An empty water bottle sat on the bedside table, with a pill container and two cardboard packs of what appeared to be more pain relief. All the blister trays had been popped open, the tablets gone. When I realised what he’d done for her, how he’d freed her so she could move on and make a better life for herself, I rubbed a hand down my face and felt my chest tighten with emotion.
He knew her routine better than anyone. He would have set his plan in motion the minute she left to make sure there was no chance of saving him when she got back. I never had the opportunity to speak to him. All I knew about him was his name, but I understood him—how he operated and why he’d done what he did for Liv.
It said everything I needed to know about the character of the man himself… and the woman he’d given the limited amount of life he had left to save.
Four
Liv
I scanned Haruto’s face from my seated position on the side of the bed and choked back another sob. My heart felt like it was breaking into tiny pieces and my breathing sounded strange. Too fast, too loud. The room was too quiet. Cruz stood beside me, but I had no idea what to say to him.
I checked the codeine packets and found them empty. Haruto had left nothing in the bottle of stronger pain meds either. He’d overdosed alone, and I wasn’t sure how to handle the burden of knowing he’d ended his life to set me free. I didn’tfeelfree. I felt heavy, guilty, lost. I should have been here with him to hold his hand while he took his last breaths, not outside getting butterflies in my stomach over a man.
“This isn’t right,” I said, hearing the hoarseness in my voice. “It isn’t fair.”
“No, it’s not.”
Cruz didn’t touch me or offer words of reassurance, and I appreciated his restraint. Nobody could have made me feel better about losing someone in this way, and I didn’t want to hear him fumbling around trying to find the right words. We were still strangers, the two of us, regardless of how quickly he'd grown on me.
I looked up and appealed to him to understand my position. There was nothing anchoring me to one place anymore, but the reason for that had tears flooding my eyes again. “I can’t leave today,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t see this as an opportunity to move on faster. We hadn't even talked about where he wanted to go yet, and I still needed to tell him about Bridgehull. “I wouldn’t be safe to travel with while I'm feeling this way. I need another night, maybe two, just to get used to the way things are now.”
Cruz rested his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. The gesture was comforting and platonic, but being touched by someone other than Haruto was so foreign to me that it had me jolting in surprise. I turned my head to hide my reaction.
“There’s no hurry,” he said as I took in Haruto’s relaxed features. When it hit me that his eyes would never open again, another wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm me. “Take as long as you need. In the meantime, I’ll keep heading out and scouting for supplies—if there’s something you don’t already have in your extensive arsenal.”
“Thanks.” I looked up at him through blurry eyes and smiled, appreciating his understanding.
He squeezed my shoulder again before taking his hand away. “How do you feel about me staying here until we leave? I'll sleep on the couch.”
“Oh.” I blinked and took in his dark brown eyes, his strong, stubbled jaw, and the scar that travelled across the top of his eyebrow. He looked like a good man, and I had a feeling the surface decency I’d seen over the past week went bone deep. Although I was alone in my home with a stranger now, I trusted the instincts that had kept me safe all this time. “Why would you want to stay here?”
“Safety. Company.”
“I’m safe, and I’m fine being alone for one or two nights.”
“I wasn’t talking about you.”
A huff of laughter broke free, and I hadn’t expected to feel any kind of humour for a while. I met his eyes and smiled. “Yes, you can stay here. The company would be nice.”
“Gracias.”
I turned my head to look at Haruto again, rubbing the tears from my cheeks as I gazed down at him.
He'd kept me focused when everything around us had turned to chaos. He'd entertained me, shared his wisdom and knowledge, given me the confidence I needed to handle the outside world on my own—and he’d hung in there for as long as he could for my sake, then left me when he knew it was time.
I loved him. I missed him. My life would never be the same again.
“If we’re staying here...” Cruz said, his voice sounding careful in the quiet. “I’ll need to move your friend to another apartment.”
I shot up from the bed in surprise, sickened at the idea of moving a body, especiallyhisbody. Haruto had lived with me. I wanted him to stay here in his bed where he belonged. “Why? I can just shut the door.”
“I’m not going into detail about what happens to a body after death, especially if we’re hanging around for a few more days, but trust me, Liv. I’ll move him, you can say goodbye to him, and we’ll come back here together. Where’s his old apartment? On this floor?”
His take-charge tone should have raised my hackles, but the softness in his eyes made me want to believe he only had my best interests at heart. “Next door. His wife died before he moved in with me, so we left her in their bed.”
“Even better. We’ll lay him next to her so they can be together again.”
Oh, God. The idea of reuniting the two of them had tears springing to my eyes. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Haruto would have loved being laid to rest with Yoshino, but he’d never mentioned it because we hadn’t discussed his impending death. I pressed my lips together to get the emotion under control. When I thought I could speak again without hearing my voice wobble, I said, “She’d been dead for a long time.”
