He Said Losing My Emotions Was Better, Then He Begged Me to Feel Again novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Her Hand on His

I was in the barn in my nightgown and Martha's old boots before I knew I had decided to go.

The scream had stopped.

What I heard from the foot of the loft ladder was worse, a low animal sound, a man breathing hard through his teeth.

"Orson?"

No answer.

I climbed up.

He was on the floor beside the pickers' cot with the blanket twisted around his legs.

His eyes were open and he was not looking at me.

His whole body was shaking, and his face was wet.

"Orson. It's Miranda."

"Don't let him go in," he said.

"Who?"

"Your father. Don't let him go into that room alone. He's going to die in there and nobody's with him."

I stood very still.

My father had died five years ago in a hospital room in Pittsfield, at three in the morning, while I sat in the hallway with a vending machine coffee.

I had gone to get the coffee.

I had been gone for ten minutes.

I had never told anyone that.

"That's mine," I said.

"I know it is," Orson said. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, it's yours and I can't put it down."

He was not seeing me.

He was seeing a hospital hallway through my eyes, nine years of it layered on top of one another.

I knelt on the boards and took his hand.

I had not planned to.

My rule said he could not touch me, and nothing in the rule said I couldn't touch him.

His fingers were icy.

They closed around mine hard enough to hurt.

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