No tears come out of my eyes. None.

I simply stare at the ceiling, counting all the little imperfections until my brain shuts off.

For the next few days, everything is a haze as I come in and out of consciousness. At some point, I realize they've decided to sedate me because I was a danger to myself.

I don't talk.

I don't speak to anyone.

I just stare at the ceiling, waiting for the next IV to be plugged in so I can burrow away into nothingness—so I can stop myself from feeling.

Yet even the sedative they give me cannot take that away.

Locked behind a wall of fog, I cannot form any conscious thought. But the pain is there. Oh, it's always there.

Yet I don't cry. Somehow, at one moment or another, I'd stopped being able to cry.

I think of Nikki—my sweet husband—and no tears come.

There's only this emptiness that becomes larger and larger with each passing moment—a void that threatens to swallow me whole. Oh, but I'd let it. In fact, I'm welcoming it.

Please swallow me. Please take me away from the meaninglessness of it all.

It doesn't.

It's simply there, torturing me, beckoning me, tricking me.

And I can do nothing but let it on the off chance that tomorrow might come and I won't open my eyes again—that I'll meet him again.

But that never happens.

It's at the end of the week when the nurses take the bandage off my head that I'm informed the police want to speak with me and take my statement.

For the first time since learning that the love of my life is no longer in this world, I feel a light jolt of awareness. He might be dead, but the person responsible for all of this is still out there, and according to Noelle, he's still alive.

"Officer," I nod at two men who enter my room.

"Mrs. Archibald. Thank you for agreeing to speak with us. I understand you're going to make a full recovery?"

"That is correct," I answer blankly. "I'd like to know what you're going to charge the man who crashed into us with," I say, cutting straight to the chase.

Both men frown.

"We're not going to charge him with anything."

"What do you mean?" My eyes widen as I shuffle into a sitting position.

"Ma'am, they didn't tell you?"

"What?" I frown.

"Your husband was the one who caused the accident."

"What?" I burst out in surprise. "No, that's not true. The truck was coming toward us and my husband tried to veer to the side to avoid it, but it still crashed into us."

"Ma'am." The policeman clears his throat. "Your husband's toxicological report came back positive for opioids. We know he was on drugs at the time of the accident. You don't have to hide it from us."

I stare at them, utterly befuddled.