Jude walked through the door during lunch, and I tilted my focus to Scott who stood off by the entrance of the mess hall. Scott offered a faint nod, and I rose from my chair, abandoning my uneaten tray.
Before Jude reached the lunch line, I made it across the room and wrapped my hand around the back of his neck, steering him away. “Outside,” I ordered. Jude tried to pull his head from my grasp, and my grip tightened, forcing his weak arse forward. “No one’s going to help you.”
Jude wordlessly nodded and walked ahead of me. I looked back at Scott, who glanced at his wristwatch. Five-or-so minutes was all I had to get this bloke to talk.
On our way out, Bria and the new girl, who I kept forgetting the name of, stopped in front of us.
“Go on, eat. I’ll be there in a minute,” Jude immediately said to the girls.
They both looked over at me then back at Jude. “We don’t eat without you,” Bria whined, and I craned my head in Jude’s direction, looking for an explanation on what she meant by that.
“You are today,” he said through an exhale and annoyance in his tone. “You can eat one fucking meal without me.”
Bria rolled her eyes as the blonde studied me, and finally, they both stepped to the side Jude and I pushed through the double doors to outside, unattended.
“The fuck is this about, mate?” Jude asked, pulling a cigarette and lighter from his pocket as soon as our feet touched grass. He had the nerve to bring it to his mouth and light it as if my presence was a waste of his time. I ripped the cigarette from his mouth, split it in half, and shoved him against the side of the building. Jude’s eyes went wide, and he tried to push me back but failed. “You got a problem, just say so! You can have Bria, she’s a loose cannon, anyway.”
“Bria? I’m here about Mia, remember Mia?”
A smirk crossed his face. “Ah, Mia, yeah?” And before another thought could cross his mind, I wiped that smirk off his face with my fist to his jaw. Jude’s neck twisted before his body did, but I grabbed his shirt and slammed him back against the wall.
“Does this look like a bloody game to you? I’m in no mood for rubbish, you piece of shit. Start talking.”
“You got it bad for her I see,” he pushed me off him and held up a hand, “I haven’t touched the girl. Well … no … I take that back. Perhaps I touched her,”—he brought his thumb and pointer finger in the air, hardly touching them together— “but only a little.”
In a hot flash, rage erupted, and my angry fist punched his gut, knocking the air from his lungs. Jude keeled over with a hand over his stomach.
Violence wasn’t usually my first attempt at conversation, but this bloke had tested my patience, and I had none left. “You told detail where to find a key,” I clenched his shirt in my fist and pulled him upright, “How’d you know about a key?”
Jude looked past me and sucked in a defeated breath. “A note, alright?”
“A note?”
He pushed his hand into the pocket of the black jeans painted on him and pulled out a folded piece of paper before shoving it into my chest. “A bloody note.”
“Where did you get this from?” I asked as I opened it, and my eyes swiftly skimmed over the tattered paper. The letter was simple: Tell Lynch the key is in Mia’s dorm or everyone will know. “Know what? What are you hiding?” I narrowed my eyes.
“I found it in my dorm,” he dabbed his hand over his mouth, blood dripping over his already swelling lip. “That’s all you need to know.”
“Not good enough,” I stepped closer, securing him still with a warning glare.
He jerked his head to the side, whipping his black hair off his shoulder. “It doesn’t concern you.”
“If it concerns Mia, it concerns me. You weaseled your way into this mess over some threat you will tell me about.”
Jude laughed and looked off. “I get it now. You love her.” He shook his head swiped a loose strand behind his ear. “Let me tell you something about love … love only leads to disappointment. Take my advice and run. Nothing good comes of it. Find yourself a couple cows, take the fanny, and shut off your feelings because love only ends in one way: excruciating pain.” He slid down the building until his arse hit the ground and retrieved another fag from his pocket. “It’s not worth it,” he added.
I should’ve seen it before. Dropping my hands over my hipbones, I glanced down at the bloke who unraveled before my eyes. “Why are you here, Jude?”
He smiled, took a drag between his fingers, and dropped his head back. “You wouldn’t understand,” he muttered as smoke seeped from between his lips.
“Try me.”
He glanced up and winced from the sun. “I fucked up,” he shrugged, flicking the ash between his bent knees, “pissed and coming back from a do, totaled the car, barely made it out alive. The worst part about it? I did make it out alive. I wished I didn’t. Wished I could trade places with her. I’d give up everything to bring her back, even my own life.”
“Fuck,” I exhaled and threaded my fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry, mate.”
Jude hung his head. “Sorry’s’ are for when people don’t have anything else to say but have a need to fill the awkward space. Rather you’d say nothing at all.”
“You’re right.” I almost felt bad for punching him. Almost. “You made a mistake. You’re paying your price. No reason to punish yourself more. God knows you’re going through hell. You think she’d like what you’re doing to yourself right now?”
“Fuck you. Don’t talk like you know her.”
I nodded and looked around. “I know she didn’t die so you could pound into some pussy, wallow in your sorrows, and treat girls like they’re property.”
He stood and pulled the fag from his lips. “Easy for you to say, yeah?”
“It is easy. Plain and fucking simple.”
“And if it were Mia?”
“I wouldn’t have been so goddamn stupid in the first place.”
“You’re a real charmer, you know that?” He blew out smoke and dropped his head back against the wall behind him. “We should’ve left it with ‘sorry.’”
I held up the note in my hand. “I’m keeping this.”
Jude waved his hand before bringing the fag back to his lips, and I turned to walk back inside. The chap was harmless. A complete and utter wreck, but harmless. This had been his way of dealing with the grief of his love’s death. A death he had caused.
A pit formed in my stomach at the thought of losing Mia because of something I’d done, and Jude’s grief rubbed off on me, growing this sickness inside me until it became unmanageable. Before reaching the doors back into Dolor, I posted up against the stone wall to catch my bearings from the dizzy spell taking over. I pinched my eyes together and drew in a deep breath, and counted to three. My emotional intensity was in full swing. The pills were officially out of my system.
Scott waited inside the building beside the doors. “And?” He asked as I walked by.
“Dead end.”
“Like I said,” Scott scoffed from behind as he walked down the hall behind me. “Where you headed?”