Chapter 5 - The Weight of RegretWhen I stepped back into the hallway, the visitor chair near the window was empty.
My heart seized in my chest. A cold wave of panic rushed through my veins, and I broke into a full sprint down the corridor, ignoring the nurses calling out for me to slow down.
"Sophie!" I yelled, dodging an IV stand and nearly colliding with a dietary cart. "Sophie!"
I reached room 414—a private critical care suite at the end of the wing. Through the horizontal glass panel in the wooden door, I saw her.
She was back in bed, hooked up to a complex maze of monitoring equipment. A team of three nurses and a respiratory therapist were hovering anxiously around her bed, adjusting flow meters and checking arterial lines as Sophie lay with her eyes closed, her chest rising in shallow, erratic gasps.
I pushed the door open, but a burly orderly stepped directly into my path, blocking the entrance with a heavy forearm.
"Sir, you can't go in there. Code Blue preparation is underway. Family only," the orderly warned gruffly.
"I am her family!" I shouted, trying to push past him. "I'm her husband—her ex-husband! Let me in!"
Inside the room, Dr. Vance appeared from behind the privacy curtain, her face pale and urgent. She caught sight of me struggling with the orderly and gave a sharp nod.
"Let him in," Dr. Vance instructed. "Quietly."
The orderly dropped his arm, and I slipped into the sterile, brightly lit room, my heart pounding in my ears like a war drum.
Sophie’s eyes fluttered open at the commotion. She looked weaker now, the pale blue tint around her lips signaling dangerously low oxygen saturation. The rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor had accelerated into a frantic, staccato chatter.
I walked slowly to the side of her bed, falling to my knees once again, and gently reached out to take her cold, limp hand. This time, she didn't pull away. Her fingers were ice, but she squeezed mine with a faint, pathetic twitch of strength.
"Ethan..." she breathed out, her chest heaving as she fought for every molecule of air. "Why... why didn't you just leave?"
"Because I was an idiot, Sophie," I choked out, pressing her knuckles against my wet cheek. "Because for five years, you were the only real thing in my life, and the moment things got dark, I ran away like a coward. But I’m not running anymore."
A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, tracking downward into her short chestnut hair. "It's... it's too late, Ethan. My heart is done. The doctors... they told me the tissue necrosis is too severe."
"I don't care what the doctors said!" I cried, my voice cracking with desperation. "Dr. Vance told me you signed the DNR. She told me you took yourself off the registry. You can reverse that, Sophie. You can sign the papers again. I'm right here. I'm not going back to that empty apartment. I'm staying in this room every second of every day until you walk out of these doors."
Sophie stared at me, her dark eyes searching my face for any sign of hesitation, any flicker of the emotional cowardice that had destroyed our marriage. She looked deep into my soul, hunting for the truth.
"You're only saying that because you feel guilty," she whispered, her voice fading into a dry rasp. "Guilt... is a terrible reason to save someone's life."
"It's not guilt," I sobbed, leaning forward until my forehead rested against the back of her cold hand. "It's love, Sophie. It took losing you twice to finally understand what that word actually meant. Please... don't leave me alone in this world."
For several agonizing seconds, the only sound in the room was the frantic screech of the heart monitor.
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Then, Sophie’s eyes rolled back slightly, her breathing stuttered, and the steady green line on the ECG monitor began to fracture into erratic, dangerous peaks.
"We're losing her! Crash cart, now!" Dr. Vance yelled, lunging forward as the room dissolved into absolute, terrifying chaos.
