8th March 2018
Reece's POV
After exactly sixty minutes the nurse comes in to get me. I want to kiss Aspen goodbye so much but I am not allowed to. I look at her one last time, how she is laying in the bed, her eyes still closed, and then leave.
I come back to the hospice early the next morning. Claire had picked me up from my hotel room and together we had driven to the hospice.
Before we could go to Aspen, the doctor asks to talk to us for a minute. We walk into his office and sit down and I have this bad feeling in my guts. I don't know if it is the look on his face or what it is, but I just know that he is going to tell us something really bad.
"Mrs Pesaro, Reece... it's bad news." The doctor says and I just nod numbly. I know it. It's time. The moment I had feared for the last ten months had come.
I clutch my hands around the armrests of the chair that I am sitting on to prepare myself for what the doctor is gonna say.
"I am so sorry to inform you that Aspen's condition is very precarious. Her fever has risen overnight to 40 degrees celsius. She has growing pains and ague. At that stage of her disease, this flue can be fatal. I suggest that you go to her and say your goodbyes as long as you still can." The doctor says compassionately.
Aspen's mum starts crying but I just sit in the chair, frozen, numb, motionless. I think my heart just shattered in a million pieces.
I get up and out of the room. Everything seems to be so distant. The noises around me fade.
Outside, I take a deep breath. I don't hear the birds chirping or the wind blowing through the branches of the trees.
I run down to the pond in the park next to the hospice, pick up stones and throw them in the water. I yell and scream and the ducks in the pond fly away.
I break down in tears and sit down on the grass, my head buried in my hands. I had often cried after Aspen had been diagnosed but I had never felt this empty before.
It's like all the colours are fading to grey. It feels like I am in a dark room with only one candle burning and someone blew the candle out. I feel so lost without her.
