Gemma, Sarah, and I are in the living room, sipping tea. Apparently, Dom just collapsed onto the street, right into incoming traffic. My guess is he was too exhausted to stay up on his feet. I’d always worried about him not getting many hours of sleep.

Sarah feels the need to fill the silence, because she is a doctor and because she was there during his last hour.

“He didn’t feel it.” She puts the mug to her lips, letting the steam create a condensation mustache above her lip. “Any of it. He suffered from a penetration injury. The impact forced a part of his skull into his brain. He was very much out of it. Didn’t know what was happening. I know it’s little comfort, but I thought you should know.”

“So why did it take hours? The surgery?” I ask.

She looks up at me, surprised that I’m talking to her. Her eyes drop to my engagement ring, and tears fill them again. I tuck my hand under my thigh, embarrassed.

She clears her throat. “He didn’t die immediately. They tried to stop the bleeding and to assess the damage of the ruptured brain tissue.”

“So even if he survived . . .” Gemma presses a mangled tissue to her nose. Some of it is stuck to her cheeks and lips, but no one says anything.

“Yes,” Sarah says gently, reaching to touch Gemma’s knee. “The recovery would have been extremely long, and although this is not my field of expertise, I would say the damage to his brain would have been substantial. He wouldn’t have been able to lead the life he’d had before.”

“Thank you . . . for explaining all this,” I say. Because in a way, it is a little comforting. To know Dom was spared the destiny of being in a long coma.

Gemma completely breaks and takes both our hands and says, “I’m so sorry, girls. I know how hard it must be for you to sit together in the same room. But can I just say, seeing how the two of you are dealing with this complex situation just shows me why Dom was struggling to make a choice.”

Sarah and I exchange horrified looks. I’m sure she doesn’t like being talked about like she is a pair of flattering jeans either. My acceptance of Sarah has nothing to do with my love for Dom and everything to do with the fact that she, personally, didn’t know of my existence and therefore didn’t do anything bad to me.

“This is fine,” Sarah says curtly. “It doesn’t matter. We all loved Dominic.”

Eventually, Joe gets out of Dom’s room and fills his parents in about all kinds of bureaucratic stuff. He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You should call someone. I’m not letting you out of here until I know there’s someone to take care of you.”