Golden Box Book Publishing GBBPub February Magazine | Page 6

when we were young. But always loved this magnolia tree. That’s why
your parents chose this secluded spot to… Oh, Val. I miss you so
much!”
More than once, over the past four years, he’d been told he was
young and there would be someone else in his life. He’d love someone,
to fill the void, but nobody understood what it was like to find a true
soulmate. “I miss you, every day, and I keep trying to push myself to
keep going, but there have been so many times when I’ve thought about
just ending it all. I know I shouldn’t. You would never forgive me if I’d
throw my life away, but you were my life, and…” He took a deep
breath. “I’m sorry. I know every time I come here it seems like I say
the same thing. I want things to be different, but without you here,
there’s no happiness in my heart.”
***
Closing his eyes, Caleb remembered sitting at Valerie’s bedside on
that dreadful day. He still remembered the two of them walking into the
doctor’s office together to get her test results, just a few weeks before.
She’d been feeling tired and sick for days, but neither of them had even
thought it was possible she might be dealing with something as
complicated as leukemia.
She was fading fast, and the treatments wiped all her energy. She
had to stay in the hospital because she no longer could keep fluids and
food down. She was more tired than she ever had been before, but he
could tell she was fighting, for him and for the future they’d always
talked about. As she coughed, he reached over to get water for her, and
she looked at him. The pain in her pale, thin face was impossible to
ignore. Gently, he stroked stands of hair off her face, wishing there was
something he could to take the pain away and make her well.