Hold on You

by M. S. Brannon

  Copyright © 2015 M.S. Brannon. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission from the author. The exception would be in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews or pages where permission is specifically granted by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction and the events surrounding this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any similarity to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons live or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Photo Credit: Shutterstock

  Copy Editing: C&D Editing

  Cover Design & Formatting: IndieVention Designs

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  More from M.S. Brannon

  prologue

  “AHHHH!” THE SCREAM IS HORRIFIC. The boiling, hot blood pumping through my body instantly turns to ice as I witness the tragedy I am responsible for.

  She was standing in front of me and then, a moment later, fell over the edge, disappearing from my sight.

  “No!” I immediately fall to the ground, coming face-to-face with my self-inflicted hell.

  I surge my frame forward, landing on my stomach, half my body leaning over the edge. In that moment, I am unexpectedly able to clasp on to her hand. The wind is furious, and the jagged cliff rocks are barely visible under the crashing waves.

  She is dangling from the edge, holding on like hell to my outstretched hand. Any thought of my future plans vanishes the second I see her disappear. The moment my hand feels hers, I thaw in a mere second. I can feel the blood raging as it floods my veins with unyielding determination to help this woman.

  “Nate! Oh, God, please don’t drop me!” she screams as she tries to pull herself up, using my arm as a fleshy rope.

  My hand is sweaty from the adrenaline skyrocketing through my body, making my grip wet and slick. As she swings her body back and forth, she has no idea that, the more she struggles, the easier it will be to drop her.

  “Stop moving!” I demand as firmly and loudly as I can.

  “You have to help me, please! I don’t want to die, not like this. Please!” Her pleading gives me that much more strength to pull up.

  I came up here for selfish reasons of my own, but soon discovered I was not alone. She wouldn’t stand for me to leave her behind, and now I am forced to stare into her blue eyes encased in terror. She only wanted to help, and look where that got her—a front row seat to her imminent death. I cannot allow it to happen. If anyone should die, it needs to be me, not her, never her.

  “You’re not going to die, but you need to stay calm. Please…” I release a breath as I struggle to keep her attached to my hand. “I’m not going to drop you. I promise I will not allow that to happen, but you need to be calm. Do you hear me? Just keep your body as still as you can!” I shout back, digging deep and finding the strength inside myself.

  The wind is whipping, getting stronger by the second. I have to get her up, and it has to be now, or the both of us will be falling over the edge.

  “AWWWWWW!” I release a loud, gut-wrenching roar as I pull with all my power. I swear to God, if she goes over, I will go after her. I will not survive this life knowing this woman died because of me, because I was an asshole who couldn’t get past the pain of ten years ago.

  “Nate!”

  I keep my eyes on hers, seeing the panic oozing from them. She is pleading with me to save her life, a life I almost destroyed. If I don’t save her now, it will be destroyed.

  “I’m slipping! Please, don’t let me go!”

  Just as the words leave her mouth, a forceful gust of wind bounces off the walls of the cliffs and sends her body into the rocky side. Small fragments of rock fall from the edge and disappear into the rolling waves below. She could fall hundreds of feet down, and nothing but tragedy would follow. It would be my fault.

  It’s solely up to me to save her, but the wind is becoming too much, and my grip is weakening. She is frantically trying to climb up my arm, but with each movement, she is inching her way out of my grasp. Then she slides down farther until we are only holding on with our fingers, desperately trying to thread them together, but she is slipping.

  I close my eyes because I can’t watch.

  I simply can’t watch.

  chapter one

  MY FEET DIG INTO THE grassy, rough ridge as the ends of my shoes teeter on the edge. The closer I inch my way forward, the more small bits of rock topple off the edge and disappear into the blackness of night. The waves collide violently against the rocks below. The sound is tranquil yet treacherous.

  I can smell the salty air as each roll from the ocean slams into the rocks, sending an icy chill down my spine. With one wrong move, one slip of my foot, my fate will be sealed. The feeling ignites my body with a chill that comes from the very thought. Not from the warm, May air and not from the height of the cliff. The coldness prickling my skin is from knowing, with one wrong move forward, I will be dead.

  Isn’t this why I came here? Isn’t this why I always come here? To heave my body into the icy ocean, allowing it to slam against the jagged rocks, shattering my bones and instantly killing me? The thought has been weighing on my mind, even when I find myself out of my whiskey haze. Nothing helps, not even slamming my fists into someone else’s gut. Absolutely nothing.

  So much has been lost to me in the last year. Today, I couldn’t shake the pain. It has been a year since everything was ripped from me, and now, all I can do to escape the agony is to jump. Yet, I have stood in this very spot for ten minutes, trying to get the nerve to leap off the edge.

  The darkness in my brain is begging my legs to take the plunge, but I just remain, planted to the grassy ledge. I am frozen. Simply unable to move a single inch, my legs locked as my mind and body battle with this final outcome.

  This isn’t the first time I have been overlooking the violent ocean, wondering if my fate is to be dead, but I am still here. Every time I find a reason to stay alive for a little bit longer. However, today has been one of the darkest days I have experienced.

  I lean my head back and close my eyes, breathing in deeply, and picture all that I have lost. The one I have lost. My numbing soul has recently thawed, and what I felt—what I feel—is unbearable. It is this pain that has led me here, debating my final outcome.

  When I was a teenager, this was the one spot I came to in order to have fun. It was filled with the best memories. And then it wasn’t. Maybe that is why I never chose to pick up my pistol—I wanted to come to the one place that is the source of my happiness and the beginning of my pain. Maybe the universe is telling me it needs to be here where I finally let go of everything.

  Opening my eyes, I lean forward for the millionth time, watching the doom beneath me. The sound of the waves reminds me it’s now or never as the ocean rolls even harder, hundreds of feet down. If I am going to jump, it has to be now, or I won’t do it. My skin is cloaked with sweat, beading and dripping from my brow, chilling me. Knowing I will need to find some sort of power from my legs, I bend at the kne
es, bounce a couple of times, and then begin the mental count down.

  Five … four…

  Closing my eyes, I think of the people who have brought me here and release a deep breath, readying myself to join them.

  Three … two…

  I begin to lean forward, the weight of my body tipping toward the ocean below. I can feel myself almost letting go when bright lights shine behind me, startling me. My foot slips, and I start to fall forward. The distraction is what I need to realize I am not ready for the conclusion yet. I don’t want to kill myself, not today, anyways. However, I don’t want to live with all the pain. The agony of losing everything is like a slow motion train wreck, and I have a first class seat to the hell it is about to embark for, a hell I am not ready to face just yet.

  In a last ditch effort, I twist to the side and lean back. The lights are zigzagging across my back. If it is someone from the community, I will have some explaining to do. The buzz around this small Rhode Island town has been only of me: my philandering, my current mental state, my arrest for assault. Basically, my entire life over the last ten years has been the main source of Crestbrook’s gossip. If it were to get out that I was up here, trying to jump off, I would surely lose all my business completely.

  As I lean back, I put all my strength into my other leg and push my body back. I fall to the ground, my midsection colliding with the rocky edge of the cliff while my feet dangle off the side. Completely happenstance, I was able to keep my body attached to this earth a little while longer.

  The sound of the car is getting closer, and the headlights are fully pointing in my direction. I reach my hands up and pull my body off the ledge, getting to my knees then my feet. Keeping my body low, I move over to the side and take cover in some overgrown grass and bushes just as the BMW pulls up to the ledge.

  Guitar riffs are loudly sounding from inside the car, but when the driver’s door flies open, the sound is deafening. I don’t recognize the car and am extremely happy I won’t have to explain my presence to someone I know from my home town.

  I lie flat in the grass like a solider on a mission, keeping my eyes fixed on the person getting ready to climb out of the car. The song is playing in a loop, and I smile for the first time in months when I hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” echoing through the quiet night. Of all the songs to hear on the night I was about to end everything… Another memory from my past comes crashing into me, this one happier than the others.

  The song instantly brings me back to my senior year when we discovered the classic by Queen. We spent all summer watching Wayne’s World and mimicking what they did in the movie. It wasn’t a new movie, but we were stuck in the 90s with almost every movie we watched and song we listened to. The version playing is not the original, but it helps me reminisce, nonetheless.

  I keep my eyes on the car as the music quiets, getting ready to repeat. I hear a woman shout incoherently from the car before she fumbles to her feet and lifts a champagne bottle to her lips. Her chestnut hair catches in the wind and surrounds her face. I have no idea who this woman is, but she is obviously very, very intoxicated, and for once, I am not.

  I roll my eyes, realizing I could be lying in cool grass for hours if she doesn’t leave or pass out. All I want to do is go home. I want to try and forget this night even happened, if that is possible.

  The woman walks to the front of the car, her button-up blouse partially falling from the waistband of her skirt. She is completely disheveled and struggling to maintain her balance. Her legs wobble with every inch she steps forward, and as she attempts to walk, her arms shoot out to the side as she tries to maintain some kind of balance.

  “Is this what you wanted from me, Daniel?” she shouts up toward the sky and falls into the side of the car. The woman catches herself by holding the hood of the car. “Dammit! You always wanted this, Daniel. You always hated when I was outshining you, when I was the best one. You ASSHOLE!”

  The woman turns her body so she is facing me. I don’t think she sees me lying ten feet away, but I have suddenly become fascinated and need to know who this person is. It seems as though I am in the midst of something life changing for this person and have a front row seat to her tragic, one-woman show.

  When I get a better look at her, I notice she is average height with a nice rack and looks to have an equally nice body. Energy is surging in my body. I curse the wind because it is still blowing hard enough to disguise her face with all that long, chestnut hair.

  She walks to the front of the car, giving me a great view of her entire body. I was right when thinking she had a great body. She is curvy and sexy. She pops her hip out when she stands, her right foot pointed inward. Her stance is oddly familiar, that of a woman I was once quite familiar with, but haven’t seen in a decade.

  I am taken back for a moment, recognizing what this sexy, drunk woman is stirring inside me, the memories she is unearthing from my deepest, darkest vault.

  “These goddamn shoes!” She leans down and yanks the black, four-inch pumps from her feet and chucks them in my direction.

  I cover my head as the leather shoe comes flying at my skull and land with a thud. The shoe stings as it connects with the back of my head. Soon, the other shoe comes flying toward me. This one lands right in front of me, and I pick it up. I look inside at the sole and note it isn’t a cheap shoe. Although I am a guy, I am well aware Manolo Blahnik anything costs more than what my beat up truck is worth on its best day. Rich women wear that shit all the time, even when they are vacationing at the bed and breakfast my family used to own.

  “Is this what will make you happy, Daniel?” She chugs the last of her bottle and throws it over the edge as she approaches the unstable cliff. “You want me gone? Then FINE, I’m gone.”

  The woman is teetering on the edge, and it doesn’t escape me that she is in this very spot to do what I was about to do ten minutes ago.

  “I will be gone forever!”

  She starts to unbutton her shirt, ripping and yanking at the buttons her drunken fingers cannot undo. Her legs are incredibly unstable. With one wrong move, she will be a goner.

  Now I am faced with a decision. Should I reveal myself and talk her out of what she is about to do? Or should I let her seal her own fate? Could I live with myself knowing I allowed this woman to take her own life when I was capable of helping her? Would I want someone to do the same for me?

  I shake my head in disgust for letting this continue for another minute. This woman is intoxicated; therefore, chances are, she has the desire to live, like I did, but she is allowing the booze to cloud her judgment.

  Fuck that! I won’t let her die, not tonight.

  She is still standing on the very edge of the cliff, getting a better look at the ocean below. I fear she could be blown off if the breeze gets any stronger.

  My gut is telling me I need to help this woman, but the reason to do so is unknown. Perhaps it is because I have sympathy for her and her need to end it all. Or maybe I know her from a past life. Or maybe I am just having that kind of moment, because normally I wouldn’t give a shit what the hell she did. Whatever it is, I can’t ignore the feeling to rescue her.

  Slowly, I make my way to my feet and come out of hiding. She will hear me if the music isn’t sounding loudly around us. She doesn’t see me, though.

  She is standing in her white, lace bra and black skirt. Her dark brown hair is blowing everywhere, continuing to make it hard to see her face. I can hear her faint sobs as the music lulls. Her mouth is covered by her hands, muffling any noise. I am not sure how to make it known that I am up here. I don’t want to startle her and cause her to fall, but I need to get her away from the edge.

  I walk to the back of her car, keeping the distance yet getting a little closer to save her life. While the stereo continues blaring “Bohemian Rhapsody,” an idea comes to me. I will get her attention by turning down the music. Maybe that will prompt her to walk from the edge and back to her car.

  I slowly creep around
to the open driver’s door and lean in, turning the sound down. As I ease my way out of the car, the woman quickly turns around and looks at me with surprise.

  Her headlights are shining in her face while strands of her hair dance and move in the light. She is bewildered at first, trying in her drunk haze to figure out why the music is no longer playing. I keep myself crouched, waiting for a good time to make myself visible. Again, if I startle her, she will likely fall, and all my efforts of being her one-time hero will have been pointless.

  “Who’s … Who’s there?” she asks, holding her hand up to block the light as she tries to wrangle her wild hair.

  Come on, lady, just move a few feet away from the ledge.

  I have to expose myself. She needs to know I am here. Then maybe she will walk away, come over, and punch me or something. Either way, at least she won’t be standing at the edge of her life.

  “I was just up here and saw how close you are to the edge. I … I need you to move away,” I plead, hoping my words come through.

  “Why? Why do you care, anyway?” Her words slur together as she struggles to maintain her balance on the edge.

  “I … I don’t want you to fall. Please, just move away from the ledge. It can’t be that bad.” That’s a lie. It was that bad for me ten minutes ago.

  “What do you know of it, asshole?” She is still holding her hand up, trying to shield her eyes, continuing to make it hard to see her clearly. “You couldn’t possibly understand what I’m going through, so shut the hell up and leave!”

  When she steps closer to me, my goal has been met, but I now see the woman’s face completely. It looks like Maddie. Impossible. It can’t be her. It can’t be the woman I once loved and wanted to marry. I must be losing it because, if my eyes are staring at Maddie Stone’s, then I am looking directly at the woman who chose another life over me, someone who chose New York City over our small town way of life. I am looking at the person who broke my heart and led me down the ten year path of emptiness and into the arms of a woman who is the very reason I ended up on this cliff to begin with.