Page 143 of Dirty Rock

“I’m Rhett.”

“I know who you are,” she croaked. “Where’s Julia?”

“She’s downstairs. You threatened to hurt yourself, Sarah, and your sister couldn’t handle seeing that if you’d gone through with it.”

“She knows I wouldn’t.”

“Does she?”

“I wouldn’t…”

“Ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?” A tear fell from Sarah’s eye, and it ran down her nose, but she never moved to wipe it away. “Of course you have. We all know how that story ends. The day she doesn’t come running to save you, that’s the day you’re going to do something you can never take back. You mean everything to her. She’ll always come running to you.”

Sarah’s eyes creased together, and I couldn’t tell if she was angered or sad.

I pushed my hand in farther, the tips of my fingers catching the edge of hers.

“Let me help you.”

“You can’t. No one can.” She squeezed her cushion tighter to her chest, and more tears fell.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“What do you care?” she croaked. “What do you know about grieving for someone you’ve never met.”

I swallowed the sharp lump in my throat. “I know a bit.”

“What do you know about grief for ababy?A baby I never got to hold while it cried. A baby whose breath I never felt.” Her quiet voice broke. “A baby who never got to look into my eyes and hear me say that I loved it.”

“I don’t know about any of that,” I admitted tightly. “I don’t have the words to comfort you, Sarah. I don’t even have a suitable song to sing to take away your pain for a few minutes. I have no answers. Neither does Julia. Anything we say will seem like a pathetic attempt to make you forget. But do you know what we do have?”

“What?” she whispered.

“Breath in our lungs.”

Sarah looked up at me as she pushed the wet strands of hair out of her eyes. Her brows were knitted together.

“It’s totally fucking shit that some people don’t make it. It’s totally fucking shit that there’s a god out there who could take a child from you. It’s totally fucking shit, Sarah, that you’re going to spend the rest of your life grieving for someone you didn’t know.” I rocked forward on my boots and pressed my head against the oak bars. “It’s fucked up. All of it. Life can be the worst thing we endure, but we have to do that—endure it. It’s a gift, and we can’t throw it away.”

She swallowed again, and I saw the grip on her cushion loosen as she stared at me.

“Your life doesn’t end because someone else’s has. It feels like it should, and man, that guilt that you’re living and they’re not grabs hold of you, and it fucks you the hell up. But that heart that’s beating frantically right now is yours, Sarah. Yours. Your baby listened to that every day. That’s all she heard. The beat, beat, beat and her mama’s voice.” I smiled sadly, holding her gaze. “You owe it to her to keep her favourite song alive for a very long time.”

She looked straight into my eyes for what felt like a lifetime before her face crumpled, and the tears started all over again.

Real tears this time.

Tears she’d no doubt been trying to shed but had struggled to because her grief had turned her whole body numb.

She was feeling now, and I knew more than anyone that once you were feeling something—anything—no matter how painful, how raw, and how terrifying… it was better than feeling nothing at all.

With emotion, came hope, and it flooded me as I took her hand through the bars, and I squeezed my eyes shut tight while I let her cry.

A few moments later, I heard the creaking of a floor panel behind me. With a glance over my shoulder, I saw Julia there with her hand pressed to her mouth as she lost herself to her tears, too.

“You okay?” I mouthed to her.

She shook her head in answer.

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