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“I don’t hate him,” I say, my stomach doing that twisting and turning again. “I'm just… tired. She’ll be six soon. And I have to wonder, at what point am I just making it worse? Because six years is a long time for her to not know about him.”
“This is why we still need your mother around,” he says. “She was always the optimistic once.”
“Yeah, well, what would Mom say?”
He motions toward the living room, where the movie still plays on the television. “She’d say if that’s the only way Madison will ever have the chance to know the guy, so be it.”
I don’t argue with that. I’ve never been sure how to handle it all. Maddie hasn’t asked many questions, so up until now it’s been swept under the rug, but I know that won’t fly when she gets older. I just have no idea how to explain any of it.
“We should go,” I say, dropping the subject. “I promised I’d take her to the library today.”
We head back to the living room, where Maddie is now wide-awake, captivated by the movie as Breezeo makes his big move and saves the day. I sit down on the arm of the couch beside her, watching. It’s still so strange, after all these years, seeing that familiar face on the screen.
Jonathan Cunningham.
Johnny Cunning.
Six books. That’s how many Maddie picks up at the library to bring home. But yet as soon as we walk in the door, before we even settle in, she pops up in front of me clutching the comic book wrapped in plastic that she swiped from my bedroom.
“Can we read Breezeo now, Mommy? Please?”
“Sure,” I say, taking it from her, “but it’s not the whole story, sweetheart. It’s just the very end.”
The last issue in the Ghosted storyline.
“That’s okay,” she says, climbing up into my lap on the couch. “I like the ends the best.”
Sighing, I pull the comic from its protective sleeve and open it. I start to read, filling in the blanks, narrating the pictures. It picks up with the big warehouse explosion, as Breezeo saves his lover, Maryanne, from death.
‘Who are you?’ she asks afterward, standing in the street as the warehouse burns, unable to see him, but she can feel him. She doesn’t know who Breezeo is. She doesn’t know it’s the man she gave her heart to so long ago—Elliot Embers. She thinks he died in Shadow Dancer from the illness that has been turning him into nothing, so he’s spent Ghosted in isolation. ‘Please, show yourself. Tell me. I need to know.’
He considers it, standing right in front of her. It would be so easy. He could use what energy he had left to show himself, but doing so would change everything. It would change her perception of reality. Would change her memories of him. It would alter their story in irreparable ways, and knowing the truth might put her life in further danger. He couldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t destroy the life that she’d built for a single moment of acknowledgment only to have to disappear again.
It would be too cruel, appearing only to leave her once more, when she’d finally had the courage to say goodbye.
So he leans closer, softly kissing her mouth. It’s barely a breath against her lips. She feels a tingle, followed by a breeze that rustles her dark hair, and then nothing.
He leaves.
He leaves and never looks back, giving her a life of freedom, a life where she can live a quiet existence and be happy without him. He’s destined to do bigger things, and staying would be selfish, so as much as he wishes he could be with her forever, he has to let her go, because that’s what love means.
It’s loving someone enough to set them free.
Tears sting my eyes. Ugh, this freaking story. Maddie glares at the comic. I think she expected a happy ending.
“Does he come back, Mommy?” she asks.
“Well, I guess it’s possible,” I say. “There’s really no such thing as ‘the end’ in comics. People come back all the time.”
“Okay, then,” she says, accepting it just like that as she hops off of my lap to snatch up one of the library books. “This one now!”
Chapter 4
JONATHAN
“Let’s take a break!” the first AD—assistant director—yells, his voice edged with annoyance. “Everyone back in twenty minutes. Markson, please, pull yourself together!”
“I’m trying,” Serena mutters, squeezing her eyes shut and clutching the sides of her head. “I’m just a little under the weather.”
Under the weather, my ass.
She got maybe two hours of sleep, rolling into the hotel close to four o’clock in the morning. I know, because she insisted on waking me up by trying to crawl into bed with me, but I wasn't interested. She’s probably still somewhat drunk, probably having one hell of a comedown off of coke. I used to show up on set like that every morning and barely survived filming. I was killing myself. The moment Shadow Dancer wrapped, Cliff sent me straight to rehab, putting me in a program.
