Don't Let Me Go

by Glenna Maynard

  Don’t Let Me GO

  A Romantic Thriller

  Glenna Maynard

  Don’t Let Me Go Glenna Maynard © 2018

  Previously published as I’m with You

  Second Edition © 2015

  First Edition Copyright © 2013 Glenna Maynard

  This is a work of fiction. Names characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual people, alive or dead, business, establishments, locations or events is entirely coincidental. Any reference to real events, business, organizations or locations is intended only to give the fiction a sense of realism and authenticity.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopying), recording, or otherwise – without prior permission in writing from the author.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Blurb

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Bonus short

  Dear Reader

  About the Author

  Available Now

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank all my wonderful family and friends for sticking with me and putting up with me. While writing this book I wasn’t around as much as I would have liked to have been. Your patience and encouragement keeps me writing.

  To my awesome reader group, Glenna’s Rebels, you women are amazing. Thank you so much for being so supportive.

  My amazeballs author friends, I love all of you ladies to bits.

  If I have left anyone out I apologize there are so many of you I’d never be able to list you all.

  Dedication

  To those who have suffered a loss they never thought they would recover from there is hope.

  Hope is the light that shines when the darkness threatens to consume us…for if we have hope…we have light. Never stop shining.

  Don’t Let Me Go

  College is where you are meant to find yourself, but the past won’t let Bella go.

  One year ago, Harlan Rivers died under unusual circumstances. Some believe his girlfriend did it while others believe she is just crazy.

  Everywhere she turns there are reminders of the accident that changed her life. Someone is stalking Bella and making her see and hear things that aren’t real. Unable to cope, she decides to end her life. That is until a sexy stranger offers her a deal she can’t refuse.

  Can Bella trust him when all evidence points to him being her stalker or is a killer playing a deadly game with her heart and her mind?

  This a standalone book totaling 72k words and is a dark romantic thriller featuring hard topics, including suicide and self-harm.

  *Please note this book was previously published under the title I’m with You and features a never before published short story of approximately 3k words titled Hold On to Me.

  Preface

  “You are perfect in every way, my beautifully broken rose. I’m going to put you back together.”

  Chapter 1

  August

  The moment I learned my love had died while I lived on, I knew I would follow him as soon as I had the chance…

  I love the different shades of the tree leaves in the fall as they begin to turn. That is one thing I will miss the most when I go—the beautiful shades of orange, yellow and red. I have always loved to watch the leaves as they dance in the wind. They are so free for a moment and then they die…just like Harlan.

  As a child, I use to play a game. Blowing kisses in the wind. When the wind would blow, and the leaves would fall, I’d try to catch them all before they touched the ground. If you succeeded in catching them, you would get a kiss from your crush. That was the tale anyway.

  Spinning in circles trying to grab them all, I giggled about how many kisses from all the cute schoolboys I would receive.

  I am no longer a child, and the time for childish games to end has come. No longer am I an innocent girl chasing after foolish boys. I am not a woman per say but a young lady I suppose who is haunted by the memories of her youth, her first love, and longing to be set free.

  I have lived in Cold Creek Falls, a small town located on the border of Kentucky and West Virginia my whole life. It is a beautiful place to live. Beautiful hilltops and winding country roads surround our scenic town. Located in the outskirts is the falls that overlook the majestic lake that our town is named after. Cold Creek Falls is large enough that you don’t exactly know everyone by name, but small enough that everyone knows your business. It is comforting and highly annoying all in the same.

  Slicing the razor on the inside of my upper thigh I feel nothing as the blood trickles down my leg. I would love to feel anything, but the pain Harlan’s death has left me with. However, most days I can’t. I haven’t been able to since the day of the accident. Since the words were spoken. The words I don’t dare speak aloud. The words no one else seems to speak of either in this town.

  Pressing the razor deeper in my flesh I still feel nothing. I’m numb, but a steadier stream of blood flows from the cut. Some days I think I would give anything to feel the slightest tingle of my former life—my life before the accident. I used to be so happy, carefree…ready to take on the world.

  The blood continues to trail down my leg. Turning the shower on I wait for the water to warm. Freeing the showerhead, I run it over my wound to stop the bleeding. I always cut myself in the same spots. I refuse to let them heal. If I let the wounds heal, that means I have to let Harlan go.

  It sounds crazy, but the logic works for me.

  I usually only cut myself when the dreams come. I can go days without them, but as the anniversary of Harlan’s death approaches, I find the dreams come more frequently.

  The nightmares are always the same. I am back at the falls with Harlan and then it happens—the accident that claimed the life of my boyfriend, my love.

  I can’t speak the words they hurt too much. The memory is unbearable, but I carry it with me as a reminder that it was real…Harlan was real.

  Everyone—my Gram, my doctor, all want me to forget him and move on.

  But I can’t.

  I feel him in my bones.

  He is an immense part of who I am.

  Some days I can hear him whisper my name when the wind blows. He calls for me like a siren calling to a sailor lost at sea to join him in the water. I pay visit the falls almost every morning to feel close to him. If I look hard enough, I can still see the ghost of him standing on the edge of the cliff, catching my kiss.

  Massaging the shampoo gently into my scalp, I wish I could scrub the painful memory from my brain, but how can I forget the one person who has forever changed me?

  His body was discovered the following day—the day after the accident, about three miles from the falls, near the fishing docks. I shudder as I recall the memory of Gram telling me that the dive team had recovered his body from the lake.

  Afterw
ards, I spent six months on the third floor of the local hospital—a mental institution. My Gram had me committed when she caught me attempting to overdose on her sleeping pills.

  I didn’t even get to attend the funeral. We never had our goodbye, Harlan and me. Some days I wonder had I been able to go and tell him a proper goodbye if I would feel differently about life—everything.

  Probably not.

  It wouldn’t have brought him back.

  I rinse the last of the conditioner from my hair. The shower is the best place to think, I could stand here reminiscing for hours if the hot water would last and if my skin wouldn’t prune.

  At first, I was convinced it was all just a bad dream that I wasn’t waking from. My Harlan, the only person I have ever felt a connection to, couldn’t be dead, and leaving me here alone.

  I accused everyone around me of being liars. I was paranoid. Convinced they were all out to get me.

  After two months in therapy, I finally started talking to my doctors. Despite my effort, all they wanted to do was dissect my brain and keep me drugged up. Who would find grey walls with peeling paint therapeutic and hearing screams in the night of the mentally incompetent who are haunted by their own sickness? How is a place like that suitable for one to recover from posttraumatic stress?

  Being surrounded by the truly insane was traumatic enough, without the ever painful thera-rape-me sessions. The doctors constantly ordered me to talk about the things I couldn’t dare speak of aloud. It was weeks before I could even say his name and the word dead within the same sentence. Harlan and dead just don’t sound right together in my head and hearing those two words leave my lips sounds improper.

  There was a boy who there who claimed that every time he looked at his family all he could see were visions of himself cutting their bodies into pieces. So logically that information had me scared that when he was staring at me during our group session that he was thinking of slicing and dicing me too.

  My favorite was the girl who was convinced she was a witch and we—everyone was out to get her. She was convinced she was imprisoned in the hospital, so they could run scientific experiments on her, and that the staff had placed magical wards all around to stop her from using her powers. She was always hoarding packets of salt. Said she was going to save them up until she had enough to put herself in a protective circle. At least she was entertaining. I tried to stay on her good side, you know, in case she was a witch.

  Eventually I made friends with a woman who had been in and out of the third floor her whole life and she taught me how to work the doctors and give them what they wanted so I could be released—released from the torment of bearing witness to that place, and the horrors that waited within those walls. Being subjected to the hospital did nothing for me, if anything it made me worse. How could I not become insane myself, being surrounded by people like that? I just wanted to die—to see my love one last time.

  I didn’t belong there.

  I belong with Harlan.

  Did I mention that the hospital is where I spent my senior year? And they say high school is the time of your life. Not like I missed out on much, I wouldn’t have wanted to go to school anyhow, but being home schooled would have been a hell of a lot better than taking my courses in the institution.

  Smoothing my brush through my hair, I am reminded of my childhood, and growing up with my Gram. She would brush my hair every night to relax me. Some days I wish I could return to my younger days. Maybe I would have done things differently or maybe not. I believe everyone has a set path in life—that some choices no matter how big or small they are, they cannot alter the path chosen for you.

  I am trying to find my way.

  I moved into my own apartment and registered for college after my release. I couldn’t take my Gram hovering and waiting for my next breakdown. I know she was doing it with love, but I couldn’t bear the pain in her eyes—the disappointment her wrinkled face held. She was always watching me, making sure I was eating what she deems as enough. Making sure I am getting enough fresh air, and not spending too much time locked away from society in my room.

  Partly I think she felt relieved to have me out of the house. None of her friends would come around while I was home. I serve as a permanent reminder to everyone here of what I stole from them. They think I tarnished the town’s perfect record of being chosen as one of the top twenty safest university towns. Like any of that really matters in the grand scheme of life. There are bigger things to worry about.

  Besides, Clara Rose was simply one of those grandmas who thought that I could do no wrong. She raised me, even gave my name, Bella Rose. She has always claimed I was her beautiful rose. However, that was before I became involved with Harlan. Gram always warned me to stay away from Harlan Rivers.

  She would say to me, “Bella Rose, don’t be messing with them Rivers boys’. Everything they touch turns to shit.” I suppose in a way she was right. Since the day of the accident, my life has been shit, and Harlan had touched me many times. Harlan was known to be a troublemaker, him and his brother—Nolan, but their daddy always paid their way out of everything.

  Gram has begged me to move back home with her, saying she doesn’t like living alone; she worries about me too much. She got along without me just fine while I was in the institution.

  I would have been safer at home with her.

  While I was in the hospital, someone broke into my doctor’s office and stole my patient file. Someone would also leave paper daisies on my pillow every night. My roommate always swore it wasn’t her and I was afraid the doctor would think I was doing it myself, so I hid the flowers in my pillow case.

  When I left the hospital, I brought the flowers with me, they comfort me. I always thought the paper flowers were a sign from Harlan, but maybe they weren’t. I am not sure, but I was afraid they would accuse me of hallucinating, so I have never mentioned them to anyone else.

  Maybe I was. Maybe I was putting the flowers on my own pillow, because I missed him so much.

  There are days when I can sense Harlan’s presence all around me. My doctors thought I was seeing things and upped my medication the one time I was honest with them about it. Eventually I earned my release.

  Like all good actors, I put on a great show of being eager to go off to college and start the rest of my life. I attended registration like a good girl and signed up for all the basic required courses for an undecided major such as myself. It really is a shame—Cold Creek University has a beautiful campus. It is a smaller private university, but it really is top rated. Thankfully, due to my situation I can live off campus. I’m considered special circumstances.

  I can see the appeal of lounging under the shade of the trees between classes or having my lunch there. But there is the looming feeling of being unwanted and I feel like someone is always watching me. Most days it’s my paranoia, but on rare occasion, I can see Harlan staring back at me.

  It is for the best that I live on my own. Although I can see the perks of having a roommate, living in a dorm, and having the true college experience. Between my nightmares and my problem with authority, everyone is better off with me living in my own space.

  The town council was afraid parents wouldn’t want to send their kids to school here, because of the accident, and they certainly wouldn’t want them rooming with the resident crazy. They—the good townsfolk of Cold Creek did their best to sweep it all under the rug and keep the story from spreading. I am sure they would have stopped me from enrolling if they could. My adviser had the balls to suggest I attend school out of state.

  He says it is because he is concerned about my well-being and that a new start in a new town could be the best medicine. Yeah, he is afraid all right—afraid those normal students will be scared to go to class with a supposed murderer. (Some people had the nerve to say I pushed Harlan into the water.)

  What they don’t know is I never plan to attend. I just need everything to go according to plan, for my Gram’s sake. She has tried so har
d to ensure that I get better, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to leave this life and leave her feeling like she somehow messed up, because she has gone above and beyond. I have it all worked out perfectly. I will be reunited with my Harlan soon.

  I found the perfect spot to end it all. I plan to jump off the bridge that overlooks Cold Creek Falls. There is no way I can survive the drop into the chilly water. Call me crazy, everyone else does, but I have been training my body not to fight the water as it invades my lungs, but to accept it willingly. I wish to be united with Harlan in death, even if it is only for a brief moment. I would give anything to see him one more time—to really see him. I mean, I see him, but it is like a ghost of him. A shadow of him. His soul appears to me like a flickering candle.

  I will almost miss my apartment too when it is over.

  The apartment I live in is perfect for me. It is a one bedroom, one bath, with an eat-in-kitchen. My decor is non-existent. I have a small sofa and my basic bedroom furniture that Gram let me bring from her place.

  The carpet isn’t the best, it’s blue utility carpet, but at least they had just had it laid when I moved in. They renovated the whole building, so the walls have fresh coats of white paint, and the appliances are new. Even the toilet is new. The thought of sitting on someone else’s toilet is just gross—to me it is anyways. Even though they said it was new, I still had to buy a new seat for it. I wanted a padded one anyways. Who wants to sit on a cold hard seat first thing in the morning? I don’t.

  I don’t care much about the kitchen. I don’t have to do much cooking, other than heating up the leftovers I bring from my Gram’s house. But it still makes me feel good to have a nice, new, clean kitchen to eat in. And I eat in a lot. I can’t stand to go out to a restaurant in town to be stared at or having someone come over to me to tell me they are sorry. It is a bit creepy and awkward coming from complete strangers.