How do people manage to say 'thank you' to someone who raised them? Like those two words would be able to sum up everything that person did for you.
I couldn't. I couldn't speak around the lump in my throat that was pushing me to do or say something to deny the existence of what was happening around me.
Because it couldn't be true. It could not be true that Bobby was-it could not be true that he was dying right in front of me and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Sam was speechless; was standing beside me fighting a useless battle against the waterworks that called to me. How could I stand there and watch him die? How could Bobby friggin' Singer be dying?
Not possible.
No way.
Zilch.
I guess the reality came when the doctor called his time of death. Or at least tried to before I inserted myself in that pristine white room that nauseated me, and took over CPR myself. No one knew him like we did. No one knew the strength and courage this dude had. No one knew anything about him. That was why my hands worked like a friggin' machine as I pumped air into his lifeless body.
I didn't stop. Not even when I felt Sam's calloused hand on my shoulder, reeling me back.
Bobby could not be dead; no way. There was no way one bullet managed to do what thousands of demons and spirits could not. There was no possible explanation for him succumbing to these injuries when we all knew how tough he was.
Yet somehow, he was gone. Even through the grief that racked my mind after turning and striding out of the hospital as fast as I could, I could not escape from the stinging ache of loss I only felt when Dad died. This was like that. The burning sensation in the back of my eyes, my shaking hands that let go of the car keys. This was everything I thought would happen, but everything I did not think would happen.
If there was one word I could say around the baseball-sized lump in my throat to the man who sacrificed everything to raise us, it would be simple like he would have wanted. Bobby was never one to make a fuss about anything, and that included "his boys" as I heard him call Sammy and me more times than I can count.
"Thank you."