Letting Go (Thatch 1)

, inspecting it to see if someone had hit it and left their information, but I didn’t. And I didn’t let my mind even think of Jagger leaving me a letter . . . because not only was he at his place waiting for this coffee, but he wouldn’t do something like this to me. Because he knew. Everyone who knew us knew. Ben had left notes on my car every day. No matter what. It could’ve been something as simple as a smiley face or an I love you, or it could have been something long that had my heart melting. But every day after I got my first car, there had been a note. Notes that stopped abruptly with his death.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the paper with shaky hands. A cry burst from my chest as my eyes ran over the page, and I stumbled back. I looked around furiously for someone, anyone. There were people giving me worried looks, but none who looked like they knew exactly what I’d just seen. None who looked like they’d put Ben’s wedding vows on my windshield. His handwriting, words and lines crossed out as he’d tried to perfect the vows.

“Grey, darling?”

“What?” I cried as I whirled around, startling one of my old teachers from high school.

“Are you okay? You don’t look so well.”

“I—I, I don’t . . . I don’t know. I have to go!”

She reached out for me, but I quickly backed up into my car. “Really, darling, you don’t look well. Should we call someone for you?”

“N-n-n-no. I’m fine!”

“Are you sure? Maybe you should—”

I swung open the door to my car and slid in as I nearly shouted, “I’m sorry, but I have to leave!”

I tossed the paper onto the passenger seat, and fumbled through my purse with shaking hands, looking for my phone so I could call Jagger. This was a dream, this was a joke, I was going—I was going . . .

My blood ran cold and the world seemed to tilt as a high-pitched ringing started in my head. Blocking out my old teacher knocking on the window, blocking out the sound of other cars and people outside, blocking out everything other than that fucking deafening ringing.

My jaw trembled as I tried to open my mouth to deny out loud what I was seeing.

There, on the lock screen of my phone, was a Facebook message notification.

Ben Craft: Forever, Grey.

The phone slipped from my trembling fingers, and I pressed my hands to my head as the sound grew louder. It wasn’t until my door was wrenched open and I was being pulled out of the car that I realized the deafening noise was my screaming.

Someone was shaking me, someone was gripping my face and forcing me to look at them, someone was shouting—but I couldn’t hear the words, I couldn’t focus on the face, I couldn’t feel the jarring effect the shaking should’ve been having on my body. All I knew in that moment was the paper filled with vows, and the message waiting for me to view.

Impossible. I was going insane. This is what it felt like to truly lose yourself, and for a second, I wondered why it had taken so long for it to happen, or if it had been happening all along. I wondered if I was going to come back to reality and find myself in a bland, white room where a nurse would come medicate me. Because this—this couldn’t be real, and I wasn’t dreaming, because if this had been a dream, I would’ve woken up by now.

“Grey! Grey! What’s happening?” someone shouted, followed closely by someone else’s yell, “Has anyone called an ambulance yet?”

My screams had ended, only to be replaced by a hyperventilation so extreme, I was waiting for the moment when it would become too much for me to handle. I hung, hunched over in someone’s arms, clawing viciously at them as I tried to steady my breathing, but the panic only seemed to rise.

“B-Ben!” I shouted through rapid breaths, and I heard the person behind me sigh sadly.

“Poor girl still isn’t over what happened.”

“You need to try to breathe, Grey,” another voice said soothingly. “Calm your breathing. Big, deep breath in. Hold it as long as you can, and then let it out.”

No matter how many times she said it, my breathing never changed.

“Graham’s already on his way, I called him a few minutes ago. He’ll be here soon. Big, deep breath in, Grey.”

I looked back up at the girl, and even though I knew I’d grown up with her, I couldn’t focus on her face, I had no idea who she was. All I knew was Ben.

Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben.

Forever, Grey. Forever, Grey. Forever, Grey.

Another scream tore through my throat before my world went blurry with tears. I placed my hands on the sidewalk below me, allowing the person behind me to continue holding me up as I sobbed toward the ground until I heard my brother’s voice above everything else.

“What’s happening?” he asked loudly to everyone surrounding me before pulling me out of the man’s arms, and curling me onto his lap. “God, Grey, it’s okay. What’s wrong? What happened, kid?” he crooned. “Talk to me.”