Fever(75)

“Until tomorrow, Ms. Darby.”

For a long time he sat motionless, his hands resting on his knees, staring at the muted picture on the screen without seeing it, focused inward.

Damaged goods. The phrase she’d used to describe herself the other night. Well, so was he damaged goods. That was the attraction, the central ingredient of his compulsion—that, and the loneliness. He understood that now.

He understood something else, too. About himself and Colleen and her fading image in his memory and his Thursday-night dream. What his subconscious had been trying to tell him was that it was time to let go of the past, time to stop mourning the dead. Colleen had been gone almost two years now. He would always love her, but loving and grieving were two separate emotions. He was still here, still able to function. But if he didn’t start living again, she would fade completely away, and once that happened he’d be left with nothing, no hope. He’d be so deeply mired in emotional quicksand that he’d eventually be sucked under—a form of suicide as final as the real thing.

Don’t keep doing this to yourself, Jake. Promise me—please!

“All right,” he said aloud. “All right.”