Chapter 65. Intense Feeling Of Grief

Chapter 65: Chapter 65. Intense Feeling Of Grief

Chapter 65. Intense Feeling Of Grief

A broken gasp escaped her lips before she could stop it. Her face squeezed with confusion, and the throbbing in her chest was intense, powerful—overwhelming, even. She found herself staggering out of the room, leaning against the wall close by and pressing her hand instantly against her heart to calm the emotion that was wrecking her from the inside out.

Goodness me, what the hell is this? she thought with a panicked breath, feeling intensely terrified by what she was experiencing.

She couldn’t understand it. The tears wouldn’t stop, yet the sound echoing through the building kept calling to her. She looked ahead down the long corridor, staring at the studio door midway across the hall. Pushing herself away from the wall, she breathed out and moved toward it as quickly as her shaking legs could carry her.

It didn’t take long to reach it. She stopped by the entrance, panting hard. The door was slightly open. Her eyelids fluttered as she staggered again, placing a palm against the wall for support. She felt so weak.

A sudden, intense need to tell whoever was playing the music to stop completely overwhelmed her. She peeked through the narrow gap, chest heaving, her eyelids fluttering as she watched inside.

There was Don. He was seated by the piano, his fingers trailing through the keys and his head bent to the side. The expression on his face revealed a storm of conflicted emotions—sadness and happiness intertwined.

Her lips hung open and her eyes remained wide, fixed on him. She stopped thinking. A sudden déjà vu hit her. A flash of something she had never seen before in her life—something that resembled a memory—blinked behind her eyelids like a strike of lightning.

What the hell is that?

A powerful wave of recognition struck her straight in the chest like a piercing arrow. She was left completely lost for words. The heavy, intense feeling in her chest grew stronger than ever.

She opened her mouth, struggling to battle the tears that soaked her eyes. The urge to step inside, to interrupt him, to confront him—anything just to stop this indescribable emotion she couldn’t contain—hit her hard, sharp and square in the chest. It felt as though her heart was expanding, filling up to the point of bursting.

Pushing the door open slowly, she stood between the open door and the frame, breathing heavily.

It was impossible to fight. She couldn’t help it.

Goodness, Lord, she thought to herself, her face drenched. What the hell is the meaning of this?

Don did not notice her. The music was louder now, flooding the entire studio. His fingers kept moving over the keys, his hum growing louder, rhyming harmonically with the tune that flowed from the instrument. He smiled, angling his head and swaying side to side to the slow melody.

She began to pant heavily, like she had just run a marathon, and clenched her fists tightly together.

What the hell?

Her lungs felt constricted.

That visual flashed back into her mind again. She saw a blurry vortex, a vision of herself smiling, and Don leaning over her with an emotional look in his eyes as he stared down at her, his arms wrapped around her waist.

"I never thought this moment was ever going to come," she heard herself say within the vision.

Don smiled, leaning closer to plant a soft, lingering kiss against her cheek. He chuckled softly.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he asked.

She bit her bottom lip. "I don’t know. What do you have in mind? What’s your suggestion?"

The image then swirled like a vascular mix of colors, spinning until it gave way to a second vision—this one even more intense, more deeply engraved.

"I can’t," Don said, his voice sounding conflicted, tears dripping down his face.

Rosa’s eyes were pooling with tears as she stared back at him. " Isn’t there another way to do this?"

Don held her, his hands planted on either side of her face. "There is no other way. I can’t. I can’t even think about it."

" So this is not the first time this is happening?" Rosa in the vision murmured.

Don frowned, looking down. " I’m so sorry," he said, his voice breaking. "I thought I could actually change things this time. I thought I could make things better. I really did try my best, but it just seems to keep getting worse every damn time. I can’t let you go. I can’t live without you. I can’t just keep up with this torture."

She saw herself gripping his hand tightly. " Then why don’t you just stop fighting?" she heard herself say. "If this is how it’s supposed to be, then let it keep on being like this. We don’t have to keep fighting for what is totally inevitable."

She placed her palms on either side of his face.

"I don’t care what happens," she whispered. "If it happens again, I really want to be with you no matter what. No matter the consequences."

The image in her vision carried a compounding, constricting emotion that made her hands and legs go completely limp. She kept struggling to breathe, her breath hitching wildly, but the tears wouldn’t stop.

What the hell am I looking at right now?

An intense, heavy feeling of grief overwhelmed her completely. Her vision blurred for a fraction of a second as she lost her footing. Staggering back, her back crashed against the doorframe, her legs far too weak to hold her weight.

Don was still preoccupied, overwhelmed by the emotion of the tune he was playing, humming even louder. The music seemed to make everything so much worse.

She felt her consciousness slowly drifting away, knocked out by the sheer intensity of the grief. Her eyelids fluttered, and she crashed to the ground with a hard, sudden force. Her body tilted to the side and hit against the door, forcing it to jerk and swing wider open before she landed flat on her side, panting hard for air.

Her air supply suddenly cut off entirely under the weight of the emotion.

Don, who had been playing, stopped abruptly. He turned his head quickly toward the sound. When he saw her lying by the doorway, his eyes widened in shock.

"Rosa!" he called out.

He stumbled away from the bench so fast it clattered and fell to the floor. Rushing over to her side, he dropped to his knees and cradled her in his arms, frantically examining her face.

"What the fuck!" he gasped.