Don't Be Afraid Read Online Free Page A

relief for having being given another chance in the space of a few hours. Somewhere inside me there was a spark that refused to be extinguished. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be with Angus.
    Still holding my hands, he locked his ice-blue eyes on mine. “I want to believe you, Bell, but I don’t know if I do.”
    I took his hand and I placed it on my chest, right over my heart, right where the black flower was. “I’ll try. I’ll try so hard to recover,” I said. I’d even try to take the medicines, every last one of them.
    â€œI know. I believe in you,” he replied. But that was another lie, like the ones he’d told the doctor to help me come home. Because in his eyes I didn’t see belief – I saw fear.

5
Voices

    Your words come
Like raindrops in a desert
    Â 
    To [email protected]
    From [email protected]
    Hey Bell ! My brother was going through old pictures yesterday and he found the ones of that time we dressed as merry maidens and made him dress as a knight and we put on a play for my mum and dad! How old were we, twelve? You were Isabeau, I was Emerine and poor Cal was Lancelot! Remember? Remember we swore eternal loyalty to each other that day? You and me, not Cal, he was off to play with the neighbours as soon as we finished tormenting him! It was so much fun. God, how much I miss you. Why oh why did you have to go back to Scotland? Anyway, I still have those costumes, you know that? Look, I know you’re not well, but please, drop me an email. You haven’t written in ages and I’m worried . I’ll go on tour with Spiorad soon, but we ’ll only do Ireland this time, for a couple of weeks. Next year, though, it’s America. Things are picking up quite fast with Spiorad. They love the idea of a blind harpist! Roots Magazine called me “the new Turlough O’Carolan”. I’m just thankful I’m not called Turlough, now that would be bad. Maybe not worse than being blind. But worse than having red hair. By the way, have you noticed how the two people you LOVE THE MOST in the whole world are both red-headed AND musicians? That would be me and Angus. Me more, of course! Let me know if I can come and visit you.
    Please write,
    Emer(ine)
    PS. My mum saw your dad, Maura and Gillian in Eyre Square. I suppose you don’t want to know, but my mum said that he didn’t look very well.
    Â 
    To [email protected]
    From [email protected]
    Hi Isabel,
    Just checking in with you – Marina from Usborne is a bit concerned she hasn’t received your work for the Scottish Legends book yet. We are late as it is. I might get you another extension, but you need to try to pick up the pace. I hope all is well with you. Give me a bell if I can help in any way.
    Joanna

6
Useless love

    I feel you slipping from my hands
The more I cling to you,
The farther you fall
    Â 
    Angus
    My love was useless, because it couldn’t save her. It couldn’t save Bell from herself. But never, never in a million years could I have imagined she would try . . .
    I didn’t even want to say it.
    Maybe if I didn’t put it in words, it never really happened.
    I’d tried to be with Bell all the time, but to be beside her twenty-four hours a day as her own black hole engulfed me slowly was a special kind of torture there was no name for. If you sleep beside someone every night, and spend every day with them, you end up swallowing their joys and sorrows. And with Bell, it had nearly only been sorrow for the last three years or so.
    My work helped me to deal with her illness, but there was a chance I might have to give it up, after what happened. I couldn’t even think about that, anyway – all that mattered was Bell.
    I’d stopped counting how many times my mother and my sister, Sheila, had asked me to leave her. Which was out of the question, of course. But that was how they saw it: like putting down a horse with a broken