Chapter 18
Eighteen
W e caught up with our friends, their laughter echoing through the backstairs as we wound through a series of secret passageways. This had to be the most thrilling experience of my life.
The noise from the party grew and suddenly, Damien threw open a door ahead. Keira, Maia, and the other Tellers followed him out onto a balcony to a round of raucous applause.
Suddenly nervous, I paused, but as always, Alfie was there, his hand slipping into mine. I looked up at him and for just a second, the world disappeared just like it used to. It faded away until there was only his eyes on me, his skin on mine, here in the dark of the passageway.
For a moment, all the badness faded away and we were just us again.
I was his and he was mine and nothing else mattered.
But the cheers broke through, his steady gaze reassured me, and I gave him a nod.
Facing forward, I stepped out onto the balcony and…
holy crap. What strange world had I just stepped into?
I was almost eye to eye with a chandelier and below was a sea of tuxedos and gowns. Gowns of soft lilac and pastel pinks. Keira and Maia were going to blend in perfectly but I was going to stick out like a sore thumb.
I glanced at Keira, a giddy grin on her face.
Maia seemed surprisingly calm. Suddenly, the crowd hushed and, without turning, I knew why.
I heard Damien chuckle for a heartbeat before the room erupted, the cheers deafening me.
Alfie’s arm snaked around my waist as he looked out at the hundreds of people below.
The reaction shouldn’t astound me but it did.
He hadn’t been here in twelve years but he hadn’t been forgotten. That both impressed and appalled me.
He bent and I shivered as his whispered breath tickled my ear. “You stay at my side, O’Connell.”
I tilted my head back and looked up at him. “They don’t scare me.”
Ignoring the cheers, all eight of us descended the stairs into the sea of people. Everyone watched us but no one approached Alfie, though the other Tellers received handshakes and back slaps. Alfie intimidated them. I wasn’t surprised.
I felt envious eyes on me, running over my dress. I looked up at Alfie. “Why aren’t I dressed like everyone else?”
“Because you aren’t everyone else.” His reasoning made no sense to me but I decided to leave it alone.
So far, the night seemed relatively calm, but I could feel the energy thrumming in the air. A promise of things to come. A waiter arrived with a drink for each of us and I took mine gratefully. Alfie took his but I noticed he didn’t drink it.
“Do you want to get something else to drink?” I nodded at the alcohol, knowing that he wasn’t going to touch it. He leant down to whisper in my ear.
“This isn’t a soft drinks kind of place.”
I caught Keira out of the corner of my eye heading off to explore with Damien hot on her heels.
I was about to go after her before I stopped myself.
I didn’t know Damien but Alfie trusted him, and tonight was all about trust, so I guess I had to trust him too.
Besides, I had no doubt that Keira could handle herself.
Alfie was watching me closely, trying to gauge my reaction to the clubhouse.
It was stunning but right now I was too distracted to really take it in.
I looked up at him, engaging in a silent communication.
We both knew why he wanted me here tonight and I wasn’t about to party it up with a giant elephant in the room.
I leaned up to whisper in his ear so no one could overhear us.
“It’s time, Alfie.” I felt his body stiffen, fear creeping over him, but he didn’t balk like I expected him to. He took our drinks, returning them to a passing waiter’s tray.
He held his hand to me. Uncertain, I took it, following as he led me upstairs, guiding me into the further reaches of the house.
The hem of my dress swirled around my ankles, his grip tightening the further we went.
He was scared. So was I. I’d seen Alfie interact with his demons before and it always ended with him broken in my arms, his mind so far away from me I couldn’t reach him.
I was afraid for him. So much of me still hated him but there was a part of me that would always want to protect him.
I didn’t want him to hurt and this, this was going to hurt.
A giggling couple passed us, eyeing Alfie with wide, high-as-a-kite eyes.
“Hey, did it ever occur to you to maybe do this when the house wasn’t full of people?” I whispered, wondering why Alfie, the most private man I knew, would risk exposing himself so publicly.
“I never liked being here when it was quiet.” Finally, after another staircase and another turn, he stopped at a door.
The guests had faded to a faint hum. We were alone now, no need for pretense on his part.
He placed a hand on the handle but didn't turn it.
His palm was sweating, his grip painful on my hand.
“You know, ghosts aren’t real, right?” I whispered. “It’s just a room.” With a determined look, he stepped inside.
I followed. The room felt colder than the others, unused, as if the revellers knew instinctively not to go in there.
Ghosts weren’t real. But memories were and memories lived forever.
I should know, I felt my mum with me everywhere I went.
Alfie stopped, looking around the room, an unreadable expression on his face.
“What are you thinking?”
He frowned into the darkness. “I’m thinking it’s just a room.” I watched his gaze move over every inch of the room that had haunted him for twelve years. His expression grew frustrated, angry. I knew that look. I stepped in front of him, bringing his attention back to me.
“It’s okay to be okay in here, you know. You don’t have to feel guilty.” Predictably, his eyes narrowed on me.
“What do you know about it?” I’d known that was coming. I was taking a mallet to his walls, of course he wasn’t going to like it.
“We don’t have a lot in common, Alfie, but in this we’re in the same boat. I blamed myself for my mum’s death for a long time.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“And this wasn’t yours,” I said, “your brother was a psychopath.”
“And I killed him,” he snapped, his jaw clenching as fear and guilt grew inside of him. Pain emanated from him so thick it could smother both of us, drowning us in his tar.
“The same way I left my mother to drown.” I met his gaze head on. “We don’t decide the fates, Alfie. I didn’t make that driver drink, the same way you didn’t make your brother an insane person.”
“No, but you were a child, blameless. I was?—”
“You were a child too,” I cut him off. “You might have been twenty three but the part of you that dealt with your brother was still a child. Just like a part of me will always be that twelve-year-old girl. Trauma is like a cryo tank. It freezes you in the moment that you experienced it. Your body keeps growing but a part of your mind stays there and when you’re confronted with more trauma, it’s that part of you that reacts.
You’re still that scared boy from your journals and that was the part of you that fought your brother that night.
You weren’t a grown man plotting to hurt anyone, you were a little boy defending himself. ”
This was why he needed me to be with him for this–he needed me to guide him through.
To be his lighthouse. He stood there, frowning, his eyes cold, distant.
I slipped my hand into his. “Let’s get some air.
” I tilted my head at the balcony behind me, the balcony he’d thrown his brother's body off of. Alfie didn’t budge.
“I don’t want to go out there.”
“I know.” We stayed there for long minutes, my hand in his as I waited for him to make the decision to move forward.
Eventually, he did. I walked with him to the doors and out onto the balcony, his grip crushing my hand.
I could hear the party raging below, and I could make out parts of the beautiful gardens I was desperate to explore, but that would have to wait.
We stood together, the breeze teasing my hair.
“Do you still feel guilty about your mother?” he asked, his voice tight as if he was scared to speak and disturb the ghosts.
“I used to. For years I felt guilty about leaving her, but over time, I grew up and came to understand it wasn’t my fault.
The guilt went away and made space for a new kind of guilt.
I felt guilty for not feeling guilty. For being happy or moving on with my life, like I didn’t deserve to be happy.
But I do deserve to be happy, and so do you, but you have to choose it.
” I looked up at him, at the man that had caused me so much pain because of his own.
“I think that you’ve been trapped in this room for the last twelve years.
I don’t think your brother is the ghost here, you are. It’s time you freed yourself, Alfie.”
“I don’t know how.”
“I know. Sometimes it’s easier to stay in our pain. It’s familiar to us, we feel safe there. But look at what it’s done to you. What it’s done to me. It’s time to let it go.” I squeezed his hand. “Just breathe and let it go. It’s time.”
We stayed there for a long time, standing together as Alfie soaked in his nightmares.
They tortured and taunted him, doing their best to drag him back under, but for the first time, he didn’t sink.
He didn’t push me away or hurt himself, he didn’t lash out or turn himself to stone, he let his demons do their worst until they got tired and began to fade.
I could almost feel it when the change happened, his breathing came easier, his grip relaxed, humanity came back into his eyes.
Eventually, he let go of my hand and rested his forearms on the balcony, sighing.
He looked over the edge, staring down at the ground where his brother’s body had once lain, crumpled and bloody.
Alfie stared down in the same way I’d stared at the river years after my mum’s death when the guilt had finally eased.
It was just a river. This was just a house.
For years my mum had been a mottled corpse haunting the river, wet and choking on reeds.
Charles had been a skull-crushed ghost wandering these hallowed halls, cursing his brother’s name.
But it wasn’t true.
Our guilt had just made it up. And we had nursed the lie until it grew and grew and became truth.
The difference was, I had been surrounded by love.
My gran and Keira, they had eased it away, and my ghost, my mum, she had loved me, so how could she want to hurt me?
Forgiving myself had been easier for me.
But Alfie? His ghost wanted to flay him alive and eat his bones. And his family? There was no love there. Only cold indifference, a pain worse than hatred, just two women wringing him out like worn out silk, making him drip money into their greedy hands.
Yet I didn’t hurt for him. I was happy for him. As the tension released from his shoulders and he breathed easier, I was proud of him. I didn’t trust him, probably I never ever would, but I was glad he was free.
I leaned on the balcony too, mimicking him. He looked at me, a faint shimmer of humanity in his eyes that would never fail to penetrate me to my core.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I didn’t answer, I didn’t know how to, not when he was looking at me like I was rain on his drought-dry earth. Not when I knew I was just a temporary shower.
He straightened, looking down at me, and I straightened too. “My little ghostbuster. You’ll never stop coming through for me, will you?”
I stiffened, resisting as his tendrils crept towards me.
“You got the job done yourself, Alfie.” I tilted my chin, shaking his endearments away.
“Are you done in here?” His shoulders dropped a little and it pained me to see it, but I had to remember my boundaries.
I could only go with him so far, far enough to heal us, not far enough to fall back into his whirlpool.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“Okay, we should get back.” I turned to leave but he stepped into my space before I could move.
“I know you need to shut me out now, I get it. But I want you to know that I’m grateful for this. Thank you, Lo.”
“You’re welcome, Alfie.” I sighed, feeling the need to address my own elephant in the room. “I’m sorry that I can’t connect with you the way you want. There’s too much…but for these three months, maybe we can work on being friends? I would really like that.”
His eyes glinted in the moonlight as his brow set in a frown. “We aren’t friends, O’Connell. We’re never going to be friends .”
“Alfie, I?—”
“If you call me your friend one more time, that collar never comes off. We clear?” With his words, everything south clenched deliciously against my will.
A strange realisation hit me then. I had no idea what kind of man Alfie was without his demons controlling him.
I had no idea how much of the man I knew was who he really was and how much was a result of his pain.
I had to get to know him all over again.
But I guess I knew one thing–his dark possessiveness was a built in trait that wasn’t going anywhere.
It was a fact my psyche feared and my body yearned for.
I swallowed my nerves, my rising temperature, and nodded.
No friend zone for us. Got it.