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A year. A full year had gone by. It had been three hundred and sixty five days since Robby had jumped off the roof.
Jack would never forget.
He remembered seeing Robby up there on the roof, on the other side of the railing. He remembered the pain in his voice. He remembered his stethoscope hanging on the handrail. He remembered the look in his eyes as he had looked at Jack one last time.
All encompassing hurt. Fear. Agony.
He didn’t want to remember the sound of his body hitting the ground.
The sound of his failure. He had failed Robby. He hadn’t been able to reach him. He hadn’t been able to keep him by his side. He hadn’t been able to get him back to safety.
Robby was dead and it was his fault. He had been there and he hadn’t managed to do a single thing right.
With his wife he had wondered. Could he have done something if he had been there? Could he have saved her? Could he have kept her alive?
With Robby he didn’t have to wonder. The answer never varied. It was always no. No, he had made no difference. No, he hadn’t been able to save him. No, he hadn’t been able to keep him alive.
He only vaguely remembered the after. The pain blooming in his knees as he had dropped to the ground. The scream that had never made any sound. The strands of hair in his hands. The deep, red gouges his nails had dug into his skin. The emptiness in his body. The hands on his shoulders that he hadn’t felt.
Catatonia.
Months spent in a haze. Self-induced. Medically induced.
Slowly emerging from the fog. Going back to work. Being unable to keep working at night. Switching to day shift. Without him.
He went to work. He saw patients. He treated them. He discharged them. He lost them. Robby never came back.
No one comes back from that kind of death.
Roof access was restricted hospital wide. Nearly no one could go up there now. Not that Jack truly wanted to go there.
The roof was an island far away. It was where his darkest hours lay. It was where his shame lived. It was where his guilt originated from.
He didn’t understand how he could still put one foot after the other every day. He didn’t understand how he could keep living when he no longer felt alive. He didn’t understand how life after Robby had any right to even exist.
His entire world no longer made any sense. How could it? When he had lost his person? When every day he woke up in an empty bed, alone and broken?
Robby's absence was everywhere. It was in the corners he never rounded anymore. It was in their apartment that no longer smelled like him. It was in his phone he never picked up anymore. It was in the jokes he no longer cracked. It was in his wedding ring that forever sat on his bedside table. It was in the indentation of the couch that never got filled anymore. It was in Jack's eyes that never saw him again. It was under Jack’s fingertips that never felt him anymore. It was in the air that Robby no longer breathed…
Sometimes Jack held his breath too. He held it until his lungs hurt and he gasped for oxygen.
The human body knew to fight for life. Jack didn’t understand how Robby’s body could have forgotten. He didn’t understand how Robby could have left him behind.
They had changed his antidepressants recently. He still felt empty. He still felt as lonely as ever. He still felt out of reach, as if a great divide stood between him and everyone else. But he guessed that, at least, he had gotten some of his energy back.
In fact, he had taken up jogging again. It was a way to clear his mind. A way to attempt to forget about all of this for a moment. It didn’t always work, but sometimes it did.
That morning, on the morning of the anniversary of Robby’s death, he went for a run. He got up, got dressed, ate something that tasted like cardboard, put on his long-distance running blade and went out.
He couldn’t stand being at home. He couldn’t stand seeing all of his things in a space that had always been supposed to be theirs, not just Jack's. It didn’t make any sense. Life without Robby didn’t make any sense.
He didn’t want a life without him, without his Robby, without his husband, without his person, without the other piece of his soul.
For the past year, he had tried. He had kept on living day after day. He had kept on waking up day after day. He had kept on putting one foot after the other day after day.
But he didn’t know that he still had it in him. He didn’t know that he ever had.
Frankly, he had no idea what he was doing. He had no idea why he was still alive when Robby wasn’t. But he knew his life wasn't worth living.
He had done it before. He had gone through the loss of a spouse. It had taken him everything he had to survive it, to build himself a new life. Everything.
When Robby had gone, there had been nothing left. Nothing.
He jogged up a slow incline and arrived at an intersection. The light at the crosswalk was red. The traffic heavy.
He looked straight ahead of him and kept running. One foot after the other. His blade hit the asphalt one last time.
It took less than a second for an incoming truck to send him flying.
The force of the impact knocked the wind out of him, crushed his bones, sent his organs into a fit.
Kinetic energy dragged his body across the road until at last all motions stopped.
He was quickly bleeding out. Life was running out of him faster than any EMT could ever catch up to.
He wouldn't run anymore. He wouldn't walk anymore. He wouldn't ever take another step. He was dying.
He looked up at the sky in his last moment of lucidity. Clouds were blocking out the sun. It felt fitting.
He had a thought for Dana.
I'm sorry. It was too hard.
He had another one for Robby.
I couldn’t keep going without you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me.
It was a selfish thought, but soon he would be with him. Wherever he was. And if there was nothing after all, at least the torture would cease.
Yes. He was ready. He closed his eyes and let his last tears roll down his cheeks.
Jack died exactly one year after Robby.
Dana quit PTMC one month later.
Many followed in her footsteps.
Nothing was ever the same.