Free When I Lost You: A Gripping, Heart Breaking Novel of Lost Love. by Kelly Rimmer

the bristle that she’d caused and the tension dissipated in an instant because I couldn’t help but smile back.
    ‘As long as you don’t literally shoot me I think I can handle it,’ I said, and we laughed quietly together before Molly went back to her food.
    ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ she said quietly.
    ‘Only one thing?’
    ‘Okay, there are dozens of things, but one thing in particular that you might be able to explain,’ she said wryly. ‘Why did you stay friends with Declan? My father was a complete arse to you, wasn’t he?’
    ‘Yeah.’ That was something of an understatement. Laith had made me feel decidedly unwelcome from the first visit I made to the Torrington mansion, right up until the times I’d seen him at industry functions in more recent years. Even a decade after we last spoke, he still made a habit of boring holes in me with his death-stare whenever we were in the same room.
    ‘And Dec?’ Molly added. ‘From what you’ve told me today, he was hard work as a friend.’ She smiled at me but there was so much sadness in her eyes. I set down my fork and leant in a little as I said quietly, ‘You know, Molly, that question is exactly why I told you this morning to focus on the good things you know about him. The human side to your brother was remarkable. He was one of the most generous, genuine people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.’
    ‘Tell me about that side to him then,’ she prompted. ‘I mean – he was a great brother, but I’m not sure I’d ever have thought of him as generous – and genuine? How does that work given what you told me today? It sounds like he was living a lie for most of his adult life.’
    I hadn’t intended to tell her any other secrets about Declan, but there was a cynicism in her voice when she spoke about him and it stung me to realise that I’d put it there. Plus, I really wanted to show her that my ‘stupid male pride and ego’ could actually accept help when I needed it. And so I set down my fork and I looked at her as I told her a story about her brother that I’d never shared before.
    ‘We met in our first semester at uni and at the time my living situation wasn’t ideal. I was living with my mother and she was at a real low point. Anyway, eventually Dec came to visit me at home. I’m sure he’d never seen anything like where we were living – a public housing unit in one of those huge towers in Redfern. Back then those places were dangerous and uncomfortable. I’d seen your house so there was no way I wanted him to see where I lived but he kept asking and eventually I had him around…’ It was an uncomfortable memory. Mum had hit a real slump when my biological father finally left, and it had taken her a few years to find herself again. Meanwhile, I was trying to find my place at uni and working two part-time jobs to get some money behind me, and not at all sure if I was up to the task of juggling it all.
    ‘Did Dec give you money?’
    ‘Not directly,’ I said, and then I laughed. ‘I would have been mortified if he’d offered and that probably would have been the end of our friendship. But the Dean called me into her office late in that first semester, and she told me that I’d been “selected” for a scholarship. Within a few weeks I had enough income coming in that I could live independently while I finished my degree. It was an embarrassingly long time later that I realised my “scholarship” was personally funded by your brother. Although he always denied it – the Dean admitted it when I finally graduated.’ I picked up my fork again and pushed the food around the plate for a moment, then admitted, ‘I just don’t know if I could have finished uni without that money. And if I hadn’t… Well, there was this whole other world around me then that would have sucked me back in. I’d been in a lot of trouble in my early teens and the vultures were already circling. If I’d slipped back into