Can't Let You Go Read Free Page A

remember the events of those last few months accurately. Katie, I—”
    His words died as light and fury exploded around us.
    The flash of lightning.
    Screaming.
    Falling.
    Plummeting.
    Spinning.
    Fear clawed within me as Charlie threw his body over mine. “Hang on,” he yelled in my ear. “Just hang on to me.”
    I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t drag in enough breath.
    Please, God, save us.
    I uttered the plea silently.
    Then aloud.
    It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to heaven. It was just that I didn’t want to clock-in at the age of twenty-three. I’d always known flying through the sky was a bad idea. Always.
    “Charlie?”
    “I’m right here. I’m not letting you go.”
    His arms encircled me and held my tight. He mumbled words of assurance, broken prayers, and other utterances the terror swallowed whole.
    I couldn’t go like this. I couldn’t let the words I’d held for so long die with me.
    With all my strength I pushed Charlie off of me, only to grab his face, his stubbly cheeks in the palms of my hands. His wide, dilated eyes searched mine.
    “I love you, Charlie.” I pulled his face closer, blocking out the shrieks around us and the spin and tilt of death. “Do you hear me? I never stopped loving you.”
    “Katie, I—”
    Then I pressed my mouth to his, holding Charlie Benson to me, knowing these lips would soon draw their last breath.
    And I didn’t want to waste those seconds.
    Then Charlie Benson was kissing me back. His lips covered mine. His hands cradled my head. Hot tears slipped down my cheeks, and I thought of my family. The foster parents who had taken me in when I’d been a broken, rough sixteen years old. Mad Maxine, the crazy old lady who’d become not just my grandmother, but my best friend. They’d changed me. Given me a new life, rewritten my future.
    The world spun.
    The plane fell.
    And I just held on.
    “I’ve got you,” I heard him say again. “I’m not letting you go.”
    And after all these years, I believed him.
    Just when it was too late.
    And with Charlie’s kiss consuming me, my world went dark.

Chapter Three

    H eaven was. . . unexpectedly noisy.
    Eyes still shut, I listened to the beeps and clicks around me. I expected angel choirs, a hallelujah chorus, maybe some cheering at my arrival.
    And ow.
    My body ached like I’d been hit by a train.
    What happened to being pain-free? Was that just a line to get us to drop more in the collection plate?
    I struggled to lift open my eyelids, but nothing seemed to be working. If I was in a new body, clearly Jesus owed me a refund.
    “Katie?”
    At least someone knew my name.
    “Katie, can you hear me?”
    I tried to answer, but my lips wouldn’t work, my tongue somehow stuck to the roof of my mouth. So thirsty. So tired.
    “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
    That voice. It was so familiar.
    Millie?
    “She squeezed my hand. Did you see that, James?”
    “I did. Can you open your eyes, sweetheart?”
    The light.
    “Turn it off.” Jesus needed to turn his high beams down. Glory was painfully bright.
    “Come on, girl. Talk to us.”
    I blinked with hangover-heavy eyelids, and the scene slowly came into focus, one blurry pixel at a time.
    “Millie?” I swallowed past the dry, copper taste on my tongue. “James?” I was surely alive. Beeps and voices sounded in the hall outside, and the walls around me told me I was in a hospital room. A very ugly one.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    “Oh, geez. She doesn’t remember anything.” My grandma hip-bumped Millie and scooted her way to my bed. “This happened on Days of Our Lives .” She grabbed my hands and leaned down inches from my face. “You’re Katie Parker Scott.” Her volume could’ve lifted the ceiling. “This is your mom, Millie and your dad . . .” She looked at James then shrugged. “I don’t remember his name, but they’ve been legally bound for at least a few years. And I’m Millie’s younger sister Maxine.”
    “I know who