Jude laughed and looked off. “I get it now. You love her.” He shook his head swiped a loose strand behind his ear. “Let me tell you something about love … love only leads to disappointment. Take my advice and run. Nothing good comes of it. Find yourself a couple cows, take the fanny, and shut off your feelings because love only ends in one way: excruciating pain.” He slid down the building until his arse hit the ground and retrieved another fag from his pocket. “It’s not worth it,” he added.
I should’ve seen it before. Dropping my hands over my hipbones, I glanced down at the bloke who unraveled before my eyes. “Why are you here, Jude?”
He smiled, took a drag between his fingers, and dropped his head back. “You wouldn’t understand,” he muttered as smoke seeped from between his lips.
“Try me.”
He glanced up and winced from the sun. “I fucked up,” he shrugged, flicking the ash between his bent knees, “pissed and coming back from a do, totaled the car, barely made it out alive. The worst part about it? I did make it out alive. I wished I didn’t. Wished I could trade places with her. I’d give up everything to bring her back, even my own life.”
“Fuck,” I exhaled and threaded my fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry, mate.”
Jude hung his head. “Sorry’s’ are for when people don’t have anything else to say but have a need to fill the awkward space. Rather you’d say nothing at all.”
“You’re right.”I almost felt bad for punching him.Almost. “You made a mistake. You’re paying your price. No reason to punish yourself more. God knows you’re going through hell. You think she’d like what you’re doing to yourself right now?”
“Fuck you. Don’t talk like you know her.”
I nodded and looked around. “I know she didn’t die so you could pound into some pussy, wallow in your sorrows, and treat girls like they’re property.”
He stood and pulled the fag from his lips. “Easy for you to say, yeah?”
“It is easy. Plain and fucking simple.”
“And if it were Mia?”
“I wouldn’t have been so goddamn stupid in the first place.”
“You’re a real charmer, you know that?” He blew out smoke and dropped his head back against the wall behind him. “We should’ve left it with ‘sorry.’”
I held up the note in my hand. “I’m keeping this.”
Jude waved his hand before bringing the fag back to his lips, and I turned to walk back inside. The chap was harmless. A complete and utter wreck, but harmless. This had been his way of dealing with the grief of his love’s death. A death he had caused.
A pit formed in my stomach at the thought of losing Mia because of something I’d done, and Jude’s grief rubbed off on me, growing this sickness inside me until it became unmanageable. Before reaching the doors back into Dolor, I posted up against the stone wall to catch my bearings from the dizzy spell taking over. I pinched my eyes together and drew in a deep breath, and counted to three. My emotional intensity was in full swing. The pills were officially out of my system.
Scott waited inside the building beside the doors. “And?” He asked as I walked by.
“Dead end.”
“Like I said,” Scott scoffed from behind as he walked down the hall behind me. “Where you headed?”
“I’m going to see Lynch.”
“Masters!” Scott called out.
I ignored him and continued my stride toward the stairs.
Scott yanked me by the arm and spun me around. “You think he’s going to sit back and ‘hear you out?’ Have you lost your bloody mind?”
“Get off me,” I cautioned, eyeing his hand on my bicep. Scott released me and I turned my attention down the hall. “I have nothing left to lose, and I’m not letting her spend another night in the hole for something she didn’t do.” I continued forward. My only goal was to get Mia out of there. Scott followed close behind, his loud boots against the floor reminded me with every step. “You don’t have to babysit, Scott. I believe I can make it to Lynch’s in one piece.”
“You need an escort,” he muttered behind me. “Plus, I wouldn’t miss this show for anything.”
I didn’t bother knocking and pushed through Lynch’s door. The lights in his office were dimmed, curtains closed, and the chap snapped from his desk, startled.
“Have a nice nap?” I asked, and dropped in the chair across from him.
Lynch sprung to his feet, his attention jumped from me to Scott with surprised brown eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”
