Chapter Thirty-Four
Millie
Oh. My. Gosh. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh . He just kissed me! HE JUST KISSED ME! And oh, my what a kiss it was. I know I don't have anything to compare it to but I can't imagine a kiss being any better than that.
I quietly close my bedroom door, mindful of my parents sleeping just down the hallway. My back goes up against the door for support because my legs feel like they are going to give out from under me. I reach up and touch my still tingling lips.
How was it that good? Is it normal to feel like you're simultaneously floating and that none of your limbs are working because your muscles are Jell-O?
I'm not sure what the answer is to that, but what I do know is that I don't mind the feeling one bit.
My heart beats rapidly in my chest, my adrenaline still pumping wildly in my veins.
My fingertips graze the sensitive spot to count the beats.
I close my eyes to count, but soon I lose count and I'm transported back outside, standing in front of his truck, his lips moving against mine.
I moan quietly. My legs rub together to try to create friction against my most sensitive parts.
It's the most delicious feeling to relive.
It calms and rejuvenates me. A feeling that should contradict itself, but somehow works perfectly together.
I start moving towards my ensuite, my eyes still partly closed, my legs still feel unsteady and my thoughts still on the events of tonight.
Suddenly I catch sight of something out of the corner of my eye, and I stop short of the bathroom. There's a weird haze just to the side of my bed. Like fog or something. But that's not possible, I'm inside. It's just barely there but it's enough to catch my attention.
Tingling starts at the base of my spine and zaps up the columns at an alarming speed until it reaches the back of my neck. My hand flies to the spot and my skin breaks out into tiny goosebumps all over.
My heart jumps into my throat and I'm only able to take tiny little puffs of air. It's like the air around me suddenly becomes too thick to breathe. Not again. I start to panic because the hazy formation that I caught in the corner of my eye starts to take shape.
It becomes more prominent, brighter even.
And then it starts to take the shape of a human form.
From the hazy fog comes one arm, then another.
My breath halts in my chest when the shape starts to take on legs.
My body goes eerily still as I watch the weird fog manipulate its shape until something that looks a hell of a lot like a teenage girl appears.
Her figure is translucent but solid enough that I can make out specific features.
My heart practically leaps out of my chest as she takes a step towards me. She's beautiful with long blonde hair and eyes that pierce the soul. A face I would recognize anywhere.
Lucy.
She looks absolutely tortured. Her face is contorted with pain. So much so that I automatically reach out to try to help her. What could I possibly do for the ghost standing in my room? I'm not sure but I try nonetheless.
She watches my outreached hand with an intensity that has the tingling in my neck amping up a hundred notches. What do I do if she reaches for me? I gulp. I feel so queasy I think I might throw up.
To my great relief she doesn't move towards me. Her eyes finally leave my hand and her mouth opens like she's going to speak but as soon as she tries, she vanishes.
Just as quickly as she appeared, she's gone.
I stumble back. What in the hell was that?! Is she gone, gone? Or can I just not see her? There's a stillness in the room that wasn't there before, the cold chill is gone, the tingling sensation in my neck is no longer there.
She's gone. The thought helps to ease my racing heart, but my hands are still shaking, and I feel like my legs are going to give out from under me. With unsteady feet I make my way over to my desk, my butt slams into the chair just before my legs completely go.
If I'm dreaming about someone who's dead, a person I've never met before, maybe Lily's theory isn't so farfetched.
I reach for my laptop, powering it on. There's no chance in hell of me sleeping tonight, not with so many unanswered questions. The look of horror, pain, and sadness on that girl's face continues to play on repeat in my brain. Haunting me.
That look is all the motivation I need to get to the bottom of this. Of who she is and why she's here.
I spend the rest of the night trying to do just that.
Me: Are you awake?
I set my phone down on my desk, but I'm watching the screen like a hawk to see if he replies. It's early in the morning, six o'clock to be exact, and I've waited as long as I can to text him.
I didn't want to call in the middle of the night in a panic because I had just seen a ghost, so I told myself to wait until morning. Six was as long as I made it.
My screen lights up with an incoming call from Rowan. I pick it up immediately and swipe to answer. "Hello?"
"Morning, Daredevil. You sleep okay?" His voice is a little groggy, like he just woke up.
"I didn't sleep at all," I answer.
"You okay?" His voice is instantly more alert.
"I don't know how to say this without sounding crazy, but I need to tell someone," I rush out, and my fingers nervously lift to my pulse point.
"I thought we already went over this. You aren't crazy, Millie." His voice is like a soothing balm to my frayed soul.
"I know, but that was before I saw a ghost."
My statement seems to stun him into silence. Finally, he asks, "What did you say?"
"A ghost, Rowan. A real live ghost. Well, not alive, but you know what I mean." I knock my palm against my forehead. That's a stupid thing to say, Millie. Live, really?
"When?"
"Last night when I got home. I came into my room and was about to get ready for bed when bam! There she was."
"Holy shit."
My fingers still haven't left my neck because I still feel incredibly vulnerable here. In the back of my mind, I'm still waiting for him to write me off and go running for the hills because nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to deal with this kind of shit with a girl they barely know.
I shake my head. I don't know what I was thinking calling him like this. I mean, what's he supposed to do? Come running over here to check under my bed?
I mentally berate myself as his silence ticks on. What's there to say? His new girlfriend is certified. Poor Rowan has really screwed himself by shackling himself to me. I snort at the absurdity of it all. Then I half laugh and half scoff, "I'm sor—"
"Don't you dare," he commands on a growl, and it has the mental gymnastics I'm putting myself through halting.
"Dare what? To apologize?" I ask, incredulously.
"I know what you're thinking, and it isn't true, Millie. You aren't crazy, and you aren't a fucking burden or whatever else you're trying to convince yourself of. I can feel your wheels turning all the way over here."
"I—" My mouth flounders just like a fish out of water. "I wasn't," I lie.
"That's cute that you think you can lie to me." He doesn't sound the least bit perturbed. No, he sounds amused.
But that can't be right, can it? I don't have to contemplate the answer before he continues.
In a more serious tone than just seconds before, he says, "Tell me what you saw. I want to hear everything, no matter how insignificant or crazy it sounds."
A small amount of the tightness in my chest loosens at his request. And in the back recesses of my mind, I realize he believes me.
He isn't going anywhere. He isn't running for the hills.
I take a deep breath and let go of the fear of sounding out of my mind.
I tell him everything, from the moment I walked into my room until I picked up the phone to text him.
There was surprisingly a lot that I found online. Probably more than I should have been able to, if I'm being honest, but if I've learned anything after tonight, it's if you're determined enough, you can find the answer to just about anything.
Her name was Lucy Harding, and she was seventeen years old when she died.
I cried when I found the news article of reports of a car accident that took the life of one young girl and left the driver paralyzed, a boy that Lucy left a party with.
The sheer amount of sorrow that rushed through my body when I stared at the picture for her online obituary had me blubbering, snot running down my face.
I couldn't fathom a world where someone so bright, with so much potential, could be taken so soon.
It didn't make sense. None of it did, and it made even less sense that she had to die in order for me to live. An insurmountable amount of guilt flooded my chest as I continued to scour the internet for more information about the beautiful but mysterious girl that saved my life.
Lucy Harding was everything that I was not.
Outgoing, Lucy and her best friend, Anna Dunn, were voted most popular by their high school senior class.
Smart, she was set to be the valedictorian of her class, a speech she never had the chance to make.
Adventurous and giving, she had already gone on several mission trips and had one planned the summer she passed.
Her personality was infectious, that much was clear just from the way people talked about her. They loved her.
And she was even more beautiful than my dreams and her ghostly figure betrayed. Her eyes were bright with optimism; her smile was wide and contagious.
She looked so happy. And now she's gone.
That's when I really started to fall apart.
It was one thing to have this obtuse and abstract image in your mind.
It was an image I could reshape and distance myself from in some ways, playing it off as just my imagination creating a story and a life when there was none.
It was a dream state, nothing more. I had tried so hard to convince myself of just that.
But it was an entirely different thing to have the real thing staring back at you with vivid clarity; there was no mistaking the truth.
She was real. The fears, the laughter, the smiles. The love. All of it was real.
Silent tears roll down my cheeks as I tell him every bit of it. He listens quietly, never interrupting, and for that I'm thankful. I'm not sure I could get it all out if he did.
Once I'm through, it feels like a huge weight is lifted from my shoulders. I was terrified he would think I was crazy if I gave a voice to it all, and he still might, but I realize in this moment that I don't care.
This is bigger than me or him. This is about a girl that lost her life entirely too soon, and she's hurting.
The look on her face right before she disappeared told me as much.
I feel an overwhelming connection to her, whether it's from my dreams or from the heart beating in my chest that used to belong to her but now belongs to me, or maybe we're simply kindred spirits, I don't know.
But it also doesn't matter.
"Millie, baby." He sounds as heartbroken as I feel.
My tears turn into sobs as I say, "She didn't deserve this."
"Of course she didn't, but it was out of your control. All of this is." He tries to console me.
His words ignite something deep in my chest. A newfound purpose. "No, but I can make it right," I answer, determined to fulfill the vow I made to her in the middle of the night after looking at picture after picture of a beautiful girl, gone too soon.
"What do you mean by that?" His voice has a tinge of panic in it, like he's scared of my answer.
"I'm going to find her."
"Find who? Baby, I'm so confused. Lucy?"
I'm shaking my head, but I know he can't see me. "No, Anna."
I finally know what all this is about. What I have to do to make things right. And in doing so, hopefully that will help Lucy and Anna find the peace they so desperately deserve.
When I don't say anything more, I hear him blow out a heavy breath, then he says, "I just need you to not do anything rash or sudden, okay? I'm coming to get you, and whatever it is, we can do it together."
That's exactly what I was hoping he would say, but I had already convinced myself I could do it alone if I had to. Because nothing was going to stop me from finding her. "Okay."
"Daredevil," he warns, worried I'm not going to listen to him, but he doesn't understand. I don't want to do this without him.
I promise I'll wait as I gather my clothes to take a quick shower. As I'm going through my room, I make a mental note of all the things I need to do before we leave because Scarborough, Florida, is a long drive from here.