32. The Ghost
The Ghost
When I find her at midnight, she’s standing, still as a statue, in the window overlooking the eastern grounds. She doesn’t notice me approaching. She never does. Eyes glazed over as she peers out at the pond, unblinking, fingers twitching at her sides.
“Mallary.”
Her lashes flutter.
In the moonlight, she looks calm. Her freckles dusted across her skin like a spattering of India ink, her dark eyes glittering and shining.
Only when I’m close enough to breathe her in can I hear the little gasps catching in her throat. Her shallow breaths are too rapid, too thin.
“Mallary,” I whisper, reaching up to brush her hair away from the column of her neck. She stares, wide-eyed, out at the pond. She will only move if I make her.
I wrap my arms around her waist. Pull her into me. She fits against me so perfectly.
She’s trembling, each gasp agonizing, and she won’t blink, she won’t hear me, no matter what I say, no matter how many times I call her name. She’s not here, even when her body is in my arms.
I lead her to bed. The door to her room hangs open. The chair she uses to jam it closed is off to the side.
She falls onto the sheets, her fingers digging into her palms. Her dark eyes point to the ceiling. Her chest jerks with her jagged inhalations.
I crawl over her. I wish she could see me. I wish she knew I was here.
“Mallary. It’s alright.”
Her spine arches as her fingers find my chest.
She’s so receptive when our bodies touch. In the daylight, in her waking hours, she fights it—not hard, because even she can’t deny how well we fit together. But I know I torment her. She fights this, she fights herself.
Underneath me, this midnight version of herself, she writhes, clutching at me, tight muscles finding their rhythm. She spreads her legs wide, and I nestle myself inside.