Page 126 of If Love Had A Manual

“Hey, baby,” he breathes, head tilted as he takes me in.

My voice is hoarse and barely there when I ask, “You came?”

He cups my chin, his thumb dragging gently along my jaw. “You think I’d let you do this alone?”

My throat closes as Grandpa’s voice echoes in my mind again.

You’ve got people looking out for you. Loving you.

And here he is. My person.

“Where’s Rosie?”

“She’s with Kate. She’s fine.”

He slides an arm around me and pulls me into his chest like he knows that’s the only place I want to be. I go willingly. My hand fists his shirt as I breathe in the scent of him.

Home.

The hours blur after that.

The day stretches through the windows, the light too cheerful for the grief pressing down on us. Wes never leaves my side. He brings coffee I barely drink. Rubs my back in slow, steady circles. Presses a kiss to my temple when the ache gets too much.

A nurse steps in mid-morning. She checks Grandpa’s vitals. The way she exhales tells me everything before she even speaks.

No change. No hope.

The monitor next to the bed ticks more slowly. The beeps are spaced farther apart now, as if each one has to be coaxed into existence.

I hold tighter.

I hold and hold and hold.

And then it happens in a barely there moment.

His fingers jerk once.

A sudden twitch.

One last grasp at life.

Then nothing.

The monitor lets out a long, steady tone, and my lungs cave.

“No.” The sound shatters in my throat. “No—no, no—”

Wes catches me before I can fall apart completely. My sobs rip through me in silence, the kind that hurt more because no one hears them. I scream inside, every part of me crying for one more breath, one more moment, one more chance.

Please, come back. Please, Grandpa. Please.

The room is crowded with my family, but I don’t move. I stay pressed to Wes’s chest, the only anchor I have in a sea of devastation. He doesn’t speak. He just holds me, hands splayed over my back like he can hold me together with touch alone.

Eventually, the sobs give way to aching stillness.

I lift my head. The monitor is off now. The nurses are moving around him with the careful reverence that comes with the end. His chest doesn’t rise. His eyes never open.

He’s gone.

---