Page 2 of Samuel's Heart

“I need him. I need to say goodbye,” the guy murmurs, still in my arms.

I’m bloody sorry for him. I, for sure, know how badly the desire to go back to a particular moment of your life can hit you in the face like a loud slap.

There are moments in my life I want to go back to, so they can have a different outcome. But my fixation, my desire, and my prayer to relive those moments nearly cost me my life—and those of others. Realising that was the kick in the ass I needed, to decide whether to stay on the police force and do my job orto walk away and spend the rest of my life feeling guilty, wasting every single breath I could still take, all while regretting my actions. Never living life to the fullest because of the sacrifices others made.

My words are out of my mouth before I can think better of it.

“I can help you with that,” I say, and then I want to bite my tongue. But once the words are out, it’s too late to take them back. The light of hope in his eyes kills any part of me that wants to eat those words and swallow them before they’re out.

What the fuck am I helping him with? Breaking the law. The same law I swore to protect.

Is it too late to take a step back? To go back to the things that are wrong in my own life, instead of trying to amend what doesn’t work in others’?

When I find myself with arms full of warm muscles, and long limbs all around me, I’m sure the answer is yes.

Maybe I can heal as well.

I push that thought away. There is no cure, or salvation, for causing someone else’s death.

No cure.

No salvation.

Chapter Two

Rory

I shouldn’t be here.

Not once has my coming here for the last couple of years made any difference. No matter how many times I’ve asked, the answer has always been the same every single time . . .

We can’t share those details.

“Morning, Margaret.” I greet her after spying the name on the tag she’s wearing.

“Good morning,” she replies with a frozen, pleasant smile; the same one all nurses wear until they know why people are there, and before they can do their job.

“I need some information.” And like a switch has been pressed, her gaze becomes suspicious. Do they teach how to glare at people—the way she’s glaring at me—in nursing school?

“What kind of information?” she asks, as her gaze continues to weigh me. It’s as if she’s trying to understand whether I’m a threat to national security or an innocent bystander.

I need to play my cards right or she’ll be sending me home soon.

“My boyfriend was brought here a couple of years ago after an incident.” I stop because I’m not sure how to continue. “I was brought here as well, and I was in a medically induced coma for nearly three weeks.”

Her look is kinder somehow, probably because she knows what going off to sleep means, and how injured I must have been if they’d had to use such drastic measures. I’m hoping that’ll help me when I ask for what I need, what I’m begging to know.

“He was declared dead at the hospital and his family made all the decisions. As I wasn’t there, and—“

She interrupts me and asks the one question I can’t ever lie to.

“Were you two in a partnership?”

“Yes . . . no, we weren’t,” I say, kicking myself in the ass because it should be easy to lie. But with a past like mine, the truth is the only thing I can live with.

When everything around you is a lie, the only salvation is the truth. How many times had my mum promised to stop doing drugs? How many times had she promised to get better so we could go on amazing adventures? How many times had I endedup hiding in my wardrobe to avoid her rage when she was craving another fix?

The nurse’s voice pulls me away from my past and back to reality. A past I’m more than happy to forget.

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