On my knees

Megan had never known a silence so loud.. The house felt hollow without the sound of his keys jingling in the door at 5:47 p.m., like clockwork.

No soft hum of him whistling while he kicked off his shoes, or the clink of a spoon in his teacup.

Just stillness, pressing in on her like fog.

It had been three weeks since Tom died. Three surreal, bone-heavy weeks of casseroles she didn’t eat from Well wishing neighbours and condolences she barely heard, and a bed that felt too cold and stretched too wide.

The world had somehow kept spinning, washing piles and supermarket lines continuing as if her life hadn’t collapsed in on itself.

Their teenage kids, the twins Lily and Ben, floated in and out of rooms like shadows—grieving in their own quiet ways. Megan wanted to hold them, to pour comfort into their chests, but her arms felt too weak, her heart too shattered.

Grief was a thief. It stole his laughter from the walls and his scent from the sheets. It dulled the colors of everything they once shared—the garden he loved, the porch where they’d spent rainy afternoons talking about nothing.

She stood at the kitchen sink, staring out at the lawn Tom had mowed just days before the accident. The grass was growing wild now. She couldn’t bring herself to touch it. As if disturbing it might erase the last mark he left behind.

The kettle clicked off. Megan didn’t move. It was so unfair someone elses mistake and his life erased its so unfair they could walk away when he couldn’t He was only 42

People said all the wrong things. He’s in a better place. At least you had love. You’re strong. She didn’t feel strong. She felt like a ghost of herself, moving through a life that no longer fit like she was watching myself but had no control.

Then there was their children Lilly and ben, their babies, although they wasnt babies anymore, they were 18. They had a big party for them at home only days before the accident. kind of a double celebration lilly had got her university place and Ben had been accepted to an apprenticeship. life was just starting for them. It seemed impossible now without their dad.

Megan’s phone buzzed. A message from her brother, checking in. She stared at it for a long time before locking the screen. Words weren’t enough right now. Not when the only voice she wanted to hear was gone.

That night, after Lily had gone to bed and Ben had shut himself away with his headphones, Megan crawled into the cold side of the bed where Tom used to sleep.

She curled around his pillow, breathing in the faintest trace of him still left there and sobbed because this is when she could. This is when the world wasn’t watching and she didnt have to be strong for the twins.

The nights were the worst every well Wisher sending an evening text to Check in to make sure she’s ok!

But with every light up of the phone screen a chilling reminder of that phone call from a fragile sounding nurse contacting Toms next of kin to come quickly and say goodbye the crash was bad and he wouldn’t survive his injuries.

Her thoughts would spiral while lying there at night that leaky tap in the bathroom seemed somehow louder now he wasnt lying next to her and the little jobs he just never got round to seemed like tasks she could never face.

Tom was great at making promises to mend or fix all the little things now these little things were the things that made her so angry he had left them and then the guilt for being angry at him,

The anger was a welcome break from the emptiness and that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach when she thought about the accident which was almost always the only thing on her mind.

Even now it felt like she was living somebody elses nightmare. One moment they were laughing about a clogged sink, and the next, a phone call. Wet road. A curve. The kind of thing you read in other people’s tragedies.

It happened on an ordinary night, Megan wasn’t expecting Tom early he had plans to pop in for a collegues leaving meal. He wasnt a drinker so decided to drive that night and his plans to meet with the lads the next morning to watch his team play he was saving himself for that.

one of those evenings that held no warning, no weight, just quiet plans and the promise of coming home a little later than usual.

Tom had been driving back, the road mostly empty, the kind of dark stillness that felt safe. He didnt call he figured Megan would be long asleep by the time he was making his way home. She never slept well without him next to her.

But then came the call. The one that shattered everything.

The drunk driver ran a red light at full speed, his car slamming into Tom’s with such force it spun him across the intersection.

Witnesses said it looked like something out of a film—metal crumpling, glass exploding, the horrible silence that follows a scream.

Tom didnt die at the scene, after a long harrowing rescue mission he was air lifted to hospital and later died with Megan and his children by his side.

The other driver—barely scratched—stumbled from his vehicle reeking of alcohol, bloodshot eyes unfocused, slurring his protests as if the world owed him something.

He walked away under flashing lights and sirens, wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by police. Megan would later learn he had prior offenses. Slaps on the wrist. A history of recklessness that no one had stopped in time.

There was no comfort in his arrest with the promise of jail time. No justice in the fact that the man who took his life lived to tell the story.

nothing could undo it. No sentence would bring Tom back. What remained was the cruel, senseless truth: a good man was gone, stolen in a moment by someone who made a choice—a selfish, irreversible choice.

A choice Tom would have never made and walked away from the wreckage and a family torn apart he left behind.

The clock on the bedside table read 2.36am and Megan hadn’t closed her eyes all night. She lay in bed in the quiet darkness hoping the twins had managed to rest better than her.

Her chest ached in that dull, familiar way that grief had carved into her. Not sharp now, not like it had been those first awful days, but deep like a bruise that would never fully heal.

she longed for sleep, maybe hoping that she wouldn’t wake up. She didnt want to die just sleep because it was the only peace she got from this nightmare she was living but she knew if she slept tonight the morning would be here too soon a morning she never wanted because tomorrow was the funeral