One Last Breath
by Katie

Authors Note: I have decided to add a third installment to this fic before starting Together Again. The third installment will be bringing them together, from about 10 years from now.
BTW: This is about Katie and how she dealt with the breakup…

PART 2

It had been a year since Katie left Oxford. Katie didn't want to leave Oxford and she especially didn't want to get out of England because it was her life long dream of living in London, but she couldn't take not living her dream without Jessie. She reminisced about the day she and Jessie had cut class and went to Jessie's house. God she loved that day. She swore that if Lily hadn't come in, she would have kissed Jessie right then and there. But she had done enough dwelling on the past. It was time to try to move on, as much as it hurt to try.

Katie was now back in the US. She had a really hard time trying to explain to her parents that she wanted to transfer back to the states after only a few months. Mr. and Mrs. Singer had a very hard time letting their only daughter pull away from her dream like that, but they also knew how much Katie loved Jessie and how hard it would have been to stay, but none the less, the still tried to convince her to stay. Katie changed her major from business and economics to education and art. She decided that she wanted to help others, especially children, plus she loved to draw and paint. Her parents warned her about the switch, especially mid semester, but Katie didn't really care what they thought. It was her future, her life she had to worry about. Besides, Katie's grandmother had started up quite a lengthy sum of money for her college education, plus she had a full ride. She was now in her third year of college but only her second in her new field of study. Katie was attending Eastern Michigan University, one of the best schools for teachers in the country. Her adjustment to living without Jessie had been hard. A lot harder than she had ever imagined.

SIX YEARS LATER…
Katie finally graduated with a master's degree from Eastern in secondary education and art. The road was a hard one, filled with bumps and rockiness, but with her constant persistence, Katie had finished the job well.

By now, 2013, Katie decided to settle down when she was offered a teaching job Boston. Katie had had a lot of girlfriends since Jessie, but none of them ever really meant anything to her. She never wanted to admit it, especially to Tad, but Jessie was the last and only girl Katie would ever truly love. Despite this, she married Amy Bradford in the fall of 2014. Amy was a photographer and owned a photo business. She was about 5'9", brown wavy hair, green eyes, and was an amazing woman. Amy was everything Katie needed: smart, sexy as all hell, nice, compassionate, and athletic. With the help of technology, they had a baby girl the following year. They named her
Riley Michelle Singer. Katie never thought she had the strength to have a baby, but with Amy's help, it became possible. As storybook as Katie and Amy's life and relationship seemed, it was pretty rocky. Katie could never deal with losing Jessie. She had never fully gotten over her. Katie wanted to make her relationship with Amy work and tried to bury all of her feelings towards Jessie away, but in time, all of those emotions came bursting out…

"Kat, please tell me what's wrong. I'm your wife, you can tell me anything." Amy said sitting down next to Katie on their bed while holding little Riley in her arms.

"You…wouldn't...understand." Katie had slow tears forming along the sides of her face.

"What wouldn't I understand Katie? Please, don't shut me out like this."

"Fine, I'll tell you," Katie began. "Do you know what I went through after I lost Jessie?"

"You went to Eastern then came here, I know this."

"Well, I did do those things, but I was about to do something before I left London. When Jessie left, I was devastated; I didn't know what to do. After I tried to calm myself down and collect myself, I packed up all of my things and headed for the headmaster's office and then the airport. After I went to the office and told them I needed to leave Oxford and settled everything out I called the airport. The next flight from London to Chicago/O'Hare wasn't for four hours, meaning I had two hours until the shuttle bus would come pick me up. So I went up stairs to the top of the Administrative Building. I just sat there, crying my eyes out. Then I eased my way closer to the edge until I was standing right there, one small step and I would be plunging seven stories down to a painful death. When I was standing there, tears pouring out of my eyes, an old song popped into my head, and it really hit home. It was Creed's "One last breath." While standing there, I just started singing the words.

`Please come now I think I'm falling
I'm holding on to all I think is safe
It seems I found the road to nowhere
And I'm trying to escape
I yelled back when I heard thunder
But I'm down to one last breath
And with it let me say
Let me say

Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
That maybe six feet
Ain't so far down

I'm looking down now that it's over
Reflecting on all of my mistakes
I thought I found the road to somewhere
Somewhere in His grace
I cried out heaven save me
But I'm down to one last breath
And with it let me say
Let me say

Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
That maybe six feet
Ain't so far down

Sad eyes follow me
But I still believe there's something left for me
So please come stay with me
Cause I still believe there's something left for you and me
For you and me
For you and me

Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking

Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
That maybe six feet
Ain't so far down

Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
That maybe six feet
Ain't so far down

Please come now I think I'm falling
I'm holding on to all I think is safe'

By now, Katie's eyes were getting all puffy from crying so hard and her throat was getting dry, but she still continued.

"And after I finished, I was THIS close to jumping, when an arm pulled onto my shoulder and yanked me back down. It was Father Michael, the school's priest. I had never really believed in religion, let alone God, but he took me in his arms and started saying all of these different bible verses to me. And from then on, I have always gone to church, because without Father Michael, I wouldn't be here right now. Even though I was in Michigan, we wrote letters back and forth and he helped me a lot in finding God and my way back to myself."

"Oh Katie, I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that. Jessie's out of your life now, and you just have to move on." Amy turned and gave Katie a hug and just held her for a while.

When Katie heard that last part, she quickly pushed herself away from Amy.

"Don't ever say that! I never thought I would try to end my life, but it was an experience that I really needed. Jessie will always be a part of my life, no matter what. I loved her so much."

"If she loved you so much, then why did she leave you? You have to get that through your head Katie! I love you, but you need to get over her and move on with your life."

"Well, I can't. I'm sorry. If you can't deal with it, then we're through. Jessie is a part of me that will never go away. Sometimes I wish she weren't because it's too hard to bear, but I know that somewhere deep inside of her soul, she still loves me, she was just afraid."

"If she loved you, she wouldn't have left without a clear explanation. God Katie, you need to pick her or me because I can't deal with you being with me and still thinking of her. That isn't how a marriage is supposed to work!"

"I love you Amy I really do but you can't make me choose. I have and will always love Jessie, that's just the way it is. You've given me no other choice, and I wish there was some way to work all of this out, especially since we have a child together, but I guess there's no other way."

And with that, Katie and Amy were through. Within the next three months, the both filed for divorce. There was however a battle between the two for guardianship. Both wanted full custody of Riley. Katie won in the end due to the fact that she was the sole provider and she was the one who gave birth to Riley. Amy was mad, but in the end she accepted it, she had no other choice. Katie and Riley packed their bags and moved to Buffalo in New York, where Katie had been offered to do something she had always wanted to do: paint for a living. She had done over a hundred paintings while she was still teaching and when she moved to New York, one of her neighbors
who was an art dealer, was in absolute awe of her work and asked her if she'd paint for his company.

Even though Katie was no longer married, her life was actually happy for once in her life. She had her beautiful daughter Riley, whom she adored more than anything and she got to paint. If only Jessie were with her…

A lot had happened to Jessie by 2015. She had graduated from Duke with a doctorate in medicine and was now practicing as a heart surgeon. Jessie went through a lot of soul searching, trying to find herself, the self without Katie. It wasn't easy, but she thought she finally got there. She met James at one of her friend's annual summer beach parties. He was nice, polite, and sweet as could be. James, or J Crew as his friends called him, was a little south of six feet, tan, handsome with light brown hair and hazel eyes. After they dated on and off for two years, James decided to pop the question. Jessie came to some kind of realization that she didn't love Katie anymore, I mean, it had been seven years since they'd talked, so it was time to move on. They were married on a beautiful fall afternoon and they bought a house in Durham, North Carolina, so Jessie could be near the hospital and James could be near his office. Karen was so happy that Jessie was finally getting married, but she could tell that Katie was still in her heart and on her mind. A year later in 2014, Jessie and James had a baby girl whom they named Madison Marie. Everything was going good when something very tragic happened. While James and a few of his lawyer colleagues were on a business trip, their car was hit head on by a semi truck. James was in the passenger seat and died instantly. Jessie was devastated; she didn't know what to do. She had a hard enough time dealing with losing Katie, but at least she was still alive. James was her husband and the father of her amazing daughter Maddy. Jessie was just getting over losing her husband when she was offered the head surgeon position at one of the major hospitals in New York. After a lot of thinking, Jessie finally agreed to take the job, even though it involved her and Maddy to move all the way from North Carolina to Buffalo, New York.

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