your better half’s side of the bed was cold, long since abandoned for chris to head to film first thing in the morning, then to the university classes he'd decided to take in the afternoon. 

despite it only being nine in the morning, you began preparing the house for chris' return that evening. you started on the rainbow sprinkles cake that had been requested then began to prepare dinner and clean everything. you were a bit of a neat freak, and it was only amplified by the fact that you wanted your baby’s birthday to be perfect. 

later that evening, you were frosting chris' cake with red frosting when your phone pinged with a text. it was from your boyfriend, reading i’m on the way home with a orange heart emoji. chris always used the orange heart because it was “more him”. 

you had to pick up the pace. you hastily finished frosting the cake, making sure it was as perfect as possible. heading to the bedroom, you began gathering candles and making up the bed just right for the special evening. busy, you hadn’t realized how much time had passed until you heard a knock at the front door. picking up your phone, you realized it had been over an hour and a half since chris had sent that text. maybe he got stuck in traffic. but why was he knocking on the door? you always made sure he had his house keys with him. 

you made your way to the front door with a huge smile on your face, ready to shower your love with all the birthday affection he deserved. however, the smile dropped when at the front door, it was not chris, but rather a police officer.

“y/n y/l/n?”

“that would be me?” you asked softly, beginning to panic about why there was a police officer at the front door instead of chris. 

“your boyfriend, christopher sturniolo, has been in a fatal accident and you were listed as his emergency contact.”

you felt your knees go weak and the world begin to go cloudy and spin as your eyes filled with tears. “...fatal?”

“he’s gone, ma'am. i'm sorry. however, he was transported to the hospital. you can go say your final goodbyes, if you’d like.”

as soon as the word “gone” left the officer’s mouth, you felt your world shatter. a heavy sob left your chest and you simply crumpled to the floor, not caring that the man was watching you. 

“i can bring you to the hospital, if you need it, ma'am.”

you simply nodded your head. you couldn’t make words come out of your mouth. you simply got up and slowly made your way to the bedroom, clinging to the wall for support. there were a few things that chris deserved to have with him. 

you pulled a small jeweler’s box out of your nightstand and opened it up, gazing at the ring inside through misty eyes. it was supposed to be tonight. tonight was the night you were going to pour your heart out to your blue eyed beauty and ask him to marry you. you didn't care that it was unconventional. you took the ring out of the box and slipped it into your pocket before hurling the box at the wall with a guttural sob. you didn’t care that the box made a dent in the wall of your rented apartment, you’d deal with that later. 

you grabbed chris' favorite stuffed bear that was perched on the brown haired boy’s pillow, eagerly waiting for its owner’s return. a return that wouldn’t happen. 

you made your way back to the officer, who gently ushered you into the squad car and began to make his way to the hospital. when you arrived at the hospital, you were sure that all of the staff on the ICU floor were staring at you. if you could’ve seen yourself, you would have stared too. your hair was drenched with sweat and your face was bright red, a mess of snot and tears. 

“are you y/n y/l/n?” an older nurse asked sweetly. she had been working in the hospital long enough to usually know which visitors belonged with which patients. and judging by your overall demeanor and look, she could tell that you were here for the patient they had just recently lost. 

you just nodded, still too choked up and not quite believing that this was happening to talk. 

“chris is in a private room, sweetie. i’ll take you to him, but i need you to understand, he was in a very fatal accident. he won’t look like the chris you normally know, okay hun?” the sweet nurse used her very best caretaker voice, knowing that you were this close to going off the deep end. 

“i don’t care!” you snapped. you hated being so rude to the poor woman, but all you cared about right now was seeing chris. your chris.

“come with me, love.” the nurse held your hand gently and walked you to room 305. “he’s just through this door. i'll give you two some alone time. let me know if you need anything, sweetheart.” she smiled sympathetically and let you have your time.

you placed your hand on the doorknob and took a deep breath. you knew deep down you wanted to see chris, but you weren't ready to say goodbye. not this soon. you weren't ready to let go of all you two had shared over the years. chris was your best friend, your boyfriend, your soulmate, your twin flame. any word you could think of to describe undying love could’ve been used. 

one last breath and you twisted the doorknob, stepping into the dimmed hospital room.

*triggering content starts here*

the second you stepped into chris' private hospital room, you felt your heart drop. these kinds of rooms were saved especially for the dying or already dead. the various machines that had been used to try and revive your sweet chris, were cleaned and turned off, returned to their various spots around the room. 

there were no flowers on the bedside table. no cards, no water cups, no nothing. the only indication that anyone had even been in the room were the pile of chris' belongings that had been salvaged from his totaled car, the ominous equipment that would later be used to take the boy away, and the bed that currently held him.

you tried to pretend chris was just sleeping and that at any moment he would wake up. you tried so hard. the hospital staff had closed his blue eyes, but it was hard to believe chris was just napping when his face looked nothing like the face that had left your shared apartment twelve hours earlier. 

chris' face was covered in cuts, dried blood, and stitches. he had a deep gash across his forehead and his nose was bent at a peculiar angle. somewhere along the way, his beloved earrings had been lost, leaving only two sad holes. you hesitated to pull back the sheets. you wanted to say goodbye to chris fully, but you were scared of what was underneath the blankets.  

the urge to give your boyfriend the last bit of love he deserved was stronger than the fear, however. you gently pulled back the blanket and gasped. the nurse had warned you, but you hadn’t thought it would be this bad. this wasn’t the chris you knew. the poor boy's legs had been mangled and were also covered in dried blood and deep gashes. the hospital staff had tried their best to clean him up, but the damage done had been quite severe. 

that was enough for the you. you collapsed, laying your head on chris' chest and sobbing. you would never again lay there and hear the steady beat of your boyfriend’s heart and the rise and fall of his breath. 

“chris, baby.” you whispered, cupping his cheek. 

the brown haired boy’s body had already gone cold. he hadn’t even been given the chance to fight. a young life stolen for no clear reason. chris had never done anything wrong. he was the sweetest, most loving soul you had ever met. 

as the thoughts consumed you, you cried harder. not just for yourself, but for the life that chris would never get to live. your boyfriend had just turned twenty and already had over two million subscribers on youtube. he had his whole life ahead of him and it had been snatched in a matter of seconds. chris would never get to be an influencer, which had been his biggest dream since he was eleven. he’d never graduate university or get married or have kids. 

“i’m sorry, sweetie. i’m so, so sorry.” you ran your hand along chris' cheek, your voice thick with sobs. 

you moved your hand down to hold chris' own. never again would you get to bandage those hands after chris had spent all day at the studio, his fingers peeling and bloody from insisting on personally packaging merch orders.

you pulled the wedding band out of your pocket and slipped it on chris' ring finger. you ran your thumb across the dark silver metal that went so well with his tanned skin. “this is for you, baby. i love you more than anyone has loved anyone. ever. you’re my light and my reason and the reason i’m still here.”

you knew deep down that time was ticking. soon, the staff would take chris away to vacate the room. this was the last time. this was the last time you'd ever see chris. fighting back the tears, you tucked the stuffed bear under chris' arm and kissed his forehead. “i’m going to be strong for you. i love you, baby. in this life and in the next one. i'll see you soon, okay?"

and you were strong. you stayed until the nurses took chris away and the doctors told you that you had to leave. you walked the long way home, taking the path through downtown that you'd always walk with chris on sunday afternoons. it would never fail, at the end of the route, chris would see his favorite ice cream shop and stop, tugging on your hand and begging for a strawberry cone with rainbow sprinkles. 

in the following weeks, your mom came to stay with you so you weren’t alone in the apartment that didn’t feel quite right without chris there. the day you went through chris' belongings was the hardest. you kept most of the clothes, which smelled of the blue eyed boy and quite easily went through everything else, giving most of it to jimmy and mary lou. but if anything hurt the most to go through, it was the music equipment. 

you had met chris in music class. he had asked you out with a song. sure, chris had never wanted to be a touring musician, and he considered it little more than a hobby, but the boy had a natural musical talent. and so, you ordered a display case. right there in the living room sat chris' favorite guitar. if you listened hard enough, you were pretty sure you could still hear chris playing off somewhere in the distance.

-

you read chris' last message every day. you read it front to back and back to front. you read it when you woke up and before you went to bed. you read it until you didn’t need to look to know what it said. to know where the uncapitalized i was and where the orange heart emoji was. 

two years to the day after the accident, on what would have been chris' twenty second birthday, you read the text for the last time. you knew you didn’t need to look at it anymore because no matter what, you were okay. no matter what, chris was always with you.

for the rest of your very long life, every time you heard thunder and saw lightning, you liked to pretend it was chris. chris up there in the sky somewhere, jamming out on his guitar and living the life he never got to have.

CHLO YAPS: i'm sorry for what i just did to you guys