Juice: The O'Malleys Book 1, contemporary Adult Romance Read Online Free

time are they coming for him?”
    “Soon. Just after three. We have an hour or so to say our goodbyes, Cass. Do you want to go last? I thought you might want to be the last one to see him. Since you were the first to see him too, in a way.”
    Cass stood and embraced her mother. She was so touched and so grateful for her mother’s constant kindness and selfless concern for her. Especially when she knew her parents own hearts were broken too.
    “Thank you, thank you, mum. It still doesn’t feel real, even now. He’s lying here as though he is just sleeping so warm and so alive.” Her mother nodded at her, her face older looking than before and her voice croaky and tired. Cass looked at the lines around her mother’s eyes. They appeared more pronounced, like pages of thin delicate paper, folded and refolded. The most beautiful and intricate origami telling a lifetime of joy and hurt. Cass saw herself in her mother’s eyes, the same soft green eyes and the same broken emptiness within them.
    “Remember it’s just his body Cass. The Harry we knew has already gone. His beautiful soul is just waiting to be let go, waiting to pass on. And we owe him that Cassidy. The opportunity to fly free.”
    She heard her mother sigh and felt the warm breath touching the back of her neck. Cass was comforted by it, the feel of it evoking a near forgotten memory from her childhood. Feeling safe in her mother's arms in the sitting room in their old house. The glow from the open fire making her sleepy and her mother's sweet soft breath caressing her face as she sung Harry and Cass a lullaby. She squeezed her eyes shut, unshed tears pricked the backs of her eyelids making them sting. They felt gritty and sore and she was suddenly so aware of each part of her own body. Her throat felt raw and tight, her limbs were so tired that it hurt to lift them. She looked around the hospital room that had become so familiar to them all over the last two weeks. She committed each inch of the room to memory taking mental snapshots, each one a piece of a puzzle that was almost completed.
    Cass stood and offered her mum the chair nearest to Harry’s bed. She kissed her on the top of her head and made her way to the door.
    “I’ll leave you to it, mum.”
    “Thanks honey. Send your dad in to me.”
    Cass waited in the corridor as her parents tearfully said their last private words to their much loved son. She dug her nails into her palm imaging what it was like for them inside the room. It was useless to imagine, to try and take on their pain. She could barely reconcile her own heart to the loss.
    And then it was her turn. It was her time. Time to say goodbye to the other half of herself. It frightened her so much that he was making this last journey alone. Most people come into the world alone and leave it the same way. But twins are different. From the beginning Cassidy and Harry had one another. They had held each other’s hands inside the womb, growing and sharing the same space and adapting to each other. Now Harry was leaving this earth on his own. Making his last lonely journey to whatever lay beyond. Cass was frightened for him and angry with him too. So angry with him for leaving her to face the world, alone.

    It was Rory who found his dad sobbing at the kitchen table. It was Rory who told the rest of the family the news and it was Rory who told Aoife.
    They had a match.
    The double lung transplant was going ahead. His father had cried for an hour straight, while his mother and the rest of them had sat at the table and stared into the distance in silence. Each of them locked in their own thoughts. Hardly daring to get their hopes up and think of a future with Aoife in it.
    April twenty third. The day their lives would change forever.
    Aoife, put her hand on Rory’s shoulder and laid her head on her brother Rian’s broad chest. Rian rubbed her hair softly as she spoke.
    “It might not take lads. Best not to get everyone’s hopes up, ya know?