Who was I, again?

Tyler closed the door with a quiet, deliberate motion, as though even the sound of it shutting might disturb the fragile air between them. His arms instinctively tightened around Noah, pulling the baby closer to his chest, as if the weight of their son might anchor him to something—anything—that still made sense.

He didn't ask any questions. Not yet.

Instead, he passed Amelia without a word. Her presence was hollow, unmoving—a shape suspended in the hallway like a photograph waiting to fade. He moved through the house with the careful reverence of someone walking through someone else's dream.

In the nursery, he lowered Noah into the crib with practiced hands, brushing the baby's fine hair from his forehead and tucking the blanket gently beneath his chin. The infant stirred, but didn't wake. Peaceful. Innocent. Blissfully unaware that the world beyond his cradle had shifted.

When Tyler turned around, the hallway was empty.

Amelia was no longer where he'd left her.

He found her in their bedroom, curled on her side of the bed—her side—facing the wall as though it might shield her from everything she couldn't bear to see. Her body was drawn inward, knees pulled close, arms crossed tight beneath her. It wasn't sleep she sought. It was escape. The kind of escape where dreams might blur the memory of reality, even if only for a few minutes.

He didn't say her name.

He crossed the room in silence, climbed in behind her, and wrapped his arms around her gently, protectively, as if she might shatter under the pressure of anything more.

She flinched.

Not violently. Not with rejection. But like someone being touched in a place that had been tender for far too long.

"Why are you hugging me?" she asked, her voice dry and distant, like it belonged to someone else.

"Because," he whispered into the tangle of her hair, "you look like you need it."

She didn't answer. She didn't turn.

But she didn't move away, either.

So he pulled her closer, one arm beneath her, the other across her waist, grounding her with his warmth, his breath, the steadiness she had always drawn from without ever admitting she needed it.

"What happened?" he asked softly, almost afraid to ask. "What made the light in my world cry like this?"

She turned then, slowly, as if each motion required effort. Her face emerged from the shadows, pale and expressionless—not from coldness, but from the weight of too much emotion compressed into silence. Her eyes were swollen, lashes clumped with salt. Her lips parted slightly as though she might speak.

But no words came.

Only tears.

They broke free all at once, uninvited and uncontainable, as if her body had been waiting—desperately—for someone to hold her, just to finally let go.

He felt it happen.

Felt her grief unravel in his arms, quiet but endless, like rain falling in a room with no windows. Her chest shuddered against him. Her breath caught and broke and came back again in shallow waves.

"Talk to me," he murmured, lifting her face with both hands. His thumbs brushed away the tears, but more came, persistent as the truth.

"Whatever it is… we'll face it," he said, his voice steady, though his heart was already bracing for the answer. "Together. Didn't I tell you before? You and me—always. In everything."

And there it was.

The promise.

The thing she had clung to even as everything else began to slip through her fingers.

You and me—always.

In sickness. In sorrow. In the unspoken horror of the unknown.

But still, she couldn't say it. Not yet. The words were too heavy.

So she let him hold her.

And in that quiet, where grief had no name but presence, she let herself begin to fall apart—knowing, for the first time that day, she wouldn't have to fall alone.

She closed her eyes, drawing in a tremulous breath, as if air itself had become a fragile thing to trust. Then, without speaking, she gently pulled herself from Tyler's embrace, the space between them suddenly colder in her absence.

She moved toward the window like a ghost moving through water—slow, quiet, deliberate. On the low coffee table, beneath the soft wash of twilight, lay the thin, forgotten folder. Paper. Just paper. But it weighed more than anything she'd ever carried.

Her fingers hovered over it for a moment, trembling slightly, before she picked it up and turned to face him. Her arm extended—wordless—offering him the truth like a sacrament.

He frowned faintly, taking the folder with casual confusion, as if this were just another piece of mail she wanted him to look at.

"What's this?" he asked, tilting his head with a hint of a smile. "A job application? Some bills?"

She didn't answer. Couldn't. Instead, she sank back down onto the edge of the bed like her legs had betrayed her. Her posture was rigid, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, knuckles white from the force of holding herself together.

"Just read it," she whispered. The words barely reached him. Fragile. Shivering. Drenched in something he didn't yet understand.

Tyler let out a soft laugh—more reflex than humor. He tried to chase the heaviness from the air with lightness, like he always did. "You always make things sound so dramatic," he murmured, flipping the folder open with a teasing smirk. "Alright, let's see what we've got—"

The smile stopped before it could fully bloom.

His eyes locked onto the page. Words stared back at him, sharp and clinical, like tiny knives dressed in sterile ink:

Patient: Amelia Hart. Age: 26.

Marital status: Married.

Diagnosis: Left Medial Temporal Lobe Brain Tumor.

Reviewed by Dr. Pollan, Neuro-oncology, Secca Street Medical Center.

He blinked once.

Twice.

The page didn't change.

His hand lowered, but the file stayed open, dangling loosely from his fingers like he couldn't bear to close it—and couldn't look away. The room grew unbearably quiet, save for the distant sound of wind brushing against the windowpane.

He looked up slowly.

Amelia hadn't moved. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed, her back curved slightly inward, her chin tucked toward her chest. Like a woman listening for something deep within herself—some echo of strength she feared might already be gone.

And in that moment, he saw her differently—not as his wife, not as the mother of his child, but as someone standing on the precipice of something vast and terrible. Someone who had looked into the abyss and come home with the burden of knowing.

His mouth opened, but no words came.

There was nothing to say that wouldn't sound useless.

So instead, he knelt in front of her. Slowly. Carefully. His hands reached for hers, still clenched like fists around invisible fears. He pried them open gently, his thumb tracing the outline of her palm, grounding her.

"Amelia…" he whispered. Her name was a question, a prayer, a promise.

She didn't look at him.

But a single tear slid down her cheek and fell into his waiting hand.

The grin drained from his face like color bleeding from a photograph.

His throat constricted, a sudden tightness spreading through his chest as though something inside him had twisted, hard and unforgiving. He glanced around the room, instinctively searching for somewhere to sit, but his legs betrayed him before he could move. His knees buckled beneath the weight of words he hadn't yet learned how to carry.

He sank to the floor.

The folder had slipped from his hand. It lay open beside him, its clinical words stark and cruel against the soft rug beneath—an uninvited truth now sprawled across the quiet of their home.

Amelia didn't move. She couldn't meet his gaze. Her eyes remained locked on the space between her feet, as if looking at him might make it all too real again.

But he moved—slowly, as if in a dream, as if gravity had doubled its hold on him. He crawled toward her, not like a man, but like a boy who had just lost the rules that held his world together.

When he reached her, his trembling fingers rose to her face. Gently, almost reverently, he lifted her chin until their eyes met.

Her face was pale, tear-streaked, a canvas of silent devastation. But it was his expression that broke her—the brightness in his blue eyes now clouded with disbelief, horror, and something far worse: helplessness. Tears clung to his lashes, unfallen but waiting.

"Amelia…" he whispered. Her name cracked inside his throat. "Baby…"

He was shaking. His hands, his shoulders, his voice. All of him.

"This has to be a mistake," he said, though the words came out strangled, small. "Right? Please… tell me this is one of your jokes. What month is it? April? Is this—" He let out a breathless, shaky laugh. "Is this one of your sick little pranks?"

He leaned in, pressing his forehead against hers, desperate for an anchor. His breath was hot and uneven against her skin. She could feel it—how every inhale cost him something.

"Say it's wrong," he begged. "Please… just say it."

And for a moment, she wanted to. For him. For them. She wanted to lie, just to take that look out of his eyes, just to stop the sound that was building in his throat.

But she couldn't.

Her voice came like the wind after a storm—soft, almost gone.

"It's not," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

Two words.

Two words that undid him.

The sob that broke from Tyler's chest sounded nothing like his voice. It came from somewhere deeper, somewhere sacred. As if grief itself had clawed through his ribs and demanded to be heard.

He pulled her into his arms with a desperation that bordered on panic. His grip was tight, too tight, like he thought if he just held her hard enough, he could stop time—or reverse it.

He buried his face into her shoulder, shaking, shuddering, breaking.

And she let him.

She held him, even as he held her, the two of them locked in that aching silence. It wasn't the kind of embrace that healed. It was the kind that acknowledged ruin—and chose to stay anyway.