I sat on the plane with my eyes closed as I replayed my last hour with Kelly over and over. Torturing myself with images I would no longer see for real. It was like looking through photographs of the best memories only to know that the people in them were gone forever.

I reached into the little bag I’d picked up at the duty-free shop and pulled out a bottle. It was the same perfume as the bottle Kelly had on her night stand. The fragrance that pulled me in every time I smelled it on her. Removing the little glass rose stopper, I held the bottle to my nose and inhaled but regretted it immediately as the ache in my heart grew. I replaced the stopper, put the bottle back in the bag, and closed my eyes. I rested my head back as the rush of take-off flipped my stomach this way and that. I wondered what she was doing. But as the images of her rampaged around my mind, my eyes began to sting and I immediately opened them and rubbed them hard, eradicating any outward evidence of emotion. I was surrounded by people who wouldn’t understand why a fucking huge tattooed man would be crying on a plane. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone to explain that I’d left my heart back on the ground with a beautiful Scottish girl called Kelly.

Oh God, Kelly. My Kelly. It was over. I was out of her life and she was out of mine. My jaw ached from clenching it so hard, and when the stewardess came around and asked me if I wanted a drink, my heart leapt and I opened my eyes, desperate to see Kelly standing by me. But of course it was another woman with a Scottish accent. A blonde. I shook my head, unable to speak in case I fell apart.

Kelly had handed me an envelope and my iPod just before she left, but she told me I wasn’t to open the envelope until I was on the plane. I promised her I wouldn’t. I’d been clutching at it since take off but every time I tried to open it, a lump formed in my throat and I couldn’t bear to relive the goodbye that was no doubt written in the pages.

The goodbye we had shared physically and emotionally had been almost too much to bear. Holding her in my arms for the last time had been like ripping my beating heart out of my chest. The pain of her loss had battled with the intense pleasure of coming inside of her—losing myself in her one last time. And in spite of my aching heart, my cock remembered the feel of her and wanted more. So much more.

An hour into the flight, and I was still clutching the envelope. I knew it would hurt to read it, but I figured it would be the closest thing to hearing her voice that I would get, and I loved her voice. I could close my eyes and hear her saying my name like she was beside me. But she wasn’t. I needed to open the letter. My heart was broken anyway and I suppose once something is broken beyond repair, breaking it a little more makes no difference. I pulled out the triangular flap with shaking hands. My heart began to pound and my eyes were already stinging.

I unfolded the paper and glanced down at it through foggy eyes. Fuck, I was welling up before I read a single word.

Cain

Knowing you has been one hell of a roller coaster. Things went way beyond what I could ever have anticipated; and although I know it was wrong, I can’t regret it. I won’t allow myself to do so. I’ve learned a lot about myself in the time you’ve been here, and whilst not all of it has been good, I think you have taught me not to settle for anything less than magnificent. As for sex, well, it shouldn’t be just a way to release tension. It should be an expression of deep feelings that words just don’t cover. I never would have expected that it would be a man like you who made me realise this—but you did, and I’m so glad that I discovered it with you.

Thank you for making me feel special, desirable, and loved. I will keep the memories of us with me forever.

I have added some tracks to the iPod. I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to give you something that you could use to remember me by—if you want to remember, that is.

The first three tracks are ones I chose especially for you.

Take care and be happy, Cain. And know that whilst I couldn’t say the words out loud—they were simply too painful—I do love you. And you will be forever in my heart.

Yours,

Kelly

I wiped the moisture from around my eyes and looked inside the envelope, hoping there would be a photo, but there wasn’t. My heart sank. I slipped the ear buds into my ears and hit play, holding my breath.

I had never heard the first track before. It came up on the display as “Gunshot” by Lykke Li. Listening to the words, knowing they expressed Kelly’s innermost feelings, squeezed at my heart. Every sentiment she was experiencing at losing me was evident there in the words ringing around my head, and I clutched my chest with one hand and the letter in the other. These were my last connections to the woman I loved beyond all sense and reason. Through the song she talked of the pain she knew I was feeling and that she was feeling it too. I’d had no idea she felt so strongly; she had never told me she loved me. But having read her letter, I now knew that it was because it was too painful. I totally understood even though it was killing me not to have heard her say the words.

The next song was slow and sultry, and the familiar voice of Alanis Morissette singing “Til You” sent shivers down my spine. She passed on the message from Kelly that her life had been some kind of a rehearsal until I arrived in it. I chewed on the inside of my cheek and my throat constricted as I fought the pain and anguish desperate for release from within me. I listened and let the tears fall unabashedly now, grateful that the seat beside me was empty. She had been drawn to me from day one and I had experienced the same pull. Like we were pieces of a puzzle that were incomplete without each other. How the hell do you move on from that? How the hell do you move on and leave a love like that behind? How do you face an uncertain future alone and without the one person who helps you make sense of the all the shit going on in your head? I guess I was about to find out, and knowing that fact knotted me up until I was leaning forward resting my head in my hands and sobbing like a fucking baby.

At the end of the song I hit pause and wiped my face on the sleeves of my sweater. I leaned my head on the window and peered out at the lights of passing cities and towns below. I could just make out the multicoloured festive lights blinking as we left mainland Scotland behind and an overwhelming sense of loss almost took me down again.

Kelly’s third and final message to me came as the lyrics of “The Only Exception” by Paramore. I had learned from very early on in my relationship with Kelly that I was her only exception. She didn’t trust men. She didn’t sleep with patients and didn’t let herself fall in love. But with me she had submitted to all three of these changes. And from the words of the song, as they brought on a fresh batch of emotion welling up from deep inside me, I would always be that one person who made her see things differently. The one who made her dare the step outside of her comfort zone. I wasn’t exactly proud of some of it—enticing a doctor to be sexually intimate with a patient was not something I could put on my résumé—but knowing I’d had an impact on her life like she’d had on mine made me smile in spite of the loss I was feeling. And from my returning memories, I had discovered that she too was my only exception. I had only ever loved one other woman; and from what I remember of losing Melody, I swore that I would never go through that again. Until I met Kelly and she stole my heart, the old me had presumed I was broken beyond repair. I was no good to anyone as a lover or a friend. I didn’t want to love or be loved. She changed that about me.

She was my only exception.

As the track ended, a smartly dressed woman in an air steward’s uniform walked down the aisle, handing out drinks. I took a soda and paid for it with the last of my Scottish notes. Another twinge of sadness niggled at me and I had to turn away and focus on the blackness outside the window once again.

Over fifteen hours later, I unlocked my motel room door and stepped inside. I hadn’t slept much on the flight, and I’d met with the police and other officials at the airport who had talked at me for God knows how long. I was handed a stack of documents and contact numbers along with a brand-new cell phone. If I hadn’t been so fucking exhausted, I would have been grateful and impressed with how they had dealt with me. As it was, I was mainly stunned at how familiar yet oddly foreign their American accents seemed.

I fell into bed fully clothed, and sleep took me almost immediately…

“Cain, you have to get out of here. Who knows what they’ll do next? We’ve already lost Melody.”

“Rosa, I’m not going anywhere. They’re not scaring me away. This is my home. My life is here. And fuck if I’m going to run scared. And Melody fell down the stairs. It was a freak accident.”

The colour drained from Rosa’s face. “I… I overheard Colt and Six talking…”

I sat up straight. Bile rose in my throat and my stomach roiled as if I knew what was coming. “And?”

“And… they were involved, Cain. And… and I think you’re next.”

My eyelids fluttered open and for a few moments I was completely disoriented. I glanced at the bedside clock. I’d somehow managed to sleep eleven hours. Fuck! I crawled out of bed and went to the tiny bathroom, where I took a quick and very cold shower. I was planning to do some of my own research and find out who the fuck had Rosa—and what the hell had happened to Melody. I had no clue how the hell to go about it, but what I lacked in know-how, I made up for in sheer fucking determination.

If my returning memory served me correctly, there was a library just along the road from the motel; it was as good a place as any to make a start. Plus if I kept busy, I wouldn’t mope, wondering what Kelly was doing. Just thinking about her made my chest ache. I pictured her sitting on her office couch with her glasses on while some patient told her all about their problems. Would she be listening or would she be drifting off and thinking of me? My stomach flipped and I rubbed my hands over my face. The last thing I needed was to get lost in some pointless fucking fantasy about a Scottish girl that I couldn’t have and shouldn’t want.

I had to put her out of my mind and get on with picking up the shards of my life.