Chapter 26
twenty-six
WILL
Ican’t even bring myself to watch Lydia as she stalks down the sidewalk and gets in her car. I let the screen door bang shut and slam the front door so hard the living room shakes.
“Jesus Christ, Will.” Zeke appears in the doorway, a beer in one hand and a bottle opener in the other. “Shut that thing a little harder, would ya?”
I don’t answer, just storm past him down the hallway and to the kitchen.
I snatch a beer out of the fridge and bang it on the counter to get the top off.
I don’t even care that I left behind a chip in the granite.
Swigging down half the beer in one gulp, I slam it down on the counter and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
Zeke’s leaning against the counter, staring at me. He hasn’t even opened his beer yet. “Will… bro…”
I slog down the other half of the beer and reach for another. Zeke doesn’t stop me, but he’s giving me the same look I usually give him, and I hate it.
He looks alarmed. “Man, I don’t know what happened out there, but… take it easy. You don’t drink.”
I bang the bottle on the counter again, and the cap goes flying. “Take it easy? Take it easy? I had to pay cash I barely have to bail you out of fucking jail, Zeke—less than twenty-four hours ago—and you’re telling me to take it easy?”
Zeke raises his hands in surrender. “Okay. Yes. Will, one. Zeke, zero. But, like, I don’t see what that’s got to do with—”
“I’ll tell you what it’s got to do with it,” I shout. “I have spent the last twenty-two years trying to be what our piece of shit dad was not. Trying to be some kind of father figure for you, for Benji. And Phoebe. Trying to be the backbone of this family. And all for fucking nothing.”
Zeke’s throat bobs as he swallows hard. “Because I drove drunk?”
“Yes, because you drove drunk,” I snap. “And because you’re sitting here on your ass in my house day in and day out, too lazy to get a job because you’re out fucking ghosts at the harbor.”
The corners of Zeke’s mouth twitch. “That’s not your fault. And—please don’t bite my head off—none of that has anything to do with the librarian.”
I down the second beer in a single long chug and chuck the empty bottle at the fridge, where it shatters across the floor into a million fractals.
Across the counter, Zeke flinches. “Fuck, Will. Can you just… chill out?”
I grab beer number three. Bang. Pop. Swig.
The edges of my vision are swimming now, and the warmth of the alcohol as it hits my bloodstream is beginning to soften the red-hot anger I feel at myself into something darker.
Something more like despair. I sink down to the kitchen floor and rest my head against the cabinets, barely even noticing the shards of broken glass beneath me.
I close my eyes, letting the start of drunkenness wash over me. “I fucking failed, Zeke.”
“Failed…?”
“I’m just like Dad. I tried so fucking hard not to be, but I just… am.”
Zeke starts picking his way across the kitchen floor toward me. Broken glass crackles beneath his feet. He crouches down next to me, takes the now empty third beer from my hand. “Bro, what the fuck are you even talking about?”
“Get me another beer.”
“No.”
I groan, banging the back of my head against the cabinet.
“Don’t you get it? Not only can I not even keep this fucking family on track, but I just broke Lydia’s goddamn heart.
And that woman, bitchy as she may be, is so pure, so—so—so good, and I just…
ripped her to shreds, and I didn’t even mean to. I was trying not to. Dad was right.”
Zeke’s quiet a moment, sipping his beer. “Did Dad say you were like him?”
I don’t answer, which is clear enough.
“Dude,” Zeke says. “You are nothing like Dad. I haven’t seen him since I was, like, seven, and even I know he’s a complete douchebag.
You are good, Will. You’re my brother, but you’re ten times the father Dad was.
Hell, probably a hundred times. And the fact that I make shit decisions sometimes isn’t on you. ”
I still don’t say anything. Zeke’s words are swirling into the alcoholic fog that’s making a fuzzy mess of my brain. I barely ever drink, and pounding three beers in a row is proving to be a lot for my bloodstream, although it’s certainly starting to numb me, which is what I wanted.
Zeke gives my shoulder a friendly pinch. “Come on, man. Let’s get you to bed. You’ll feel better when you can think straight.”
He grips my biceps and starts to lift me up. I let him, using the cabinets for leverage as I struggle to stand, sliding on the broken glass that litters the floor.
And then I hiss. Suck in a sharp breath. From the corner of my eye, there’s a flash of light that almost blinds me, but it’s gone before I can turn my gaze.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask, my voice suddenly sharp.
Zeke looks alarmed. “What the fuck was what?”
I’m about to answer him, but the flash of light comes again. When I turn to look for it, it’s gone, but a cold is creeping down my spine, washing through my hands and feet and ribcage, and I know exactly what it is. I’ve been here before. Just not for nineteen years.
“Fuuuuuck,” I yell, shrugging free of Zeke’s grasp.
“Holy shit, Will! You need to get a grip on yourself.”
I hurl myself forward, gripping the counter, trying desperately to pull myself away from the cold that’s now seeping into every inch of my body.
The flickering light is back again, hanging out at the corner of my field of vision.
The more the alcohol warms my blood, the sharper the light gets, the colder my body feels.
I know exactly what’s happening, but I’m powerless to stop it. The grief. The anger. The alcohol. The heartbreak. They’ve all converged into one, and they’re too strong for my grip. The energetic wall I’ve spent so many years holding up with every ounce of mental strength I can find is dissolving.
And something’s getting in.
I squeeze my eyes shut, frantically trying to center myself, grasping at every strand of thought, every wisp of concentration. I just need to focus. Keep the wall intact.
“Will…” Zeke’s voice is shaky. “I can see her.”
As soon as he says it, so can I. And I know exactly who she is, although I don’t know how.
She’s Lydia’s mom.
The spirit hovers somewhere above the spray of broken beer bottles, both here and not here, a shadow if a shadow could be made of light. She’s gorgeous, shimmering, something between a woman and a wispy, gleaming ray of moonlight. She takes my fucking breath away.
I grit my teeth, still digging my mental heels in, trying to keep that brilliant, shimmering woman from getting any closer.
I know if I let go now, I may never be able to take myself completely back.
The switch will be flipped, and the spirits that swirl around me will know it. I’ll be fair game. I’ll—
A gust of shimmering coolness wraps around me, bringing with it the unmistakable hint of vanilla. The spirit’s reminding me, nudging me back to what I most want to not have to think about right now: Lydia.
I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing in that beautiful, memory-laden scent. With my eyes closed, I no longer see the silvery tendrils of Lydia’s mom’s spirit, but the coolness remains. And in the darkness of my mind, a flash of memory plays out.
Lydia’s porcelain skin on mine. Her delicate frame in my arms as the fire next to us crackles, the waves washing up on the shore.
That still-hopeful smile she wore when she told me about her mom, when she realized that she and I were not so different after all.
The way her dark eyes shone when she saw that banister—and the way they bore no light at all when she showed up on my doorstep an hour ago.
And I realize suddenly what I think I’ve known for a while now, but which I didn’t yet have the strength to believe. I would do anything for this woman. She saw right through my bullshit, and she expected better of me than I gave her. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her down again.
Summoning every ounce of mental strength I can muster, I focus my entire self on one thing: the wall. Every cell, every fiber, every wisp and spark of energy. It’s all there. I hold it in my mind’s eye for one more moment, feel the rush and pulse of my blood.
And then I let it all come shattering down.