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 werejust 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 wasbeside 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.
“You were a kid,” she said finally. “We both were. Doesn’t make any of it better, though.”
I nodded, staring up at the moon. “There’s shit you do here you can never take back. Doesn’t matter how far you run. It’s like…the more you try to forget, the deeper it hooks in. Wakes you up at night. Follows you around.”
She shivered, shoulders curling in on themselves. “I know.”
