Page 109 of The Love Syllabus

Her fingers twitch, barely reaching. “I love you, Vic. I’m so sorry. This is all —” She whispers, her breath shaky, fragile.

“Stop talking like that. We can talk later over a glass of wine because you’re gonna be okay.”

Then, suddenly, I turn, watching as firefighters finally pry Syd free. She screams in agony.

Ari is next. I sob in relief.

“They’re okay?” She asks, barely above a whisper. “Are our babies okay?”

I turned back to her, my heart shattering all over again.

I nod quickly, swallowing down the terror in my throat. “They’re okay, baby. And you’re next. As soon as you’re out, I’m gonna take you home,” I promise, my voice breaking apart. “I’ll wait on you hand and foot. I swear, I’ll never leave your side. I’ll be with you every second of every day until you beg me to go back to work.”

Tiara’s lips barely move, but she still manages a ghost of a smile. “Good,” she strains. “Because the girls will need you. Be present for them, Vic.”

I grip the edge of the wreckage, my entire body trembling. “I’ll be present for all of you. I love you with everything, Tee. You’re my everything.”

Her lashes flutter, her breath hitching. And with a faint, strained smile. she whispers her last words. “That’s all I ever wanted to hear.”

She inhales a sharp, jagged, desperate pull at life. Then, she exhales a slow, soft, final breath.

“Tee?” My voice barely makes a sound, like I lost the air in my lungs along with her. I watch, waiting for her chest to rise, waiting for her to take it back, to breathe again, to stay.

But there’s nothing.

“Tee, please.” My voice cracks, splintering under the weight of my desperation. My fingers dig into the twisted wreckage, as if holding on to the shattered car could somehow hold on to her. “Please, don’t go. Just hang on a little longer, please. I need you. I love you. I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

My words dissolve into sobs ripping from my chest like something is being clawed out of me.

I beg God to rewind the moment. I beg for a miracle. For forgiveness. For mercy. For a redo. For something other than this. But no matter how hard I plead, she doesn’t open her eyes. My love is gone. My world is no longer the same.

The next few hours passed in a blur of chaos, every single second etched into my bones, burned into my soul.

“My daughters were airlifted to the nearest hospital—one to have her leg amputated, the other to undergo three surgeries for a half-functioning arm. And my dad…My dad. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. He was just trying to help. Just trying to be there for his son’s wife and his granddaughters. Just trying to help a son too busy chasing ambition to realize that he already achieved the ultimate goal.”

I feel Kerry’s tears as her lips press against my skin, temporarily bringing me back to reality while I bury my face in my hands.

I suck in a trembling breath, that barely fills my lungs. “I did this. I’m the reason for it all, Kerry.” My voice isn’t even mine anymore. “The deaths. My daughters’ trauma. My mom and Hudson’s loss. It’s all because of me.”

I find myself suffocating from my guilt all over again, but Kerry doesn’t let me drown. She doesn’t let me go.

Instead, she moves closer, peeling my hands from my face, intertwining our fingers before gently guiding my arms around her waist. Then, she pulls me into her, and holds me against the softness of her body, pressing my head to her chest. And I let her hold me together because I don’t have the strength to do it myself.

I just wait. I wait for her to tell me I’m right, that my grief is justified and so is my guilt. But she doesn’t.

Kerry whispers, “Guilt is a tricky thing, Vic.” Her voice is steady and certain. “It convinces you that punishing yourself is the only way to atone. It feeds you the lie that suffering is the price of love. But love, real love, the love from your father, from Tiara, never demanded that.”

Her words sink deep into the parts of me that I’ve tried to bury. Into the wounds I swore I’d never let heal.

She cradles my head, pressing a kiss to my temple. “They wouldn’t want your life buried beside them. They lived. They loved. And they were loved.” She pauses. “You were a part of that love, Vic. That’s something to hold onto. Not just the loss. You can grieve them. You should. But you have to forgive yourself too. You have to stop blaming yourself. You still have a life to live and a family to love. And you still have so much love left to give.”

I feel Kerry’s strength, compassion, and love envelop me, and for the first time in years, I don’t feel alone in my grief. Kerry’s warmth seeps into the cracks I thought would never close.

I feel held—not just physically but in the deepest, most fractured parts of me—the parts I thought were beyond saving, the parts that have lived in darkness for so long that I forgot what the light felt like.

I finally understand something I never let myself believe—I’m allowed to move forward. I don’t have to carry my love with the weight of guilt. I can honor it without being crushed beneath it. I need to cherish what I still have, not let it slip through my fingers. I want to be the father my daughters deserve, the man I was meant to be.

I don’t want to keep punishing myself for a tragedy I can never undo.

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