Chapter 10
I bolted back to my penthouse, frantically searching my closet for the perfect outfit.]
Willow once told me she loved how I looked in powder blue suits, so I grabbed my most expensive one–the Tom Ford she’d helped me pick during Fashion Week.
She always rolled her eyes when I looked unkempt, so I shaved meticulously, styled my hair, and made myself as immaculate as possible for her.[]
Standing before the mirror, I rehearsed apologies like an actor before the biggest audition of his life.[]
After cycling through a dozen variations, I decided that words alone weren’t enough–I would drop to my knees the moment I saw her.
If she could find it in her heart to forgive me, if she would give me another chance, I’d sacrifice anything. Everything.
Her parents looked even more shattered than I felt.[]
Their hair had gone shock–white in mere weeks. Deep lines carved their faces as they gripped each other’s hands like survivors in a shipwreck.[]
“What do I even say to her?” Mrs. Blake whispered, voice trembling. “Our baby girl, suffering through that horrible disease… how has she been surviving out there all alone?”
She crumbled into tears again.]
I stared straight ahead through the car window, my knuckles white around the custom platinum engagement ring in my pocket.[]
I’d commissioned it a year ago–platinum with a rare blue diamond that matched her eyes perfectly.[]
The car finally came to a stop outside a building I’d never expected to visit.[]
Valley View Funeral Home.
We exchanged horrified glances, cold dread washing through me like liquid nitrogen.]
Mae approached our window, her face a mask of exhausted contempt.
“Get out. We need your signatures for the cremation authorization.”
“She died the day before your little wedding spectacle. She’s been in the hospital morgue since then. If we didn’t legally need your signatures to proceed, I wouldn’t have bothered dragging your pathetic asses here.“[]
Mrs. Blake collapsed.
My legs turned to water beneath me, but somehow I forced myself forward, one agonizing step at a time.
She lay in the open casket, impossibly peaceful, her skin the translucent alabaster of the truly gone.
Scalding tears carved paths down my face as I reached for her with trembling fingers.
“Willow… baby… please…” The words strangled in my throat.[]
“I’m so fucking sorry, Willow… just look at me one more time… please God, just one more time…“]]
“We can go to Aspen right now. I’ve got the jet fueled up. First snow of the season. Remember how you wanted to see it? Please, just wake up…“[]
Her skin was marble–cold beneath my touch. No flutter of eyelids. No miracle resurrection.[]
Someone physically dragged me away as I howled like a wounded animal, watching helplessly as they sealed her casket and guided it toward the crematorium.[]
I knew then I would never see her again.[]
I went to Aspen alone to see the snow she’d never witness.]
The hotel staff reported a disturbed man sitting at the edge of their highest viewing point for three days straight, sobbing uncontrollably in a frozen designer suit.[]
Security was called to prevent what they assumed was an imminent suicide.
They needn’t have bothered.]
1 had already jumped from a different cliff the day before. They’d pulled me out of a snowbank with severe hypothermia and multiple fractures.[]
When I regained consciousness, my parents slapped me and called me every variation of “selfish bastard” in their extensive vocabulary.
That didn’t diminish my determination to follow Willow
1 smashed my hospital room mirror and sliced my wrists with the shards. They saved me again
They Chase Blood Over Love Now They Cry at My GRAVE
Chapter 10
They transferred me to a psychiatric facility, padded walls and 24–hour surveillance.
So I stockpiled my medication, planning a final overdose.[]
During group therapy, I heard another patient say something that froze my blood: souls who take their own lives are trapped in eternal separation from those who die naturally.
The thought of being forever cut off from Willow terrified me more than living without her.]]
From that day on, I chose to endure.
I traveled everywhere she’d ever mentioned wanting to visit. At each location, I created elaborate memorial rituals–leaving flowers at sunset, commissioning local artists to paint her portrait, donating to cancer research centers in her name.
Her parents visited her grave monthly, keeping her headstone spotlessly clean.]
They wondered aloud why she never visited their dreams.]
I wondered the same thing. Why wouldn’t she come to mine?
This question haunted me year after year.
Eventually, Willow’s parents succumbed to their chronic depression and passed away.
Lbecame an old man, hair completely white at fifty, my body bent and broken.]]
I needed my nephew’s support just to hobble to her gravestone.[]
Willow remained forever young in her photo.
I felt so wronged.]
“Why won’t you ever visit me? Do you hate me that much?”
Please, just once. Is that too much to ask?
Chose Blood Over Love Now They Cry at My GRAVE
