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“It’s not. It’s us. The way it should’ve been. The way it’s going to be.” Her voice trembles with a mashup of emotions—heartache, anger, hope, conviction.
I stare at her across the room. My vision blurs. She’s translucent. Ghostlike.
Fading.
“What did you just say?”
She takes an abnormally long breath. Her fingers grip the edge of my workbench. I can see the woodgrain through her flesh. “Just… remember all our promises, Fox.”
“Okay,” I swallow hard. She’s turning transparent right before my eyes. I reach out to touch her, to grab her and hold her here with me.
But she’s not there.
Chapter 5
ALEX
“Wake up.” A hand smacks my face. First, one cheek, then the other.
I mumble something unintelligible around my thick tongue.
The hand smacks me again. Hard enough to sting this time. “C’mon. Get up.”
A dull, persistent throb pulses in my head as I attempt to sit up. With a sigh, he grabs the front of my shirt and hoists me up, propping me in a sitting position.
“Fell asleep,” I mumble.
“More like passed out.”
I shrug and lean my head back against the wood slats. “Tomayto, tomahto…”
He gives my shoulder a shove. “Open your eyes.”
“One is open. You just can’t see it.”
“Cut the shit, Fox. What is all this?”
I peer around through my groggy haze. The metal elephant skeleton is standing eerily under a ray of sunlight coming through one of the upper windows. I don’t remember getting that far with it last night, but I also don’t remember the empty bottle of champagne and two glasses on my workbench, either.
“You have a date or something last night?” he asks.
“Something like that.” I stare at the glasses. One is tipped over, the other still standing with a splash of pale-gold liquid pooling in the bottom. “It was our anniversary. We drank and started this monstrosity of an elephant.”
If I thought my best friend Mikey hovered too much, he’s got nothing on my stalker friend, Kelley. He’s been hounding my ass ever since I tried to drink myself into oblivion for a year after Bri died.
He sits on the floor in front of me, cocks his head to the side, and studies me. His sky-blue eyes remind me of Jasper, the Siberian husky I had as a kid. Ironically, I’m an eye person. I’m drawn to eyes more than any other feature, not just because of the whole window-to-the-soul thing. It’s the fractals of color and light reflecting like a kaleidoscope that mesmerize me. I could easily pick my favorite people out of a lineup by their eyes alone.
But I’m also drawn to the soul that inhabits the space behind those eyes. Kelley, much like my childhood dog, is rough around the edges, vocal, and has zero conception of personal space. He’s goofy, empathetic, and endlessly fiercely loyal.
“I’m sorry, man,” he says in a lower tone. “But she’s not here.”
I glare at him. “She was.”
“Because you’re keeping her here. I get it. You love her. You miss her. You want her back. You’re allowed to feel all that. But she’s gone.”
I nod. To acknowledge I’m listening, not exactly because I agree.
“I hate to break it to ya, but you didn’t die with her. You’re still living, whether you like it or not. And you can’t sit around drinking for two, man. Look at this place. There’re empty beer bottles everywhere. You’re passed out on the fuckin’ floor with one of her dresses. You gotta get your shit together.”
My stomach threatens to purge itself when I see he’s right—I’m clutching Brianna’s white dress. The one she was wearing last night as she stood in the doorway and when she sat on the bench.
The one she was wearing when she told me she was pregnant.
The dress is wrinkled, smudged with dust and dirt. Ruined like everything else I get my hands on.
“Alex, you can’t be this fucked up.”
I can. I am.
Wiping my face with the dress, I say, “I know.” Faint traces of her perfume still linger in the thin fabric, vanilla and anise, now mixed with the scent of oil, smoke, and dirt. So much like us—her so sweet and beautiful, me so messed up and ratty.
He stands and grabs my shirt again, pulling me up to my feet. “Let’s go, fuckface. You’re going to take a nice hot shower, and I’m going to make you breakfast. Then you’re going to tell me about this dinosaur you’re making, and we’re gonna figure out how to get your act together.” He squeezes my shoulder as he leads me through the dandelion-lined path to the house. “You got that?”
I got it. I want it. I just don’t know how to do it.
While the steam from the shower mists around me, I’m tempted to stand under the water with my mouth wide open, let it pour down my throat, and drown me.
