“Because I still choose you.”
She began to cry.
So did I.
The doctor quietly stepped away and gave us a moment.
For illustrative purposes only
For the first time in months, Sophie leaned against me instead of pulling away.
I held her carefully, terrified that if I loosened my arms, she might disappear again.
That night, I took her back to my apartment.
It wasn’t much.
A small living room.
One bedroom.
A kitchen barely big enough for two people.
But Sophie stood in the doorway and smiled.
“It feels familiar.”
I smiled back.
“Maybe we can make it ours again.”
The next several months weren’t easy.
We didn’t pretend that one hospital visit had magically erased everything.
We went to counseling.
We talked about the pregnancies we had lost.
We talked about the things we had been too afraid to say.
We learned that grief doesn’t always make people hold each other closer.
