I tried to give her and her mother some privacy. I didn’t want to interrupt while she was talking to her. I didn’t want to distract from what might have been this woman’s last moments. I listened as Christie talked about me, and even though the words hurt me her voice was kind. I could tell she didn’t hate me. Confused, sure. Broken, yes.

But hatred? It was nowhere near her tongue.

I watched her lean over her mother as Christie’s voice grew softer to the point that I couldn’t hear her. I watched her mother open her eyes and for a split second, I thought things were going to be okay. I saw hope blossom across Christie’s shoulders and I was ready to celebrate myself. And then I heard those final words fall from her mother’s lips. Words I still felt were never meant for my ears.

And then, Christie froze.

I dropped the food I’d brought for us into a chair as doctors and nurses flooded the room. They peeled her away from her mother as she called for her and I reached out to pull her out of the stampede of the crowd. I wrapped myself around her tightly, trying to ground her trembling form. She shook and openly sobbed against me, even after she knew it was me holding her.

“I’m so sorry, Christie.”

My words were empty. Devoid of anything she needed in that present moment. But I didn’t know what else to say. Grief wasn’t something I was akin to, especially when someone died. I knew death all too well. I had drawn death from my own fingertips on more than one occasion. But there was something in the way Christie crumbled into me that tugged at the sliver of humanity within me.

It ached to try and quell her pain.

“It’s going to be okay. You’re not going to be alone for this. Do you hear me?”

I talked softly into the room as I rested my cheek on her head. Her arms slid around me, clinging to my back with every ounce of strength she possessed. Like she didn’t want to think about what came after that moment.

The doctors did all they could. They checked her pulse and checked the machines. They rolled in a crash cart and tried to revive her body. But her mother was gone, and there was nothing any medical professional could do. I wrapped my arm around Christie’s head, shielding her ears from the calling of her mother’s death. No daughter needed to hear that. No person needed to hear anyone pinpoint the time of a loved one’s death.

“Time of death is 12:48 pm,” the doctor said.

He signed a couple of sheets before walking out, then a nurse with the clipboard walked over to us.

“Would you like some time with her?” she asked.

“No,” Christie said as she burrowed herself into me. “I don’t want to remember her like that.”

I nodded back towards the body before my eyes motioned to the sheet. I needed that nurse to cover her mother’s body, because I wasn’t letting her go long enough to do it myself. Hell, I wasn’t letting go of her at all. Christie’s breathing was still erratic. Unsteady. And so long as she clung to me my arms weren’t leaving her back.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the nurse said softly.

Then she walked over and covered Christie’s mother before wheeling the bed out of the room.

“What are you even doing here?” Christie asked into my chest.

“I don’t know where else you expect me to be,” I said.

She looked up at me with teary eyes as the nurse closed the door behind her, leaving us in an empty hospital room. Her eyes were pink from crying and her cheeks flushed from sleeping bent over for an entire weekend. The confusion on her face killed something inside of me. My need to show her what she meant to me outweighed my ability to keep myself under control. I couldn’t go another second without somehow her knowing how I felt about her. Without her knowing she’d never have to do anything alone so long as I was around. And for some reason, words didn’t seem like enough for our moment.

So, I bent down to her lips and I kissed her.

It was soft. Quick. But she yanked away from me immediately. Her eyes widened and switched to a fury I’d never seen in her gaze before. But just as quickly as the anger had risen, it faded. Her hands balled into fists in my jacket and she pulled me back to her, crashing her lips against mine. My arms scooped her into me for the first time, and I drew in a deep breath to take it all in. The painful elation in my chest. The bittersweet moment when two people who had nothing else grabbed onto the only thing they could. I felt her shaking against me, yet refusing to let me go.

I took the moment to memorize everything about her.

I committed to memory everything I could. The way her lips molded to mine. The way they parted when my tongue beckoned over their softness. The way her body inched its way closer, until my back pressed into the wall of the hospital. The way she smelled. The way her tears dried up and left nothing but a wetness behind that the tip of my nose caressed.

She finally pulled back as a whimper fell from her lips, and her forehead found my shoulder as she agonized over the conflicting emotions running rampant between us.

“I’ve got you,” I said with a murmur. “Let me help.”

Then she softened against my arms again and we stood there as I let her mourn however she needed.