get ideas, it's Florida's university). My parents were a little skeptical about letting me attend a university with a very unfortunate initial but I'm their princess so they're obligated to make me happy. Therefore, they stayed in Utah while I road-tripped with my best friend, Carmen Delangelo, to the sunshine state.

With wind blowing in our hair, Flo Rida blasting on the radio, and our cat-shrieking voice in the air, the car sped down the highway. It took us exactly one week to reach the campus. We checked in, threw our baggage in the tiny dorm, and hopped back in the car towards the nearest mall.

Off campus, Naples seemed so dead. There was barely anyone on the streets. Rows of trees and their overgrown branches marked the entire town. There were few stores and those seemed deserted. We stopped at a red light, watching a single Toyota cross the road.

"I'm disappointed in Florida," Carmen pouted.

"Yeah, me too," I agreed. "Where are the hot, shirtless guys?"

The green light came back on.

"I told you we should have gone to UF," I brushed a strand of long brown hair out of the corner of my mouth.

"It would have been nice not to go to a school which sounds like I'm cursing someone out every time I say it out loud."

"I thought it would be so fetch," she pushed her hair back.

"This is real life, Carmen, not Mean Girls."

We passed by a beer belly man in tights, jogging along the pavement. Thank you Florida for crushing my joy.