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I pushed the knit blanket off, approached the door, wearing my fleece pajama bottoms and cotton t-shirt. At the front door, the thumping continued, as I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.
Caley was just about to issue another round of hard knocks, but yanked her hand away and gave me a full once over. “You look like absolute shit.”
I left the door open and returned to the spot I was sure was now indented from the contours of my body.
She shut the door behind her, then approached me scanning my coffee table. “This is worse than I thought. How much ice cream have you eaten?” She picked up one of the movies. “The Notebook?” She raised her gaze to mine and arched an eyebrow. “You’re in bad shape, huh?”
I pulled the blanket up to my chin and held it in close. “Did Zach send you?”
They’d been an item since I’d met Kipp. I should’ve felt happy since Caley’s longest relationship before Zach had been a week. Now only anger burned that she had him and I didn’t have Kipp. No matter how wrong that was.
“You haven’t been answering any of his calls.” She moved one of the two ice cream containers out of the way to sit down on the coffee table. “You’re damn lucky he hasn’t come here with a battering ram and knocked down your door.”
I stared at my best friend and spoke a truth that had captivated my mind over the last twenty-four hours. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
She scrutinized me then finally said, “But what about all those people—ghosts, I mean—what will happen to them?”
Tears welled and I let them flow freely. My broken heart was exposed, and in the comfort of my friend, it bled. “I only care about one ghost and he’s gone.” I sucked in a ragged breath. “Why hasn’t he come back? He didn’t even let me explain. He just up and vanished.”
Caley dropped to her knees in front of me and pulled the blanket back to hold my hand. Her blue eyes that were normally so full of zest were troubled. “I can’t answer to why he’d do something so cold, but it’s exactly that.” Her tone became curt. “He’s a damn bastard for doing this to you. Even Zach said so.”
I sniffed. “He did?”
“Of course. After all you’ve done to help Kipp, he shouldn’t have left you like he did without any explanation. Who breaks up with someone that way?”
A ghost would. My chin quivered, but I forced my voice to work even though it sounded shaky. “But he was so mad. You should have seen him.”
“I have no doubt he was.” She squeezed my hand, her tone softened. “You were kissing another man. I can only imagine what that would be like for Kipp. But that still gives him no right to just up and vanish without a single word.”
I snuggled into the pillow as pain tore through me. “I can’t believe he’s gone. I miss him, Caley. I miss him so much.”
“I’m sorry, Tess.” She wrapped her arms around me, her chin rested against my neck. “I seriously have nothing to say here and I’m not going to feed you any bullshit about it being all right, because I know for you it’s not.”
I moved away to see tears in her eyes and knew she understood the gravity of my heartache. I could count the times I cried in front of others on one hand, but at the moment I had no strength to hold back. I wrapped my arms around her, hugged her as tight as I could, and allowed myself to collapse into my sadness. To be comforted by the one person I knew would never leave my side.
How much more can I take? First, the death of my family, and now the one man that I’d ever truly loved had not only been complicated at best, but he had also…left me.
Caley said nothing more, merely embraced me, as sobs poured from my throat that spoke of the pain in my soul.
Why?
The question echoed in my mind. But no answer came. Just the hard truth that I now found myself in this situation and no dreaming for a different life would change my reality.
After a long while, I took a deep breath and willed my emotions to exhaust themselves. I wiped my tears and she cleared her own.
“Better?” she asked softly.
“I needed that.” My emotions were more in control than they had been in hours—days—and the release was enough that it settled the overwhelming urge to breakdown. But the heartache remained close enough to know how raw it was.
Leaning away from her, the softness in her expression remained and in this moment, she appeared so unlike herself. Caley was overbearing to extremes and that brought a thought to the surface.
“I’m a bit surprised it took you so long to beat down my door.” When had Caley become patient and knew that I needed to be alone? The Caley I had known from the age of four would’ve been at my house, in my face, an hour after it happened.
She flicked her long flowing blonde hair over her shoulder. “Zach told me to give you some space.”
“And you listened to him?”
“Stop looking at me like that. So I took his advice because I thought he was right and gave you some time alone.” She cocked her head. “Was it the right thing to do?”
