Page 141 of Jude

His stubble was rough and scruffy, and his jawline was now a dense, unkempt thicket of stubble.

His eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by deep, hollow shadows.

When I first laid eyes on him in the shelter’s reception, a massive, agonizing wave of compassion and fierce, instinctual love crashed over my chest.

Every fiber of my soul screamed at me to cross the room and cradle his bearded face in my hands.

I wanted to nurture him, bathe him, cook him a hot meal, and hold him close until the haunting shadows left his eyes.

I wanted to forgive him, to wipe clean the agony of the last few weeks, and to whisper to him that my love for him hadn’t changed.

Yet I couldn’t give in to the yearning.

The memory of how he treated me with contempt and scorn, how he spoke down to me, still cut deep.

The wounds were too fresh, his lack of faith in me too jagged and raw.

To run into his arms now would be an act of self-betrayal, an erasure of the dignity I fought so hard to reclaim.

I had to hold fast, ignoring my aching heart, because loving him couldn’t mean breaking myself.

I understood his knee-jerk reaction when he saw those photos.

What broke me was what happened next.

When I looked him in the eye and told him it was a setup, yet he still trusted a convicted blackmailer over me.

He tossed away everything we built for three fake images.

The anger was bad enough, but the hurt was worse.

It killed me that the man I loved could think so little of my character.

In Paris and Rome, we got close. He held me, protected me, and made love to me.

He threw all of it away, and I couldn’t see past the wreck he left behind.

JUDE

Two weeks later, band practice and laying down tracks for a new EP resumed.

Bishop arranged a block of rehearsals at our private studio in Nashville.

I missed three sessions in a row; needless to say, my bandmates got furious.

Deacon called me in my Ram one late night, his frustration evident through my truck speakers.

‘You’re blowing off the production schedule, Judah,’ he rasped. ‘The label is calling about our track deadlines, and you’re AWOL. Where’re you?’

‘I’m where I need to be, Deac,’ I muttered, cutting the connection before he could launch into a lecture.

As I had for the last fortnight, I remained camped outside her shelter and the bus depot, my Dodge Ram serving as my permanent surveillance post.

One afternoon, I observed Sofia walking past a chain-link fence bordering a used car lot adjacent to her workplace.

She paused, her eyes fixed on a blue Honda Civic with a faded hood but intact tires.

She stared at the windshield, peering at the sticker.