Chapter 27
CAIDEN
Most nights, the memory of that house would crawl beneath my skin, burrowing like maggots.
Every shadow on the wall reminded me of him. My father’s silhouette, forked and elongated by the sick glow of streetlights pouring through broken blinds. Even breathing felt like treason.
I’d stand outside for hours, letting the cold strip me raw, waiting for a numbness that never quite came. Sometimes, I wondered if the house still stood or if it had finally surrendered to rot and ash, the way all ghosts eventually do.
I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to go downtown, but we decided it was better than sitting around in the motel.
I parked the car on the side of a street, then we just started walking together. Pathosbury was small enough. We could probably walk through the whole town, pass by the neighborhoods, and stop by every single spot that held memories.
Amelia didn’t look at me. Not once. Her profile was pale as bone, even in the sunlight. She’d pulled her sleeves down over her wrists, trying to shrink away from the world.
It made me want to grab her, to bury my face in her hair and beg her for forgiveness I didn’t deserve. Instead, I trailed a step behind, a shadow, barely holding myself together.
We passed the old barbershop. I remembered my father’s hand on the back of my neck, forcing me inside. The clippers biting at my scalp, hot foam smeared down my jaw. The barber’s voice, thin and tight: “Don’t move, son.” My father’s reply, a breath away from violence: “He won’t.”
He was dead now. Seven years gone. Alcohol did what nothing else could, wore holes in his liver until all that poison finally leaked out. He still found ways to live inside me.
His voice, spliced into my own thoughts. His habits wormed into my muscles. Sometimes, late at night, I felt my lip curl the way his did, and I wanted to put my fist through a wall.
I never did. Not anymore. The first punch always hurts the most. After that, you just got numb.
Amelia stopped at the corner, waiting for the crosswalk. Her breathing was shallow, fast. Like she was bracing for impact. I hovered behind her, hands working in my pockets.
I let out a slow exhale. “You hungry?” The words clawed up my throat.
She blinked, still facing away from me. “Not really. But we should probably eat.” Her voice was small. Crumbling at the edges if you listened closely.
I nodded, even though she wasn’t looking. We headed up the block, picking our way past a puddle of broken glass and cigarette butts glinting like silver fish in the gutter.
Amelia’s hair caught on her lip. She brushed it back, fingers trembling. I almost said something. I almost reached out.
But my muscles locked. I heard my father’s snarl in my skull, so loud it drowned everything else: Don’t be weak, Caiden. Weakness is a disease.
I glanced at Amelia. “You okay?”
She laughed, brittle and hollow. “Does anyone ever come back here and feel okay?” Her hands were shaking too.
I shrugged, watching a car crawl by, its muffler farting gray smoke. “Guess not. Guess that’s why they all leave if they can.”
She turned to face me then. For a second, our eyes met. Hers dark and wet, mine…I didn’t want to know. She could probably read everything in that gaze anyway.
The wanting. The sick longing to make it right, knowing I never could.
“I thought it’d be different,” she said quietly. “Coming back. I thought maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much. But it does.” She fixed her stare on the chipped curb, like she could will herself somewhere else.
I nodded. “Yeah. It kills you slow.”
Neither of us spoke for a while after that.
We kept walking. The street narrowed, the buildings crowding in.
Up ahead, the diner sign flickered, stuttering between OPEN and darkness.
The sky had started to darken, sinking into a bruised dusk. Streetlights spat weak halos on the sidewalk, not even bothering to chase away the dark.
We slid into a booth by the window. Amelia sat rigid, knuckles pale against the mug she wrapped both hands around the second it landed.
I took my seat across from her. I tried not to notice how her shoulders trembled, or the way her lower lip kept catching between her teeth. I tried not to tremble, myself.
The waitress showed up. I ordered a burger. Amelia mumbled something. Neither of us had eaten since yesterday, but the plates would go mostly untouched. I already knew.
After she left, it was quiet. Just the scrape of ceramic, the hum of lights, the faint sound of an argument from the kitchen.
I wanted to say: I’m sorry. I wanted to say: You can break down, right here, and I’ll hold you together. I wanted to say: Forget everything except this. The way I see you, the way you are now, so fucking strong even when you’re falling apart.
Instead, I just rolled my empty cup between my palms, flexed my fingers until the bones ached.
She spoke first. “The last time I was in here was after Lillian died.” Her voice was flat, almost monotone, drained of everything except memory. “Lauren tried to make me eat pie. I couldn’t even taste it. I just sat here and thought about how nothing would ever taste normal again.”
I swallowed hard. “I know what you mean.” I stared out the window, even though the only thing to see was my own twisted reflection. “After my dad died, I spent nights in here. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t think. Just came in and ordered coffee until my hands shook.”
A sliver of sympathy moved through her gaze. “Did it help?”
“No. Nothing helps.”
The silence came back. We were both waiting to see which one of us would break first.
The food arrived.
I shoveled bites down, not tasting them, just filling space.
Finally, I said, “You don’t have to go. The funeral. If you don’t want to.”
She set her fork down slowly. “I can’t not go. She was still my mother.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak for a second.
I didn’t tell her I remembered every rumor about her mom, about how she’d leave Amelia and Lillian home alone, high for days, sometimes screaming so loud the neighbors called the cops just to get a little silence.
She stared at her hands. “I thought after seven years I could do this. That maybe I’d…I don’t know. That it’d be over.”
I didn’t mean to reach across the table. My hand just moved. Hovered for a second over hers, long enough she could pull away if she wanted.
She didn’t.
My thumb brushed her knuckles. Fragile. All the years I bullied her, I’d never noticed how small her hands were.
“I’m here,” I said.
That was it. That was all I could say, with the old man’s voice gnawing the insides of my skull, telling me I’d already lost because I showed weakness, because I let someone see me yearn. But I said it anyway.
Amelia’s shoulders shuddered, ever so slightly.
The rest of the meal passed in smothered silence. I finished my coffee. She stared out the window, pupils glazed. The dead look of a girl who’d spent her whole life learning how to vanish.
We paid. We stood. The waitress never even looked at us.
Outside, the air felt colder, as if winter wanted to chew holes in our lungs. Maybe it already had.
We didn’t say a word. We just stood there, side by side, each waiting for the other to wander off. Neither of us did.
So we walked. Back out into the sucking dark of Pathosbury, haunted and half-starved and still pretending that surviving was the same as living.
The park was still there. Still rotting. The slide was tagged with graffiti. The sandbox was an ashtray, scattered with broken glass. Even the trees hung weird here, branches black against the bruised sky.
Dusk painted everything in shades of blue and rot. The wind cut through, colder now, stinging the tips of my ears and nose. The only sounds were the whine of the chains and the whistle of air.
Amelia hovered at the edge of the playground. I followed, boots sinking in the dirt. Couldn’t shake the feeling that we were just ghosts, or maybe we were the ones who’d haunted this place all along.
Once, I shoved her here. She was eleven, hiding behind the jungle gym while I stalked her like prey. My father stood at the fence, arms folded, face like stone, and I wanted to make him proud.
I shoved her to the ground, listened to her cry, spat something cruel while she covered her head. The pride in my old man’s eyes that day. Black water, sweet and choking. It made me sick now.
It never left me. I could feel him, every step I took, riding my shadow. Even with his bones in the dirt, he still ran the show.
Amelia stepped toward the swing and tested the chain with her palm.
I took the next swing over. The plastic seat was cold, stiff, biting through the denim of my jeans. We rocked there, side by side. For a long time, neither of us spoke. Maybe there were no words left big enough.
Streetlights flickered to life in the distance, shedding dirty halos. The playground itself was dark, except for the moon—bloodless and thin—sliding free from the clouds overhead. Every star looked like it was on the verge of burning out.
Amelia pushed her toes through the dirt. “I used to come here with Lillian, before everything went to shit.”
Her voice was soft, hollowed out. I wanted to move closer, but something held me back. Maybe guilt. Maybe self-preservation.
“After she died, I came here every day for a while. Sat on the swings. Didn’t talk. Sometimes I’d cry until I couldn’t breathe.” She laughed, but it sounded like glass breaking. “You were here, once. Just watched me while I lost it in front of everybody.”
I remembered. I remembered every fucking second. She’d sobbed so loud. I stood feet away, arms folded. Dante was beside her, kneeling in the dirt, whispering whatever bullshit he thought would help.
I’d watched, face flat, heart burning like cinders. Wanting to be the one to comfort her, but not knowing how. Not allowed to. Hating her. Wanting her. Hating myself.
“I’m sorry,” I said. The words tasted bad, bitter. “I was a monster.”
The wind picked up, more brutal now, making the swings jolt on their chains. Amelia didn’t look at me. She kept her eyes on the bald patch of grass at her feet.