Chapter Nine #2
I drag my hand through my hair, then anchor my hand against the back of my neck.
I squeeze, hoping the pressure will distract me from the buzzing in my chest. “Your complete unfamiliarity with my existence, for one.” I sigh, trying to shake off some of the venom lacing my tone.
But I can’t. I can’t because she has no idea how much it hurts to have the thing I want most dangled like a treat in front of my nose, knowing I can’t ever have it.
“You didn’t know ghosts even existed a couple of weeks ago. These things don’t work like that.”
“I know there’s a lot I don’t know, but think about it. We’ve visited my memories and you haven’t discovered anything horrible about me. We’ve gone to my past several times, and every time it’s something completely mundane.”
“Harriet—” I try.
“I don’t think I’m a bad person,” she says, raising her voice and cutting me off.
“At least not the type of bad person you typically deal with. I’m just a person trying my best, occasionally making mistakes.
” She tilts her head to the side. “Tell me the truth. Have you seen anything that warrants a haunting?”
“I haven’t, but—”
“Then I think this is the answer!” Her face lights up, her eyes wide and bright, shining like copper.
She stops twisting her hands and waves them between us.
“You said you’ve been stuck, that you thought there’d be something different.
You said there aren’t any mistakes. Maybe we’ve just been looking at it from the wrong angle. ”
“The wrong angle,” I repeat, a creeping numbness in my chest. She nods. “Maybe this is something that can help you. Not me.”
I consider it. When I first became a ghost, this was the sort of thing I hoped for.
I spent hours, days, weeks, agonizing over it.
And then weeks became months and months became years.
I combed over the details of my life, looking for the part where I earned this fathomless existence.
I painstakingly picked everything over until the details became muddled.
Until I could barely remember the person I was. The things I did.
I kept waiting for a choice—a chance.
But when one never materialized, I realized I was a fool.
There is no happily ever after for me. There is no … light at the end of the tunnel. There is only this.
After a decade, I let go of my hope. After a century, I released my expectations, too.
And now Harriet has decided she can fix it. That she can fix me. “How long have you been thinking about this?” I manage to ask. Her smile wavers. “Well, I was just talking with Sasha this morning and—”
“This morning,” I repeat, frustration welling up in my chest. It spills over until I’m coated in it, just like the jam she insisted on bringing back from the past. She has no right.
No right to give me hope when I’ve been without it for as long as I can remember.
“You’ve been contemplating something you know next to nothing about for an hour, and I am to believe you suddenly have an answer? ”
Her shoulders inch up toward her ears. “Nolan—”
“Thank you, Harriet,” I say, the frustration twisting into something darker. Rougher. Wilder. My magic licks at the inside of my chest in warning, hot and punishing. I ignore it. “I’m so relieved you’ve found the solution to this absolute hell I’ve been living.”
“Nolan,” she says again, her voice a whisper. There’s not an ounce of enthusiasm left in her face. I’ve pulled out all of her light and crushed it in my fists, but I can’t help myself. It feels like the ultimate cruelty, what she’s just done.
“A woman who has existed for a mere blink of my lifetime is somehow the key to my salvation. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before,” I continue, my sarcasm like a blade between us. “Thank you, Harriet. You are oh so helpful. I can see why you have so many people willing to be around you.”
The hit lands the way I intended. She flinches and sucks in a sharp breath.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help. That’s not the reason I’m alone.” She pauses. Swallows. Her eyes turn glassy and wet. “You don’t have to be cruel,” she finishes with a whisper.
“I don’t want your help. I never asked for it.
You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I explain.
Ten minutes ago, I was desperately trying not to kiss her.
Now I can barely stand to be in the same space as her.
She’s the one being cruel, and she doesn’t even know it.
She’s offering me things she can’t follow through with.
“You can’t—” I try to calm down. “I don’t want you to bring that up again. Not ever.”
Her laugh is stripped of any amusement. Sad and hollow. Her arms hug herself. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
My magic roars in my chest. I can’t catch my breath. I need to not be here. I need to be away from her.
“Good,” I snap.
She nods, teeth sawing over her bottom lip.
She gives me her back while she collects her cans of polish and the rag I flung on the top shelf, her face hidden by her hair.
She sniffles once and my stomach freefalls all the way to my toes.
The first bite of regret plucks at the consciousness that should have been abandoned as soon as I became a ghost.
I’m grateful for her turned back so I don’t have to see the look on her face. Maybe with enough determination and blind optimism, I’ll be able to forget I hurt her on purpose.
But pride keeps me from apologizing. My own hurt.
“I’m going to go,” she says, once she’s collected all her supplies.
When she turns, she barely makes eye contact.
I’m so used to her expressive face watching my every move, that the sudden absence of her attention feels like a tether that’s been cut.
A light that’s been snuffed out. She forces a tight smile, her gaze stuck somewhere around my neck.
“I’m sure I’ll see you in a day or two.”
She doesn’t wait for a response. She shuffles past me to the entrance of the closet, then pauses for a moment, her head turned halfway.
“I’m glad your cat is okay,” she whispers.
She leaves without another word, keeping the door to the storage closet open. I stay behind in the dark, staring hard at the place she just was. Even when I’ve lashed out and done my best to hurt her the way I’ve been hurting, she rises above it to be the better person.
Muffled voices drift from the front of the shop. Low conversation and then a burst of laughter. I yank on my magic as soon as I hear Harriet’s low, raspy chuckle spinning its way through the shelves to the tiny closet at the back.
I don’t want to hear it.
I’m not sure I deserve to.