Page 91 of Yearning Difficulties

‘Jesus, Kill,’ Cherry said. ‘She’s shutting down—’

Killian didn’t wait to hear the rest. He scooped me up and my arms automatically locked around his neck. He carried me out of the small closet and up the stairs, to one of the unused upper bedrooms. He laid me gently on the double bed and turned on a small bedside lamp. He busied himself all around me, making the room quiet and calm while I tried to stop crying.

‘I need to get you some water. I’m going into the en-suite for one second,’ he told me, his lips against my forehead.

When he came back, I accepted the tap water from the tumbler he held to my lips. I drank long gulps in between rasping sobs. The kind that felt like hiccups. Cries that came without warning and without mercy.

He sat beside me on the bed, stroking my hair and feeding me the water. ‘My poor Red. Why didn’t you tell me?’

I don’t know. The words Dr Casey said we weren’t allowed to say. But it was the answer to so many questions. I didn’t know why I felt the things that I did, or did the things that I did.

‘Killian, she’s dead,’ I said. ‘I pretend that she isn’t but she is. And it breaks me. Each and every morning, when I remember.’

‘I know. Of course it does, baby. Just drink your water.’

He manoeuvred himself behind me so my back was resting against his front.

‘I’m sorry, Killian.’

‘You have nothing on this earth to be sorry for, Red. Drink.’

I did. I felt his lips on my neck but knew somehow they were there to comfort, not to impose. He refilled my tumbler with more water and made me drink that as well.

‘You saw the people dressed as hobbits and it all just came down in a landslide, huh?’ he asked me, when I was finally starting to calm.

I nodded.

‘Zella, I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have been carrying this all by yourself.’

‘But that’s what I get,’ I told him sleepily. ‘For not dying. She dies and I get to live. But that means I have to carry it.’

‘No, baby,’ he said, pulling me into him. ‘You get to be sad. You get to mourn. But you don’t have to be on your own. You don’t deserve this isolation you’ve put yourself in.’

‘I can’t lose anyone else, Kill.’

‘Was she sick?’

‘What?’

‘Max, was she sick?’

‘Cancer.’

‘No one else has cancer, baby.’

‘Not yet, but they will. Everyone will get sick at some point. Some very badly. And some won’t make it. And I can’t bear it again.’

‘You must miss her so much.’

I shivered. ‘She died and took all of my favourite things about life with her. Lord of the Rings movie marathons. Eating food late at night. Long walks. Half my music collection. Memes. Deep quotes. All gone.’

‘You saw the Tolkien in my room, didn’t you?’ he asked gently, tilting my chin up so he could read my expression. ‘I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why you were pulling away. But that was it, wasn’t it?’

That and his Post-it note about Claire. But he didn’t deserve to feel guilty about that. ‘Yes. I didn’t . . . really understand at the time. I don’t always know what I’m feeling until it’s over.’

His eyes shone with understanding and he tucked my head under his chin. ‘I could tell you what causes that but I don’t want to freak you out.’

He held me for a few moments, the two of us soaking in the easy silence and the gentle peace of the room we’d escaped into.