by Coco Jordan
Fading in and out of sleep all night, at one point I could’ve sworn I felt him. A shift on the bed, a warmth, a soft kiss on my cheek. It was all so real.
“Bennett,” I moaned from my dreamlike state.
When I woke hours later, the bed was empty and Bennett’s side was ice cold. It was just me. Always had been. The alarm clock read six a.m., and I wasted no time getting ready. My stomach fluttered at the thought of walking into his room and finding him sitting up in bed, watching the news, eating his breakfast, and greeting me with the biggest smile in the world.
In the middle of my shower, the faint ring of my phone trailed down the hall. A phone call at six a.m. was never a good thing, but maybe it was him? Maybe he’d woken up and was calling to tell me? Excited, I jumped out of the shower, water still running, and ran down the hall to retrieve my phone. The caller I.D. said Mercy Hope Hospital.
“This is Amara,” I said breathlessly.
“Amara Richmond-Banks?” the woman’s voice on the other end asked, emotionless.
“Yes.”
“This is Joanne at Mercy Hope. I’m a nurse,” she said.
“Is Bennett okay?” I asked immediately as my damp body dried in the middle of my room and wet hair clung to my back. “Did he wake up? Please tell me he woke up.”
The nurse hesitated on the other end, sending my stomach into a free fall.
“Can you come down to the hospital please?” she asked, not answering my question.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“The doctor would like to speak to you,” she said.
A nurse by trade, I knew what it meant when a doctor wanted to meet with family and the nurse was tightlipped.
“No, no, no,” I said, sobbing. “No…”
“Amara,” the nurse said, her voice growing sympathetic. I couldn’t be mad at her. I knew she was just doing her job. “Please come down to the hospital.”
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” I wailed as I fell to the floor, naked and afraid of what she was about to tell me.
“Please come to the hospital immediately,” she repeated.
I threw the phone across the room, leaving shards of screen glass and chunks of plastic scattered about. My entire life had gone up into flames after a two-minute phone call.
I heaved myself onto our bed and grabbed Bennett’s pillow, which still smelled like him. It was all I had left. He was gone. I’d never see his beautiful hazel eyes again or lose myself in his devilish grins or laugh at his smart-mouthed jokes. I’d never hear him tell me he loved me again or how gorgeous I looked in sweats and a faded t-shirt. I’d never get to cook for him again or take a leisurely walk around the neighborhood with him. I’d never get to travel the world with him.
After a good, hard cry, I got myself cleaned up and headed to the hospital. With eyes nearly swollen shut, I could hardly drive there, and when I pulled up, I doubted my ability to walk myself in. My entire body was trembling, unsteady, and there was no one to hold me up but myself.
I made my way inside, each step bringing me closer to my new reality. I stepped into his room where his lifeless body was covered with a clean, white sheet. I pulled the sheet from his face, which was drained of all color. His blue lips, the very ones I’d kissed the night before, were rigid and cold, never to smile again, never to speak again, never to kiss me again.
“Mrs. Richmond-Banks?” a man’s voice said from the doorway. I turned to see a doctor standing before me, his arms crossed and an expression that told me he hated this part of his job. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Bennett’s body was going through a lot. His organs were shutting down, and it just happened too quickly. His body couldn’t handle fighting a lung infection as well as the loss of pancreatic function and elevated liver enzymes all at the same time.”
I nodded, listening, but my gaze was on Bennett. I didn’t want to hear it. None of it mattered. None of it would bring him back.
“He fought hard,” the doctor continued. “But ultimately, his body just gave up. He’d been through too much.”
“I know,” I said. “He was a fighter.”
“If you have any more questions, I’m Dr. White,” he said before stepping out of the room and leaving me alone with nothing except my husband’s cold body and some memories.
“My baby,” a woman’s shrill voice shrieked from outside. Her sobs were real. And maybe Bennett would’ve denied it, but I couldn’t. They were the cries of a mother who’d just lost her son.
Ingrid entered the room, ignoring me, and ran to Bennett’s lifeless body. Sterling followed behind, a pained look on his stiff-lipped face. Ingrid cried out over her son’s body, and as much as I didn’t want to be around her, I stayed for Bennett’s sake. It was what he would’ve wanted.
“How you holding up, Amara?” Sterling asked, breaking the awkward silence. “We’ve always known this day would come.” He rubbed Ingrid’s back as she sobbed.
Two transporters came in and regretfully announced they had to move his body to the morgue, upsetting Ingrid even more.
“I barely got to see him!” she wailed. “I need more time!”
His cold, dead body was covered up again and wheeled away as the men insisted they were just doing their job.
My eyes burned as I walked out to my car, trying not to lose my composure. I held it in until I got home, and then I lost it. Hours upon hours of crying, screaming, sobbing, and wailing. And then a little bit of sleep to forget about life for a while.
***
His funeral was on a Tuesday. It was small, yet elegant. He didn’t have a lot of friends, or even many acquaintances, but both of our parents were there, as well as Cherish. A handful of distant relatives from his side of the family and a few strange faces peppered the rest of the small crowd.
The funeral director gave me some alone time with Bennett’s body before the service. He didn’t look the same, but he looked peaceful. His body had been through so much in his short twenty-four years, and he was finally getting to rest.
As I exited the viewing room, I ran into Sterling and Ingrid, who were waiting outside for their turn. Ingrid shot me a dirty look before whispering something into Sterling’s ear. Categorically Ingrid. Bennett was right. She wasn’t human.
“Ingrid,” I said, unable to help myself. “I know you have your opinions about me, and that’s fine, but I just want you to know that I loved your son. He was the love of my life. No one will ever be able to replace him. I loved him, Ingrid. I loved him.”
Her eyes shifted uncomfortably. She had no response. I knew she believed me, and it was perfectly fine with me if she would never admit it. I just wanted her to hear it.
AMARA
I turned my phone off after the burial and flew home. I locked all the doors. I drew all the curtains. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to be alone with all Bennett’s things and his memories, whatever was left. I wanted to see if I could feel him around me. I wanted to grieve and cry and yell. I didn’t want to be judged, consoled, pitied, or stared at.
I ransacked our closet and threw on a sweatshirt of his. It was the closest thing I was going to get to being held by him. I flipped through some pictures of the two of us, and there weren’t many, mostly selfies shot at arm’s length. It was always just us. I laughed. I cried. I laughed, and then cried some more.
I lit the fireplace and grabbed one of Bennett’s books, flipping through the pages Bennett himself had once touched not that long ago. From the corner of my eye, I could’ve sworn the little antique globe in the corner moved a little. If I couldn’t travel the world with him, I’d travel it for him.
My heart warmed over briefly. I knew it was exactly what he would’ve wanted. And my heart fell when I realized I didn’t have a single penny to my name. I didn’t want to sell the house. Our house.
“You’ll always be very taken care of,” I recalled him saying to me time and again, though he never elaborated and I never asked him to. I suppose I never wanted to go there in my mind.
With swollen eyes growing heavy, I lay down on the sofa and let the heat of the fireplace warm my face. June wasn’t supposed to be so cold, but that day, it was frigid.
The second I closed my eyes, a knock at the door echoed through the quiet house. I popped up, instantly annoyed. It was probably someone stopping by to check on me, but I was hardly in the mood to be social.
I peeked out the front window, eyeing a strange car in the driveway, some sort of white BMW that stood out like a sore thumb against the darkness that surrounded it.
I wiped my tearstained face and finger-combed my hair into place before opening the door. Standing before me was a man who was the spitting image of my Bennett.
“Are you Amara?” he asked.
“Who are you?” I replied.
“I need to talk to you,” he said, clutching a letter in his hand.
*STORY CONTINUED IN BOOK #2 (A LOVE LIKE HIS)*
Coco Jordan is a lover of words, leggings, and Oreos, but not necessarily in that order. She loves to travel and devours romance novels in her spare time. When she’s not writing, you can find her curled up with her Kindle by the fireplace as she sips a glass of white wine and tunes out the rest of the world for a while.
If you enjoyed this book, please take a time to leave a review on Amazon. Coco would be forever grateful!