I could feel it - an ache far beyond the body's limits, a heaviness that wasn't just in my head but in the air we shared. Lying on my side of the bed, I curled inwards, forming a fortress of silence that neither welcomed nor allowed intrusion.
My arms crossed tightly over my chest as if shielding a heart that already felt barren, while my tear-streaked gaze settled on the photo perched atop the side table. Its contents - so simple and yet so devastating - pulled relentlessly at the threads of a future that no longer existed.
The scan. A faint shape that once promised beginnings now haunts me with endings. It blurs before my swollen eyes, but I see it clearly in my mind - a little flutter, the beating of a life that had flickered long enough to plant hope before vanishing into absence.
Even here, amid the suffocating dimness of the room and the remoteness of a mind weighed down by grief, I hear echoes that aren't there. A child's giggle, the rhythmic hum of a Doppler's pulse radiating from my belly, and the quiet sobs of joy that spilled over our cheeks as I gripped my partner's hand; our shared anticipation of a life about to change forever.
We were going to be parents. We were going to be whole. And now... we weren't.