Chapter One

Where do you think people go after they die?

Do you think they still remember the ones who cared most for them before their passing? Or is the whole memory gone, one-sided, clinging only to the person left behind?

Hi. I’m Gabriella Carlos, and I’ll admit that I’ve loved and cherished more dead people than I ever might the living.

I’m a nurse.

Not just the kind who checks vitals and changes IV bags—though that’s part of it, too.

I’m the one who stays behind after families have gone home, who holds the hands of those too weak to speak, who listens to the stories no one else has time to hear.

I work in palliative care. It’s not glamorous. It’s not even always hopeful. But it’s honest.

People think death is an ending. But sometimes, I think it’s more like a mirror. It reflects everything back at us, our regrets, our triumphs, and our unanswered questions.

In those final moments, people often speak with a clarity that life never gave them the chance to.

And that’s where I come in.

I’m not a hero. I don’t wear a stethoscope like a badge of honour. I sit. I hold hands. I listen. I carry words that will never be repeated. I memorize faces so loved that they don’t need makeup to be beautiful.

I wipe tears—sometimes theirs, sometimes mine. I am a witness to the rawest goodbye life has to offer.

Some call it depressing. Morbid, even. I call it a privilege.

Although I won’t lie to you, there are nights when that privilege feels more like a curse.

Like when I wake up at 3 a.m., heart racing, remembering the look in a son’s eyes when his father stopped breathing mid-sentence. Or when I smell lavender, and suddenly I’m back in Room 214, watching a woman whisper apologies to a husband she hadn’t touched in years.

There are days I go home feeling hollow, like someone scooped the empathy out of me with a spoon and left only the skin.

My paycheck doesn’t reflect the weight I carry. No bonus for emotional labour. No hazard pay for breaking quietly in the bathroom between patients

. And sometimes I wonder—how much is a soul's worth if mine keeps splintering bit by bit in the service of others?

But then, there are moments.

Beautiful, fleeting moments.

A woman in her nineties gripping my hand and saying, “Thank you for making me feel human again.” A teenager telling me, “You’re the first adult who didn’t lie to me about dying.” A man mouthing “Tell her I forgive her” before the machines go quiet.

These are not just stories. These are lives. And I get to stand at the edge of them—not as a nurse, but as a witness. A keeper of final truths.

But now, I don’t think it’s worth it. I barely have time for myself. Whatever pieces of my personal life I had left behind somewhere between late-night charting and early-morning grief calls.

No love life. No sex life. There is no space for softness.

The last time I had any kind of “action” was with a patient. I know how that sounds.

Wrong. Unprofessional. Messy.

And it was all of those things.

But it was also more human than anything I’d felt in years.

His name was Marcus.

Testicular cancer. It had spread before they caught it, and he’d already gone through a failed transplant, two rounds of chemo, and a clinical trial by the time he got to us.

He wasn’t supposed to be there long.

Six weeks, maybe seven.

But then we started talking.

First, just the usual nurse-patient chatter, pain scale, sleep, and appetite.

Then music. Then books. Then, the stories he never told his family because he didn’t want them to cry.

He didn’t make me feel like a nurse.

He made me feel like a woman.

It was subtle, slow. I didn’t even realize I was falling until it was too late.

It was something real.

And it wrecked me.

He died during a shift change.

I wasn’t in the room.

I wasn’t even on the floor.

They said he went peacefully in his sleep.

But I’d promised him I’d be there. He’d made me promise.

I found out in the hallway that someone had handed me his chart like it was just another update.

I didn’t cry that day

.

Not until I got home.

And then I couldn’t stop.

I took one of the pills a coworker gave me weeks earlier. Said it helped her sleep through the grief.

I took two the next night.

Three nights after that.

Soon, I stopped counting.

I wasn’t trying to get high. I just wanted the quiet.

To shut off the rerun of his voice in my head.

To stop feeling like I’d failed him.

To stop seeing the empty bed every time I closed my eyes.

People say grief comes in waves.

But for me, it was a flood that never receded.

I started showing up late.

Forgot patient names.

Skipped lunch breaks just to cry in the stairwell.

I lied to my supervisor. Said I was fine.

Used makeup to hide the shadows under my eyes.

Used coffee to fake energy.

Used silence to hide the scream stuck in my chest.

And I still kept showing up.

Because when you’re in this line of work, you don’t get the luxury of breaking down.

You just keep patching the cracks with guilt, caffeine, and borrowed resilience.

I don’t believe in hope.

Yes, I know how that sounds. I know what people expect from a nurse. Compassion. Light. Optimism, even. But hope… real, clinging, desperate hope—has always ended in the same place, with a flatline and a family that breaks in front of you.

And sometimes, when I look back, I wonder if I was part of the curse. If there’s something about me that carries the darkness closer.

They say everybody dies, but no one ever really expects to. That’s the cruel joke, isn’t it? We all know it’s coming, but we live like we’re invincible.

We make plans, chase dreams, and say “see you tomorrow” like it’s a promise carved in stone.

I think that’s crazy.

Because when the end comes—and it always does—they grip my scrubs with trembling fingers, eyes wide with disbelief, and whisper that they’re not ready.

That they don’t want to die. As if I have the power to stop it

As if my presence somehow grants them immunity.

But I don’t. And it doesn’t.

I’m not a miracle. I’m not a saviour. I’m not special.

I’m just like them, fragile, scared, uncertain. I’m just like you.

I used to believe in peace. Now, I just want silence.

So here I am, sitting in the silence of my apartment, the only light coming from my laptop screen.

The shadows in the room feel heavier tonight.

Maybe it’s the ghosts—the ones who never wanted to leave, whose last words still echo in my ears like unfinished symphonies.

And I’m writing my resignation letter.

I’ve thought long and hard about this. My job doesn’t let me live. It swallows the parts of me I used to recognize, my laughter, my light, my belief that life was beautiful, even when it was hard.

I’ve given everything I have to this work. My time, my heart, my sanity. And for a while, that felt noble. But now? Now, it just feels like a loss.

So maybe it’s time. Not to run away—but to breathe again.

To heal. To remember what it feels like to want to live.

Because maybe that’s what I owe myself. Not heroism, but a chance at something lighter. A life

where I’m not just surrounded by endings.

A life where I begin again.

I folded the letter carefully, pressing the crease with my thumb as if sealing in all the quiet confessions it held. I slipped it into an envelope and placed it inside my bag.

I wouldn’t drop it in today. But I will. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next.

I watched the morning light stretch across the floor. It didn’t ask for anything. It didn’t try to comfort me. It just existed. Calm, indifferent, untouched by the weight I carried.

For the first time in years, I called in sick.

And I didn’t lie about it.