Page 54 of Please Don't Leave Me

I'm exhausted, and my body feels like it can't even move. I am going to be so sore tomorrow, but it felt so good that I don't care.

He gets up, grabs a towel from his attached bathroom, and cleans me up. I get dressed and order my ride. He offers to let me stay the night, but it's still relatively early, and I'm afraid if I stay the night, we'll end up going for round two, and I know I couldn't handle that.

He walks me out and kisses me on the forehead. "Text me any time you want to hang, okay? I had fun with you."

I'm not sure what he means by that because I was a rag-doll the whole time while he took charge, but I'll take the compliment and consider texting him again.

"Will do. Night Cam, thanks for the drinks…and the sex."

He winks at me before shutting the door.

The next morning,I almost forget to return to the bar.

Thank god I didn't; that could have turned out so bad!

When I get there, the bartender from the night before hands me back my ID with a big smile. "I'm glad you didn't get murdered."

I laugh. "Me too."

I grab my ID, but she holds it for a second longer. "So, was he as good as he looked?"

I lean over the bar and whisper to her, "Better."

We both laugh, and she lets go of my ID. I turn and leave with a huge smile on my face. So why do I still feel empty inside?

Chapter Seventeen

SAM

I step out of the elevator and into the hallway. I can never remember if it's a right or a left, so I go left and check a few door numbers to see if I'm going the correct way. I'm not. I turn around and start heading the other way.

My head has been in a fog all week in anticipation of this. I've been putting it off for over four months, and I finally feel ready for it. Not that I'll ever truly be ready, but I was not in the right head space to do it prior to now.

I fumble with the keys and try them in the lock, one by one, until I find the right one. The latch clicks, and I pause with my hand on the knob for a moment before opening the door. A smell hits me square in the face. I know I shouldn't have waited this long. I'm sure everything in the fridge is rotten, and if the garbage wasn't taken out, that would definitely explain the smell.

I step into Jacob's dark apartment, and the creek of the floor startles me. I don't know why, but I'm a little skittish being here. It feels eerie, like a time capsule from before he was gone. Everything that Jacob saw during his last days.

I look around for a light switch and flick it on. I've been paying the bills since it got passed to me, so I know the electricity still works.

The light flickers on, and I walk to the kitchen first, hoping to get rid of the smell so I can tolerate being here long enough to sort through his things. I put my sweatshirt over my nose and open the garbage.

Yep, that is definitely where the smell is coming from. I take it out and tie up the bag as quickly as I can, then take it down the hall and throw it in the garbage shoot. When I get back, I locate some Lysol spray and air freshener, spraying a generous amount of both in the garbage bin.

Next, I take an empty garbage bag and throw out everything in the fridge, repeating the Lysol and air freshener combo. After I finish, I open up a couple windows to get some fresh air in here.

Now that the smell is taken care of, I can move on to the fun part. Going through his things feels wrong, and I don't know what I'm going to find. Thankfully, Jacob has always been neat, so there aren't drawers and boxes full of junk.

I start with the closet because that seems the most straightforward. I promised Mom I would save some items for her, and Quinn laid claim to most of his shoes since they had the same size feet.

There's only one thing I want to keep for myself, so I look for that first. I sift through the section of sweatshirts hanging up and find it there—Jacob's high school football sweatshirt. I tried to steal this from him so many times, but he always noticed and stole it back. I don't know what it was about this particular sweatshirt that made me want it so bad. Probably just because, in high school, I idolized Jacob; I wanted to be just like him. I wonder if her ever knew that?

I slip it off the hanger and hug it to my chest, taking in thescent of it. Jacob's scent. I don't even realize I've been crying until I feel a tear fall down my cheek, then another. Soon, I can't control them; they keep falling, and my chest starts to tighten. I walk backwards until my shoulder blades hit the wall and slide down it till I'm on the floor.

I sob into his sweatshirt. My eyes burn, my throat feels like it's closing in, and my chest hurts from my quick, shallow breathing. I miss him, but I'm mostly angry that such a promising life got thrown away. And I can't shake the could haves and should haves from my mind.

"I'm so sorry, Jacob. I'm so sorry." My voice is muffled by the fabric, but it doesn't matter. There's no one there to hear me anyway.

After I allowedmyself to have a good cry, I finished cleaning out the closet and started on his desk. The desk was harder to go through than I thought it would be. I had to stop and take a break to cool off.

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