And When You Leave Me

By Katrina Jackson

And when you leave me...

I was raised to get my house in order at the end of the year.
Dust from top to bottom.
Wash your windows clockwise with vinegar and the hottest water you can stand.
Sweep on your left side, never your right.
Dump your bucket in the gutter, so it can't water any roots.
Leave all that baggage behind.

It's New Year's Eve and I'm doing my duty, but my heart's not in it, because I lost it a year ago. Ever since my husband died, I've just been hanging on by a thread - clutching at the memory of the man I love with everything I have.

But after my grandmother sends me a sachet of herbs for my bath, with strict instructions to let this year wash down the drain - even my grief - I start having the wildest dreams.

Dreams of the night we met.
Dreams of my husband beside me.
Dreams of a future we never got to live.
Dreams that make me wonder if my lost love is really so far gone.

I'll love you still.

 

 

Content Warnings

Terminal illness

Death

Grief

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katrina Jackson
• Release date: Dec 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223284581

Katrina Jackson

Katrina is a college professor by day who writes romances by weekend when her cats allow. She writes high heat, diverse and mostly queer erotic romances and erotica. She also likes sleep, salt-and-pepper beards, and sunshine. I'm super active on twitter. Follow me: @katrinajax

Book preview

And When You Leave Me

And When You Leave Me

AN EROTIC GHOST LOVE STORY

KATRINA JACKSON

Copyright © 2023 by Katrina Jackson

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Editor: A.K. Edits

Cover Design: Brynn Robinson

Vellum flower icon Created with Vellum

For Manny

I’m going to miss you more than my heart can bear.

The same way you loved me.

Content Warnings

Terminal illness

Death

Grief

Prologue

DECEMBER 24, 2023

I think we should take a cruise. Maybe to the Mediterranean. What do you think?

There’s a tube down Ayaan’s throat, but he squeezes my hand once for yes.

Wait, which part?

He rolls his eyes at me because I’ve done it again, asking him too many questions all at once.

Sorry. When you’re completely healed and can get the fuck out of this hospital bed, do you want to go on a cruise?

I hold my breath and wait for another hand squeeze for yes or two for no. He gives me one. I try to ignore that his hand squeezes aren’t nearly as strong as three weeks ago. In one ear and out the other is all the time I can give bad news. Ayaan’s been in the hospital for nearly a month, and at some point, I just had to stop focusing on the details because they were driving me crazy. How many liters of fluids they got into him. His heart rate. His blood pressure. All the data the nurses and doctors needed to keep him alive was threatening to kill me. If his numbers were up, I started planning for his release, and when they were down, I couldn’t look at him without crying because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.

I’ll never be ready to say goodbye.

Okay! I exclaim, squirming in my seat. So, when we take this cruise, should we go to the Caribbean?

Two squeezes.

I nod with a smile. Exactly. Alaska?

He doesn’t even waste his energy squeezing my hand. He simply glares at me with disdain, but his eyes still light up when I laugh.

I’m just trying to give you all the options. Okay, what about the Mediterranean?

One long squeeze.

A man of taste, I whisper, leaning close.

When I place my head on his chest, I can still hear his heart beating, slow and steady. His chest still rises and falls in an even pace, and I don’t care that he needs a breathing tube to keep it. All that matters to me is that it happens. I just need him to stay.

His free hand settles on the side of my face, brushing the hair away from the back of my neck. I don’t care that his fingers are clammy; I hardly even notice it. I focus on the familiar softness of his touch on my skin. Before Ayaan, I didn’t know gentle massaging pressure at the back of my neck could be an erogenous zone, and under other circumstances this soft touch would have lit a fire in my gut, but I don’t have the energy to get sexually excited right now. All I can manage is gratitude that I can feel his fingers on me one more time.

But hopefully not the last time.

Maybe we can just cruise around the world, I whisper against the back of his hand and kiss it. Hop on a boat and never come back. Just the two of us.

I close my eyes, trying to stop the tears from falling. I fail.

Ayaan squeezes my hand again, holding the tightest grip he can manage until his strength fades. He doesn’t have to be able to speak for me to interpret this one.

You are home.

If we’re ever separated and I have to travel the world to get back to you,

I will.

And when you leave me, I’ll love you still.

His wedding vows.

One Year Later

DECEMBER 31, 2024

Ihate when it rains on New Year’s Eve.

Snow? Sure. Heatwave? Maybe, it depends on where we are. But rain? That’s just depressing. Who wants to drag an umbrella with them out into the cold? Not me. Although Ayaan never complained about it, but I can’t think about that or him without crying. Besides, what do I care about the weather outside? My only New Year’s Eve plans are to clean my apartment from top to bottom, eat a bowl of black-eyed peas and greens, and cry myself to sleep before midnight. The world could fall apart outside my house, and I wouldn’t notice. My world fell apart a year ago, and for the past twelve months, I’ve been living in the perpetual fog of life without my love.

I’ve been cleaning all day, and my back is so sore I might be hobbling into the new year, and alone at that. And unlike last year, I don’t have the benefit of a wave of grief so strong it obliterates all rational thought until the sedatives kick in to put me out of my misery for a few hours.

But at least I’m walking into the new year with a clean house, I say to myself as I dump one more full trash bag by my front door. When I realize what I’ve said, I recoil because what the fuck? That’s the kind of unhinged shit my mama would say.

I jump at the sound of someone knocking on my door, and I can tell immediately by the prim sound that I’ve somehow managed to summon her with Pine-Sol, cornbread cooling on the stove, and grief.

I take a deep breath and let it out as loud as I can. My therapist keeps trying to convince me that the sound is as cathartic as the breath.

I can hear you, my mother calls through the door.

I’m not hiding from you, I call back.

Coulda fooled me, she mumbles.

I have to literally move some of the bags to the side so I can open the door. I try for just a sliver — just enough to convince her that I’m still alive — but my mother isn’t having it. She pushes the door open, kicks off her shoes in the foyer, and breezes into my apartment like she owns the place.

I stay at the front door and watch as my mother runs a finger over the top of a lamp, checking for dust. She looks at her finger and nods begrudgingly.

Seriously, mama?

She moves to my bookshelf. Seriously. You might be willing to take your future for granted, but not me.

What’s that supposed to mean? I ask because I’m a glutton for punishment, and maybe I’m spoiling for a fight. I’ve been doing that all year. Maybe one day I’ll get past it, but for now — when the wounds are so fresh