Page 37 of Ghosted

She should leave.

She knows she should.

Instead, she holds my stare for one more second, mouth curved like she wants to say something sharp but can’t decide if sharp is enough anymore.

Then she steps back into the rain and opens her umbrella.

“Goodbye, Jagger.”

“Not goodbye.”

She pauses. “What?”

“Goodbye means you’re done.”

Her mouth curves, small and dangerous. “And you think I’m not?”

I step to the edge of the walkway, cigarette burning between my fingers as rain hits my boots. “I know you’re not.”

For once, she doesn’t argue.

She just looks at me through the rain, and there’s the truth of it sitting between us, dark and sharp and impossible to pretend away.

She likes the danger.

She likes standing close enough to feel it breathe.

Then she turns and walks away, boots splashing through the puddles, black umbrella swallowing her piece by piece until she disappears around the corner of the arts building.

I stay there, soaked at the edges and smiling like a fucking idiot.

Because now I know this isn’t only in my head.

Alice Aster likes looking at things she should run from.

And if it’s danger she wants?

I’ll give her something worth being afraid of.

4

JOHNNY

PRETTY LITTLE PROJECT

Stalking sounds desperate.

It sounds like some sad fuck sitting outside a girl’s window, waiting for her bedroom light to turn on so he can feel important.

That’s not me.

I don’t beg for attention.

I fucking take it.

Alice Aster isn’t hard to figure out. The quiet girls never are. They think because they keep their heads down, take the side doors, and sit with their backs to walls, no one is paying attention.

Adorable theory. Terrible execution.