I Had to Let You Go Read online

  Copyright 2020 by Emma Quinn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  WARNING: This eBook contains mature themes and language intended for 18+ readers only.

  I had to let you go

  Emma Quinn

  Content

  I had to let you go

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Extract from the book: The Nanny’s Secret

  I had to let you go

  Emma Quinn

  1

  Sophia

  “ I

  can't do it. I just can't.”

  I was holding the letter in my hand so tight it was shaking like a leaf. Along the back of the envelope in black ink were the words that made my heart beat a hundred miles a minute.

  Harvard Law School

  I'd applied to go there after getting my bachelors in law two months ago, but I never thought I'd receive a reply. Assuming my application had joined the slush pile with thousands of others.

  “Well don't just stare at it, open it,” insisted Mom.

  She was standing behind me breathing heavily like a bulldog in heat.

  “Mom, will you step back? You sound like Darth Vader breathing down my neck like that.”

  “Sorry. I'm just excited. It's giving me a touch of asthma.”

  I turned the letter over in my hand, examining every inch of it. But I was too nervous to actually open it and read what it said.

  “Please, for the love of God, Sophia if you don't tear it open I will,” said Mom. “I'm going to have an aneurysm.”

  “Okay fine,” I replied, taking a deep breath. “Let's see what it says. I doubt I got in anyway. I mean thousands of people apply for Harvard Law every year.”

  “But not all of them graduate Summa Cum Laude like you.”

  That was true, but they were still the best of the best. The creme de la creme. And that meant little small town girls like me weren't exactly high on their list of possible candidates.

  I wasn't a genius, no matter how much my mom told me I was, and I sure as shit wasn't a rich kid who could pay my way in. I was just an average kid from a one parent home. My dad had walked out fifteen years ago, and it had been a struggle ever since.

  But Mom and me had worked hard and loved each other harder. I'd got through college by working three jobs and hardly sleeping, choosing to spend my nights working in between bars and studying until I couldn't keep my eyes open.

  I wasn't Harvard Law School material, was I? Didn't those kids live off trust funds and take glamorous vacations in their parents' beach houses in the Bahamas?

  “Sophia, will you please open the goddamn letter?” she urged, resting a hand on my shoulder. “You'll never know if you got in if you don't read the thing.”

  “Yeah just give me a minute... Okay... Okay. Here it goes.”

  Slowly, I began to rip at the corners of the envelope to reveal the letter inside.

  “I don't know why I'm getting so worked up over this,” I said, pulling the letter out. “It'll probably just tell me I didn't get in anyway. I mean so many people will have applied and... and...”

  “And what?”

  Suddenly, I'd lost the ability to speak. Among all the words on the page, one stood out in bold capitals.

  Accepted.

  “Sophia? What does it say?”

  I turned to Mom and saw the anticipation in her warm, brown eyes. She looked ready to explode. In that moment, as I stared into her face, I saw how tired she looked. Saw the newly formed lines around her mouth and the dark circles beneath her eyes.

  I saw all the sacrifices she'd made for me, all the sleepless nights she'd spent worrying about the bills so she could help me through college. I didn't just see my mom, but an angel. And in about three seconds time she was going to be the proudest angel on Earth.

  “Mom.... I got in.”

  She paused for a second to process the news, then she exploded into a fit of screaming as she jumped around like a lunatic.

  “Oh, my Gooooood! My baby's going to Harvard!”

  She pulled me into a bone crushing hug that squeezed the air out my lungs.

  “Mom.. Mom let go a minute. I can't breathe.”

  “Harvard!” she squealed. “I just can't believe it. Your Aunt Margaret will never believe it. Then we've got your grandma to tell and your cousins and Uncle Billy and- “

  “I'm going to Harvard!” I cried, jumping up and down.

  The two of us bounced around the hallway like madmen, the two of us flying off the walls as the floorboards creaked between us. From the living room doorway, our old cat, Chubs stared confused at all the noise then dashed away and hid beneath the sofa.

  “Aw, Mom! I can't believe I've been accepted!”

  “I'm so proud of you. So, so proud of you, Sophia. I know how hard you worked.”

  She took my face in her hands and kissed each of my cheeks.

  “You've no idea how happy I am,” she said.

  Her eyes were glistening with tears.

  “My little baby at Harvard. I always knew you were special, you know that?”

  “Aw, Mom.”

  “It's true. You were such a smart, beautiful baby. I always knew you were different.”

  She kissed me again and I fell into her arms. Only now did my heart begin to slow down.

  As I rested against her shoulder, I looked out through blurry eyes and only now realized that I'd been crying. I wiped away the joyful tears and tried to take it all in.

  Me at Harvard. I just couldn't believe it.

  But no matter how happy I was, at the back of my mind was a series of niggling thoughts.

  You're going to have to move away.

  You'll be leaving your little hometown of Pikeville for the first time.

  You'll be leaving Ethan behind.

  “You did what?” screamed my best friend, Emily.

  “I got into Harvard Law.”

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

  She began bouncing up and down in her seat like an excited toddler and clapping her hands together.

  “It's what you've worked for so long,” she beamed. “Honestly, I could cry. I'm so proud of you.”

  Throwing herself across the table, she pulled me into a tight hug. My second, breathtaking, rib breaking hug of the day.

  “We need to celebrate,” she said. “Let's get more drinks. Something strong. Oooh, something that comes in a fishbowl!”

  The last thing I wanted to do was get drunk, but that's all Emily had in mind.

  Once I'd finally got my mom to stop screaming and called Emily to tell her I had news to share, the first pl
ace she had suggested we go was the old Delaney bar in the center of town.

  We'd both discovered it in our third year of college and fell in love with the place. But definitely not because of its glamour and classy cocktails. The place still had sawdust on the floor and the tables were sticky, but it had the best bands in town and a laid back cool as fuck attitude that left us spending many nights headbanging on the dance floor.

  We'd calmed down a fair bit since then. Or at least I had. But we still ventured here at least once a week for a drink and a catch up. And if Emily got her own way, a drink that came in a fish bowl.

  “I think I'll just stick with my vodka tonic,” I said, looking at my still half full glass.

  “Are you kidding?” replied Emily. “We have to celebrate! I mean, really celebrate!”

  “But my mom's insisting I meet up with all the family later to tell them the good news and then I'll have to start packing right away. It's only two weeks until the start of semester!”

  “Stop being such a pooper. You're so serious, Sophia. You need to let your hair down like you used to.”

  “I know. I know. Sorry. It's just that I've been working so hard recently and this has all meant so much to me. I just can't relax.”

  “Relaxing is exactly what you need to do. You've been working your ass off for years. You need to take some time off. Need to pamper yourself.”

  That sounded like a dream come true, but that's all it was. A dream. I wasn't one to rest and let life pass me by. I was an all or nothing kind of girl who worked until I dropped. It's what put me top of the class. And it was now what got me into Harvard.

  “Come on. Just one cocktail,” insisted Emily.

  “Okay, fine. You've twisted my arm.”

  “My treat,” she winked.

  She slid out her chair and ventured up to the bar where she began chatting to the barman. A toothless old guy who'd had to put up with our terrible dancing and even worse karaoke skills since we first discovered the place.

  Legend had it that he lost his teeth by catching bullets in Vietnam, and I didn't doubt that. It seemed he had a grizzly story to tell for every situation. I could see him up there now, regaling Emily with some story as he began mixing up what looked like the strongest, weirdest, most inaccurate Cosmopolitan I'd ever seen.

  Relax and celebrate, I thought. You've worked so hard and you deserve it.

  Except I couldn't relax because no matter how happy I was that I was going to be going to Harvard, I knew I still had one person to tell.

  “Cosmoooos!” grinned Emily as she returned to the table with our drinks. “My God Sophia what's with the long face? You'd think you just learned you had six months to live.”

  “Sorry,” I said, taking my drink from her hand. “It's just that I haven't told Ethan about Harvard yet.”

  “You haven't told him yet!” she gasped. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because... Because well, I'm not sure how he'll take it.”

  “He'll be delighted for you. You know that. Ethan loves you more than anything. You two are like the perfect couple.”

  “I know he'll be happy but...”

  “But...”

  “Well, Harvard's across the other side of the country. I'll have to move away.”

  “And? Ethan can move with you, can't he?”

  “If it was a year ago then definitely but maybe not now. Not after his mom's breast cancer came back.”

  “Shit, it came back?”

  Her face dropped at hearing the news.

  “You never told me,” she said. “And neither did Ethan.”

  “He didn't want to depress everyone,” I explained. “You know what he's like. He's such a private guy. Always wants to make people smile. The last thing he'd want to do is bum everyone out with his bad news.”

  “So this is the good news he needs,” she insisted.

  “I suppose so.”

  “You don't look convinced.”

  “I'm just worried. He's such a good son to his parents. He's not going to just up and leave them because I got into Harvard.”

  Which was an understatement. There was nothing that could pry him away from his parents. He was the most loyal, dutiful, caring child any parent could ask for.

  When his dad broke his back and couldn't work the week after Ethan's sixteenth birthday, the family were suddenly plunged into poverty. But Ethan didn't complain. He just got a job flipping burgers and tried his hardest to pay the bills while playing nurse to his dad.

  And when his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer two years later, he played nurse to her as well. Even though he was working two jobs to reach the payments on the house, fill the fridge and keep the heat on. Even though he was trying to put himself through acting school and more often than not went two or three days without sleep.

  He was a fun, outgoing guy who somehow, through it all made time to see his friends and have fun. He always had the energy to smile and spoil me rotten too.

  I couldn't ask for a better boyfriend, and I knew he would be so happy for me to attend Harvard. He knew how much I worked and how driven I was to succeed.

  But I also knew that at the center of everything were his parents, and that he couldn't just walk away from them.

  “You have to tell him,” said Emily, reaching across the table to touch my arm gently. “You're going to have to sooner or later.”

  “You're right.”

  Plucking my phone out my bag, I dialed his number and closed my eyes. Why was I so nervous about telling him the news of a lifetime? By the way my stomach churned itself into knots you'd think I was about to tell him something terrible had happened.

  When his phone went straight to voicemail I couldn't help but feel a sweeping sense of relief.

  “No answer,” I said.

  “Then text him.”

  “I can't tell him news like this with a text!”

  “Sure you can.”

  “Really? Okay... Here it goes.”

  With bated breath, I took a long sip of my drink and fluttered my fingers across the screen.

  You'll never guess what? I got accepted to Harvard!

  I stared at the message for a long while, wondering if it was the right thing to say.

  “Just press send already,” moaned Emily impatiently.

  “Okay fine! I'm doing it!”

  I slammed my finger against the screen and the next thing I knew the message was flying off into the electronic abyss.

  “Okay, sent!

  My heart was beating in my mouth. What would Ethan think when he read it? I knew he'd be happy, but would he be worried too?

  “It'll be okay,” Emily assured me as she sipped on her drink. “I promise. You've got nothing to worry about.”

  But I wasn't so sure.

  2

  Ethan

  “ E

  than? Ethan!” came Dad's gruff voice down the hall. “Ethan where are you?”

  His voice soon turned into an explosion of coughing and spluttering and I dragged myself up in bed and looked at the time. It was barely six, but it looked as though my morning was already starting.

  “I'm coming!” I called back.

  With a stretch and a yawn, I pulled on my bath robe and staggered down the hall.

  How long did I sleep last night? Four hours at the most? Maybe five? I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a full night's sleep and the exhaustion was starting to catch up with me.

  “Ethan!”

  “I'm here, Dad.”

  I pushed my way into his room and saw him trying to fluff up his own pillow.

  “Wait, I'll get that for you.”

  I dashed to his side and helped him up into a seated position, carefully placing the pillows behind his back to support him.

  “Where were you? I was calling for ages,” he grumbled and coughed.

  “I was asleep. Sorry.”

  “Asleep?”

  “Well, I got in from work at half one this morning. I'm feeling pr
etty beat up still.”

  “Urgh, you youngsters are as soft as marshmallows these days. When I was your age I used to work sixteen hour shifts down the coalmine and I never complained once.”

  “Yeah, and I bet you had to walk twenty miles in the snow to get there,” I retorted sarcastically.

  I'd heard Dad's stories a thousand times before and they always grew more exaggerated.

  “Ah, God. My back's really getting to me today,” he moaned, rubbing at his spine. “Hand me my pills, won't you?”

  “It's a bit early for them, isn't it?”

  The look on his face told me to shut the hell up and hand them over.

  “You can have one,” I said. “You can't just pop pills on an empty stomach.”

  “Who said I've got an empty stomach,” he replied, popping the cap off the bottle. “I've probably got some scotch sloshing around in there from last night.”

  I sighed, infuriated. It was hard enough to look after him at the best of times without him drinking away what little money we had.

  “Don't look at me like that,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you're judging me.”

  “I am judging you. Don't you think you should lighten up on the scotch?”

  “It's all I have since your dear mom went into hospital. What else do I have to keep me warm at night?”

  He spluttered again, a great big flem-filled cough that came from somewhere deeper than his lungs. I watched as he tossed the pills into the back of his throat then squeezed them down dry.

  “That'll do the trick,” he said.

  “I really think you should go back to the chiropractor,” I said, sitting on the edge of his bed.

  As I lay my hand down on the covers, I noticed they were wet with sweat. And I started to notice a sour odor coming from not just Dad, but the whole room. He'd been living out his bed for months now and, barely able to walk, he'd taken to lying almost flat on his back for most of the day. I didn't begrudge him that. He was injured after all. But did he have to be such a decrepit old man? It was like he was trying to waste away in here. And with Mom now in hospital, any motivation he had to recover went right out the window.