Free Drops of Blue by Alice Bright Page A

sorry. I shouldn’t have told you all that.”
     
    “No, no, it’s okay,” she told him. “I get it. I mean, my husband isn’t dead, but he’s gone. He left me last year,” she frowned. “And my mother passed away a few months ago, so I get it. I get the pain. Sometimes it seems like it would be easier to leave, you know, and just start somewhere new. Just start somewhere fresh.”
     
    “I’m really sorry,” Henry told her. “I’m sorry that you’ve gone through this.”
     
    Emily shrugged. “What can you do?”
     
    “I just take one day at a time,” he admitted.
     
    They talked for awhile longer, but then Henry had to go.
     
    “Thanks for the great conversation,” he told her, dropping some cash on the counter. “You’re good company, Emily.”
     
    And then he was gone.
     
    When Henry left the diner that day, Emily didn’t expect to see him again.
     
    But she did see him again.
     
    And again.
     
    And again.
     
    Henry came in every day at 1:30 and ordered a cup of coffee and a sandwich. He chatted with Emily as he ate, inquiring about her little boy and always asking how her day was going. He shared more about his late wife and their life together. They had so many great plans that Emily wondered how Henry could go on living without her.
     
    He must be so lonely.
     
    He must be so lost.
     
    But somehow, something about Henry seemed strong. Something in him seemed brave, courageous. She knew, deep inside, that he was going to be just fine. He was going to make it.
     
    It wasn’t long before she began to look forward to the last few hours of work because it meant she’d get to see him.
     
    One day, as Henry stood to leave, he paused for a second.
     
    “Go out with me,” he said to Emily.
     
    “What?”
     
    “I mean it. Go out with me. Tomorrow.”
     
    Emily felt her heart leap and then melt back down into its usual state of sadness and emptiness.
     
    “Henry, it’s complicated. I can’t.”
     
    “If it’s Dillon you’re worried about,” Henry assured her, “it’s fine. I’m not trying to replace his dad, and I’m fine with the fact that you have a child. I just want to spend some time with you. You’re amazing, Emily. I want to get to see that a little more.”
     
    She sighed. “It’s not Dillon. It’s just-” She thought of her mother. She thought of her dead mother and what she would say. It had been months since she died, and still Emily felt lost. Still she felt alone. Still she felt like it was a struggle just to get through each day.
     
    Henry understood, she knew. He had lost just as much – if not more – as she had.
     
    But still, she wondered if it was too soon.
     
    “What is it?” Henry asked her, softly placing his hand on top of hers.
     
    “My life is really complicated, Henry. It’s messy. It’s sad and it’s boring and it’s nothing that would interest you.”
     
    “I’m already interested,” he told her with a soft smile. “Give me a chance.”
     
    Emily tried to stop staring at him, but she couldn’t.
     
    She tried to resist him, but it was futile.
     
    She felt washed away by his attention, buy his presence. They’d known each other only a short time, but she already knew he was a good man. He was a kind man. He was the type of man who didn’t care that her family was gone and she was all alone.
     
    He was the type of man who’d come sit at a diner in the middle of the day just so that she didn’t have to be alone.
     
    “Okay,” she told him. “I’ll go out with you.”
     
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    Emily stared in her reflection in the mirror for what felt like hours, but was probably just a few minutes. Her hair was curled. Her makeup was on. Her lips looked kissable.
     
    But she still had to remind herself to breathe.
     
    Dillon, always the trooper, was happy to spend the night at his best friend’s house so that Emily could go out.
     
    “Thank you,” she told Kyle’s mother as Dillon sprinted off