Song: "How To Save A Life" by The Fray

*Suicide Trigger Warning*

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I called Harry as soon as I got back to my apartment, but I got his voicemail, so I just left a message. "Hey, Harry it's Regan. Just feeling kind of bummed and wanted to talk, but it's no big deal. Call me when you get a chance. 'Bye."

I got into my pajamas and watched a rom-com until I fell asleep on the couch. Luckily I woke up some time after midnight and went to bed, otherwise I really wouldn't have heard my alarm clock in the morning. Gabby might have gone easy on me the other day for showing up late, but I couldn't make it a habit.

I showed up at work with the standard coffees and then headed for the basement. I had only been there for a few minutes when I was paged. When the elevator door opened on the first floor. There stood Harry with a smile and a bag from The Baker's Dozen.

"Is that for me?" I asked eagerly.

"Well, hello to you too," he laughed, and then he hugged me. "And yes, these are for you and for me. Two Sinful Cinnamon Rolls."

"How did you know that's my favorite bakery?" I said, referring to Bake Away, a tasty little place just about ten blocks east of the library, closer to the river. I'd recognize their cinnamon rolls anywhere.

"Lucky guess," he grinned. "I got your message last night and thought I'd come and cheer you up."

"Harry!" I gushed. "That's so sweet of you. Well, I just started checking books in, so I can't really take a break right now." I leaned in and whispered. "But if you follow me to the basement, you can hang out with me while I check books in."

I glanced past Harry's shoulder at Gabby. She had her head down as always, doing some busy work on the computer. I rushed Harry into the elevator, following close behind him with the cumbersome book cart. When we arrived in the basement, I went straight to the check in bin.

"Well now," Harry said, "If you're going to bend the rules by feeding me and smuggling me down to the basement, you might as well enjoy your cinnamon roll before it gets cold."

"You're a bad influence," I teased as I dipped my hand into the open bag and pulled out a warm, gooey roll.

He shrugged. "Not really, I just have a terrible sweet tooth." He pulled one out and sunk his teeth into it at the same time I did.

"If I had known that, I wouldn't have brought you a breakfast sandwich every day."

He took hold of my hand and said, "If you hadn't brought me a breakfast sandwich every day, we probably wouldn't be where we are now."

"In the basement?" I asked, trying not to laugh.

"No," he chuckled. "We wouldn't be getting to know each other."

"Ahh," I said. "Well, then I'm glad I did it."

We enjoyed our cinnamon rolls together and then I showed him the very exciting details of my job. When the cart was full, Harry pushed it to the elevator and rode to the third floor with me. He hung out and talked to me while I shelved the books.

"You know that I could get in big trouble for this," I said.

"For what?" Harry asked innocently.

"For hanging out with you while I'm working."

"Nonsense," he said, pulling a book off the shelf and opening it. "I'm a library patron, reading a book, chatting with a cute librarian."

"Stop trying to sweet talk me," I argued playfully. "I'm happy to see you, but you're distracting me."

"Fine," he smiled. "I'll just sit down over here and stop bothering you."

"Fine," I agreed. He went to sit at the table he had occupied for several weeks.

When I finished the books on that floor, Harry decided to take off, but not before asking me if we could hang out later. He offered to pick me up after work and I accepted. And for the rest of the day, I was distracted by the memory of his sweet gesture and the promise of seeing him again later.

I stepped out of the library at exactly 5:01 PM, and there was Harry, waiting in his Subaru Outback. I got in the passenger seat and leaned over to hug him and he reciprocated with a kiss to my cheek.

"Do you want to go out somewhere?" He asked.

"To be honest, I'm kind of in the mood for hanging out at my place tonight. I went out with my folks last night, and it wasn't the most enjoyable experience."

Harry put the car in drive and began the short trip to my place. "Is that why you called last night and said you were bummed?"

"Yeah," I answered. "I mean, they were just checking up on me, but sometimes it feels like they're suffocating me."

"I'm sorry," he said in a genuinely sympathetic voice. "Parents can be like that sometimes, I suppose."

"It's all right," I shrugged. "I'm just looking forward to an evening in after being out Sunday, working late Monday and then going out with my folks last night."

He pulled up to the curb in front of my building and we got out. "Anything works for me. I just wanted to spend some time with you."

After ordering some Chinese food, I told Harry, "I'm really sorry I don't have anything for dinner. I hardly ever cook."

"Why not?"

"I'd rather spend my time reading or whatever. I guess that cooking for myself just seems like a waste of time."

"I could teach you a few things," Harry offered.

"I know how to cook all right, I just choose not to."

"I love to cook," he said with a wistful smile. "I miss cooking for someone, to be honest."

"Yeah?" I said tenderly.

"Maybe I could cook for you some time. We can go shopping and then I'll make you a tasty, home-cooked meal."

"I'd like that."

When the food arrived, Harry and I sat down to eat while watching the same rom-com I had started to watch last night. I appreciated that we were able to be together in such a comfortable way. When the movie ended, we cleaned up dinner. While putting the last dishes away, I asked Harry, "What was your wife's name?"

A warm, nostalgic look overtook his face. "Cathryn. Her name was Cathryn."

I decided to venture a little further. "Will you tell me about her?"

We sat back down together and pulled a blanket over our laps. "I met her the year after we moved here from England," he began. "I was a junior in high school and she was in my chemistry class. We were lab partners."

I smiled to think of Harry as a teenager. He must have been adorable. Any girl would have looked at him and fallen hard and fast.

"She was beautiful, blonde hair, blue eyes, such a bright smile. She was vivacious, energetic. I considered myself kind of shy and quiet while she was everybody's best friend. When we started dating, I really came out of my shell. She taught me a lot about being myself." My chest tightened with emotion, hearing him talk about her. "I graduated from high school at 17 because of my grade in England. We both went to Wayne State, and we got married the day after we graduated."

"So you were young," I observed.

"Yeah, I was only 21. She was 22. We'd been together for five years already and never had a fight so terrible that we considered breaking up. It made sense to get married rather than wait for some arbitrary time or age. We knew we wanted to be together...forever." His voice choked off a little at the end.

"I'm sorry," I said. "You don't have to tell me anymore if you don't want to."

"I want to," he said quietly. "I want you to know. And to be honest, all my other friends have just about given up on me."

"Why would they give up on you?" I wondered.

"They're just sick of me being depressed all the time," he said. "Even when I started doing better, they just assumed that I was over her, but it kind of pissed me off because it had only been six months. Like they really thought I'd be okay in six months. So when I kept talking about how hard things were, I just felt like they shut down, not really wanting to listen to the same thing over and over again."

"Well that sucks. So they basically put a timeline on your grief and after that, they just expected you to move on and be okay."

"Exactly," he said, sniffling. "I haven't really spent time with anyone for months. To be honest, I was already falling back into depression a few months ago because I felt like I couldn't talk about her and I couldn't talk about how much it still hurt. For a while, I just acted like I was okay, like everything was okay, but eventually, I just stopped hanging out with my friends because pretending hurt more than being alone. I'd act like I was fine and then I'd go home to an empty house and the pain just consumed me." When he finished, his voice was hoarse. I was afraid to look at him because I knew he was crying.

"I'm sorry," I squeaked, tears filling my eyes. I couldn't imagine my friends not being there for me through something so traumatic, or giving up on me because I wasn't over it by a certain time. "You're still carrying around all this pain, and then your friends kind of betray you."

"Right," he said nodding. He wiped away a tear. "Anyway, I didn't come here to talk about this all night. You had a hard day yesterday and I wanted to cheer you up. And I wanted to see you, too."

I smiled at the warmth his words brought to my insides. I studied him for a few moments and said, "I'm fine, Harry. The fact that you came to see me at work and that you brought my favorite cinnamon rolls this morning was enough to cheer me up. I really don't mind if you want to talk. But don't feel like you have to either."

"Thanks," he said with something of a shy smile on his face, the kind that made the dimple in his cheek look extra deep. "It is nice to have someone to talk to. I'm sure it will get easier as time goes by. Some things are already easier, but some things still catch me off-guard. The other day, I saw a trailer for a new movie and I couldn't wait to tell her about it so we could go and see it together," he said. "It was only a split second before I remembered that she's gone. But we were together for eight years; one year is hardly enough time to learn to live without her."

"That makes sense," I said, the tears in my eyes now spilling over. "I'm so sorry."

"I didn't mean to make you cry," he said with a slight laugh, putting his arm around me in a half hug.

"Don't worry about me," I told him. "Tell me anything you want. If it makes me cry, I hope that just shows you that I care about you, and that it makes me sad to think of everything you've been through."

"Thanks."

I changed the subject slightly, going back to what he had told me earlier about marrying Cathryn on the day they graduated from college. "You know, my parents got married when they were 21 as well, right out of college, so I don't think it's a crazy idea at all," I told him. "I think that when you find the right person and you just know, it doesn't make sense to wait years to get engaged or to plan a wedding."

"Right," he agreed. "And I'm glad we had at least a few years of being married before she was gone." Again, we sat close and remained quiet for a while, just enjoying our closeness, much the same as we did the night we first kissed.

"Can I tell you something?" He said eventually.

"Of course."

"I guess I had kind of a nervous breakdown. You know, after she died."

"That's understandable," I said. "I think almost anyone would."

"I was going to law school, actually. I had one year left, and I just quit after she died. I couldn't even think about getting myself to class let alone trying to absorb the material. My brain was just decimated by grief and I couldn't think or focus."

"I thought you were going to tell me some dark and terrible secret, Harry. All of what you've said makes perfect sense."

"Yeah," he said. "But there's more." I braced myself a little. "I told you I was doing better when my mom left. That was true, and I didn't really relapse until late summer, like I was just telling you, and then the worst of it hit when I reached that one-year anniversary. Back in September."

"Right," I said. But I knew he still hadn't told me everything.

"I think it hit me like it was happening all over again. The pain felt so real again, so tangible, so I just fell into despair, thinking I'd never get past it. I felt like I literally could not live without her. I fell into a funk and slept for days. I didn't eat anything for a long time. One night I finally had enough. I was absolutely convinced that I would never be happy again and that there was no point in living without her." He stopped, closed his eyes and sighed deeply. I was pretty sure I knew where he was going with this. He continued, "So I swallowed half a bottle of pain killers and hoped I wouldn't wake up."

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I'm sorry this chapter is kind of dark. The next chapter will be, too. Such is the subject matter, but it will lighten up again soon, okay?

And THANK YOU for 3K reads!!! <3