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Twenty

I was by his side every second he fought. But, he only got three days.

All three of those days, he was rarely conscious.

His consciousness was spent coughing or choking down a little food. It was spent gripping my hand, a scratchy voice begging me not to move. And I hadn't. No a single inch for three days.

Carson took time off college to come and spend a little time with Mitch.

Carson had never been much of a crier. I can only remember a handful of times I had ever known him to cry. I watched as he knelt beside the bed and just cried. He didn't try to hide it, just held Mitch's hand close and cried.

Mitch blinking momentarily at his son and smiled weakly, stroking his cheek before he settled back into the black abyss.

Maddie was there a lot as well. Ariana would usually wait outside, but the last time Maddie saw him alive, Ariana was right beside her and hugged her close, letting her cry into her shirt.

July 19, 2026. That was the night Mitch died. I remembered it so clearly. It was late ten, maybe eleven, and I was laying beside my sick husband, his head on my chest, hand in my stomach.

He was holding on for something. I couldn't figure out why though. Whenever he was awake, he seemed to be in immense pain. His breathing rattled wetly in his chest, he had tubes coming from him all over. He just seemed miserable.

As I laid there, I knew I had to do something. So, I spoke to him. It was nothings at first, but then it changed.

It became a plea from me to him.

"Mitchie...God! This is so hard for me to say, but I need to say it. Let go. I don't know why you are holding on. But just let go. Pass on. It will be so painful for us, but we will learn to live with the ache, and maybe be as strong as you one day. I love you so much, my lovely Queen. You'll be in my heart, always. Please. Don't hold on anymore." It was whispered, desperate. Tears had already begun to fall down my face.

I don't know what I was expecting, but Mitch begining to cough and open his eyes was not it. He looked up sat me and smiled weakly. He then croaked out something that warned my heart, but froze my blood at the same time.

"I'll be in every beat of your heart when you face the unknown. Known that where ever you fly, baby you're never alone. I'll always be with you. I love you, my adoring Prince." Then, with a small smile on his lips, eyes still locked in mine, he gave a few more hacking coughs, then fell silent.

The heart monitor flat lined and I sat there, holding the body of my husband and I began to cry, shifting until I was able to rock back and forth with him clutched to my chest. I barely registered anything that happened next.

The grief was crippling. I felt like I wasn't attached to anything, like I was in a bubble almost. I could see everything around me, but it appeared distorted. I could hear that people were speaking to me, but it sounded almost like I was underwater and they were trying to talk to me.

The one thing I was so aware of was when they tried to take Mitch from my arms. I struggled to keep him in my arms.

Grief does something to you. It makes you hope for the impossible. I held on to Mitch because I believed that if I held him close enough, his heart would start again, his chest would rise and fall, his eyelids would flutter over his beautiful brown eyes.

But that's all it was, foolish imagination.

At long last, I let him go and moved numbly off the bed. I heard someone begin to speak with me, but I couldn't understand them. I didn't want to understand them.

All I wanted to do now was go home. Maybe, if I closed my eyes and fell asleep, I would wake-up and it would all be a dream.

But the moment I went outside, the warm night air caressing my cheek, much like Mitch had done for years.

This thought made tears flow even more down my face. I was there, outside the hospital, eyes puffy, cheeks wet, pores drowning in my sorrow and I realized that I look like an absolute wreck. But I could care less.

I fell to the ground, knees slamming in at a jarring pace.

I don't know how long I stayed there, but eventually, Maddie came to collect me and stuck my in the passenger seat.

I could see her crying, and I looked away and more tears fell.

The drive home was silent, minus the sound of our sniffling, and when we arrived, she helped me inside, forced me to eat food, then left, kissing my cheek.

I went straight into our bedroom and flopped down onto his side of the bed, drinking in his scent.

As I moved, there was the sound of wrinkling paper. After some searching, I found a journal. Mitch's journal.

I remembered the day he had started it. Maddie was almost ten, and he had found a beautiful black leather bound journal. He was so excited. He told me about the one He had as a teenager and how He still had that one.

He wrote in it religiously. Papers had been stuffed into it, after almost ten years of use.

I found a page, toward the very end, that made me smile slightly through the constricting pain in my chest, the one that made breathing seem impossible.

Mitch had scribbled, down at the bottom a small paragraph about himself. And each one described my beautiful man.

"I'm genuine. I laugh. I love. I smile. I'm loyal. I'm honest. I'm resilient. I'm strong. I'm original. I'm real. I'm me. I am enough." Mitch, years later around the year he died, accepting who he is, and making it positive."

As I continued to read, exhaustion slammed me like a train and I simply let my body sleep right were I was, his journal clutched to my chest.

I promised him that I would save him, but in the end, I wasn't able to fullfil that promise. He died in my arms on July 19, 2026, just shy of his thirty fourth birthday. We were married only twelve years.

After everything he had been through, Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumonia  were the blows he couldn't recover from. They tried to treat it, but it had done it's damage. Because of it, Mitch died.

And it was because of me.

This was my fault.

~°~
Next chapter will be from Maddie's P.O.V. After that, there will only be one or two more chapters until The Absent Series comes to and end. But don't worry, I'll post some alternate endings and things for you all. Maybe a "After the ending" chapter.

Oh, and stay sexy
-Scomiche❤💛💚💙💜