Something to Live for (Moonlight Dating Series) Read Online Free PDF

sorry.”
    She chewed
on her bottom lip and nodded, but said nothing.
    He sat up
too and reached out for her hand because he needed to know she forgave him for
his words. He needed her comfort.
    She let
the sheet go and allowed him to entwine his fingers with hers, to bring them
down to rest on the quilt, above his chest. They both contemplated their joined
hands.
    “He was
older, six years,” he started, each word a cumbersome load, near impossible to
express. “I looked up to him like a father. Our dad died when I was fairly
young and Mom worked long days at one of the stores, so he was all I had.”
    “Alex—”
    His name
sounded good on her lips. He squeezed her hand and held her gaze. “I need to tell.
Never thought about sharing this but I feel I must. I feel this is right.”
    Her eyes
said so much that she didn’t have to say a word.
    “He was a
moody sort of guy, but I never thought much of it. Didn’t have a clue what
being manic-depressive meant until he was diagnosed with it. That was a year
before he died. Before then, the doctor just thought it was a case of simple
depression.”
    Her brows
knitted into a frown. “How could you know? You must have been young.”
    “Sixteen.
He met a girl one day. Things were good for a while but after a few months, she
left him. He wasn’t that good with girls and didn’t have many friends – only
me. Perhaps she didn’t understand his mood swings, or perhaps she felt he was
too obsessed with her.
    “Tony was
like God to me, but when they split, he withdrew from everyone, even from me.
We had a few good times, but mostly Mom and I had to walk on eggshells around
him. I got so angry. One time I even told him I hated him. Then he… he found
dad’s old gun…”
    His voice
faltered under the pressure of all that old guilt. It was the same kind of
heartache that had plundered him when he’d just learned what Tony had done, as
though as though fifteen years hadn’t passed by. Fifteen years without Tony.
    But then, Melita released his hand. The sweet scent of apples got
stronger when her warm breath stroked his temple. Her hair fell over them like
a perfumed curtain, and her arms came around his shoulders. He knew, right there
and then, that something had changed and shifted, irrevocably, inside him. A
door unlocked. A wall crumbled down.
    The pain
was still there, but it wasn’t the same.
    “Tony knew
you loved him. I’m sure he still does.”
    “He was
helpless, isolated, and I let him down.”
      “No, you didn’t. Heavens, you were little more
than a kid.”
    Her fingers
massaged his scalp, and he leaned further into her – wished he could just
forget himself. With her, perhaps, he would.
      She was right, but there was nothing logical
about coming to terms with the suicide of a loved one. At a loss for true
understanding, it is sometimes inevitable to blame oneself for the desperation
of others. Could he have done something, anything, to alleviate Tony’s
condition? Perhaps not, but it was so difficult to accept that Tony couldn’t be
helped by anyone, not even by his own flesh and blood.
    “Towards
the end, we fought a lot,” he told her. “At first I thought it was because of
the girl, so I hated her. That was easy. Then, I started to think that Tony
didn’t like to hang out with me anymore because I was too young and immature.”
    Melita pressed her lips to his temple. “Manic-depressives tend to be irritable and
angry. There are so many symptoms associated with the condition. I’ve met a few
cases in my work. It’s a tough life for them and those who care for them. They
need so much love, but I have no doubt you gave him all that you possibly
could.”
    He drew
back to look at her face and realized he never asked her what she did for a
living. “What line of work are you in?”
    “I’m a
psychotherapist.”
    He
laughed. “That’s why you make sense when you speak. And why just being with you
relaxes me.”
    She
grinned back. “Wow,