Let Her Go

Prologue

After the service she found him in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. His dark blonde hair was a wild tangle, his shirtsleeves rolled haphazardly to his elbows, his tie long-gone. He looked like a wreck, but the real mess was inside him, burning just behind his breastbone.

She knew because she felt it there too.

"Hey," she said, easing the door closed behind her. His room was dark, the curtains drawn against the sun that had beat down on them tirelessly during the funeral. They'd all suffered in their black clothing, but grief had a way of dulling discomfort.

Jude didn't answer, but she hadn't expected him to.

Swallowing the lump in her throat and pushing down the apprehension that had hounded her ever since she'd gotten the devastating phone call four days earlier, she sat beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. "Jude?"

"She's gone, Harlow." His voice was hoarse, and when he dropped his hands and turned to look at her his eyes were bloodshot and bruised with exhaustion. "She's really gone."

"I know." What else could she say? They'd all been expecting this for the past year. They'd prayed and hoped and in the end it had done them no good. Brinn Beckett, beloved wife and mother, had passed away in her sleep at 4am on Friday morning at St Charles Hospital. And all that remained of her was a wardrobe full of clothes, a shelf full of books, a pristine white headstone catching the sunlight, and a broken-hearted family.

Harlow brushed Jude's hair from his face, usually sun-kissed and now so pale, combing through the curls with her fingers. "You haven't slept, have you?" So tentative. She'd been walking on eggshells around him for the past two months, terrified of pushing him further away when they'd only just gotten so close.

"How can I?" He sounded angry, and she could hardly blame him. It must have been frustrating having people show up at this great big house at all hours of the day to deliver food and care packages and empty consolations, fussing over him and his sister and their father when all they wanted was privacy, to grieve in peace until they were ready to step out again.

"Have you started the medication the doctor prescribed?" One look at his expression gave her the answer. "Jude-"

"They make me fuzzy. I can't concentrate. I can't think."

She didn't say that maybe it was for the best. That thinking would drive him mad. That a few days of rest might do him some good. Even though they both knew that the medication could bring him some relief, he wouldn't want to hear any of that.

"Will you stay with me?" he asked, and he sounded so vulnerable, so lost, that she couldn't have said no, even if she'd wanted to. "Just...just to rest."

"Of course, Jude. Of course I'll stay." The tears clogged her throat and rose up in her eyes as she stood to pull the covers back. She helped him out of his clothes and then she kicked off her black pumps, pulling her dress over her head and laying it over the back of his desk chair.

Then she slipped under the covers with him, skin to skin, pressing as close as she could, as though her body heat could ease his pain. Her lips brushed against his cheek, his shoulder, his chest - a trail of feather-light kisses against burning skin. He pulled her close, buried his face in her hair to inhale the scent of vanilla and coconut and salt tears, and she sensed that he was using it as a lifeline, using her as a lifeline, an anchor to keep him in place.

When her tears finally spilled over he brushed them away with his thumb, but he was crying as well - too many tears for her to catch - and for the rest of the night they lay in silence, helpless and hopeless, drawing what comfort they could from one another.

But the apprehension closed in on her again and she knew deep down that she couldn't save him.