“I’m so tired,” I told him. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired.”

“I know,” he said.

“He’s gone, Henry. I sent him away. I have to carry that forever now.”

A lost cause, lifelong burden, same as my stupid, sad name.

“I know, Jude.”

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling and my tears ran straight down onto my pillow, pooled quietly in the cups of my ears.

“What happens next?” I said. “What am I supposed to do now?”

Henry shifted in his chair. He cleared his throat and spoke quietly. “Time will pass unbearably slowly,” he said. “The days will feel worn out before they start and lead-heavy and there will be no room for the size of what you feel.”

“Nothing compares, you said.”

“No, Jude. Nothing will. And you will feel like there will always be something wrong with you—the same hurt, the same lack—and that the feeling will last forever, until you stop feeling anything at all.”

I sat up. “Help me,” I said. “I made the wrong decision.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, it feels like that. I don’t know what to do.”

“Why did you let him go?” he asked me.

“What?”

“You wanted to fall with him.”

“Yes. Of course I did. I still do. I still want it.”

“So what stopped you?”

“You did,” I said. “You told me the truth. I couldn’t trap him. I couldn’t do that, not to him.”

I lay on my bed and looked up at the sky and I remember thinking it had no sense of occasion, no business being so blue.

“But I can’t do this either,” I said.

“You will be sad,” Henry said. “Of course you will. For a long time, Jude. And you must be.”

“I’ll never not be. And what about him?” I said. “I worry about him. How he is feeling. He’ll be so lonely, Henry. He’ll be the loneliest.”

Henry sighed. He patted my arm. “Didn’t he tell you that he’s always known you?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you he’s found you before? The other times you met?”

“Yes,” I said. “He told me.”

“And did you know that he was there? At the time?”

“No, of course not. I didn’t know him until this time.”

“So how can you be sure that he’s not here right now?” Henry said. “I mean, here, in this room, right now, for the smallest possible fraction of a second? How could you know that he will never be with you again?”

“Is that possible?”

Henry laughed, just a little. “You and I both know for a fact that everything is.”

“You promise?” I said.

“Trust me, Jude,” Henry Lake said. “The worst has already happened and you are still here. Still breathing. You did the right thing.”