Goodbye, Mr. Regret

Sallie hung up the phone and hurried toward the operating room.

She arrived to find Herbert holding Jessica upright while a nurse urged Jessica to sign the critical condition consent form.

Her grandfather had just come out of a coma-he was barely conscious, still weak and pale. Her father hadn't woken up yet. Jessica, shaken and distraught, was in no state to sign anything.

Sallie herself was far from calm; her palms were slick with cold sweat as she rushed down the hallway. But she forced herself to focus. She had to hold it together.

Herbert tried to reason with Jessica, his voice gentle but urgent. "Whenever a patient's in a life-threatening crisis, the doctors always ask for this consent form. It doesn't mean there's no hope. There's still a chance they can save him."

As a doctor himself, Herbert understood the situation all too well. It was protocol- grim as it sounded, the family had to sign, even if it meant the outlook was bleak. But the emergency team wouldn't stop trying.

Jessica's right hand trembled violently as she gripped the pen.

"We can't wait any longer," the nurse pressed, her tone clipped and insistent.

"I'll sign." Sallie stepped in, taking the pen from Jessica's shaking hand. She scanned the document-internal bleeding, old injuries aggravated by new trauma, a severe laceration on the forehead, and the threat of a fatal cerebral hemorrhage.

Her heart clenched painfully in her chest, but she forced herself to sign her name.

room doors swung shut with a

felt her own

was cold and silent, the only movement coming from the

the wall, drained of all strength. Herbert held onto her, but she felt weightless, as if gravity was dragging her downward and only his grip kept

to sit

head. "I can't

of lead; just lifting her feet seemed impossible. There

hardship she faced was a stepping stone that would make her stronger, that one day

the thought of Timothy dying-this pain cut deeper than

only because she loved him. When she finally walked away, all she could do was tyto take her love back, but in these last few months, she hadn't managed to rip him

had illuminated her world at

moment he picked her up in his arms, the wild flutter of her heart-how it had changed her. In the four years that followed,

like motion, builds its

The longer you love,

more force that momentum