4815.

It's the last place that our lips met, the last place that I heard you utter the words 'I love you.'

The last place that I would ever have the opportunity to say it back, and I didn't take it. I thought I had all the time in the world.

I thought that we had all the time in the world.

I look in the room, and there's a young black male lying in the bed, and I have to do a double take, because I think I see you for a moment, and my heart wrenches within me.

There's a little girl on the floor, coloring and laughing, and a woman sitting on the bed with my patient, her fingers tracing over his face lovingly, they're wrapped up in each other.

Nausea finds me again, but I don't worry about vomiting.

I'm truly empty at this point.

I take in a deep breath and try to enter the room, but my feet feel like lead, and I cannot move them, only stare into the room at the happy family whose lives could be as easily shattered as ours was.

All too soon.

At least they had a chance. At least they have a child, and they had a wedding, and they had their honeymoon.

They got a chance.

We never got a chance.

I have to remind myself all too often now that life is not fair, and I can't help but think that somewhere along the way I made a decision that caused all of this.

That caused you to leave me too soon.

That took away our chance at domesticity.

At happiness.

I hate you for making me long for such things, and I hate you for making me feel weak, and empty, and lonely, and apathetic.

I hate you for making me care.

And I miss you.

And I need you.

And I'll never have you again.

And now, I find myself staring at the numbers 4815 and I can't go in there. I can't go in that room, because you're not there. I can't go in that room, because that is the last place that I could've told you that I loved you, the last place that I could've told you that I couldn't live without you, and maybe you would've remembered those words as you took your last breaths, and fought harder.

Damn you, Burke.

I try to move my feet again, and they still won't go and I decide it isn't my feet that don't feel like lead, it's the weight of the ring that you left for me that holds me back.

It's the weight of your love that I couldn't return that keeps me frozen, keeps me from moving forward.

And I can't give it back to you, and you can't take it back.

Damn you.