“She would only appear when I needed her most,” he admits. “When the world was too heavy and I’d want to give up. She didn’t go to school, looked like she was starving and sad and sometimes she’d have bruises, then she’d disappear for weeks. I feel like she’d come to remind me shit could be worse than I had it, but I used to wish she was real. She was probably the only real friend I ever had.”
“That’s sweet,” she comments. “When did you stop seeing her?”
“In my treehouse or in my head?” He slouches down in his seat and drops his gaze to his tattooed hands. “In my treehouse when I was about twelve, I think? I don’t know, she just stopped visiting me. In my head though, she lived there a whilelonger. I only recently stopped being able to see her face.”
“So she stayed with you for almost twenty years. Pretty impactful for a ghost, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’d say it’s the least I could do after all she went through. I don’t know her story or how she died, but the least I could do is remember her. I kind of feel like shit about the fact that she’s faded away now, actually. I used to be able to see her blue-grey eyes when I closed mine, and now she’s just a flicker in the headlights when you’re driving at night.”
Silence falls over all five of them until the interviewer takes another question. “Levi, you already know our viewers are heavily invested in your dating life. Is there anyone new...?”
When I was five, my childhood ended.
It wasn’t some sudden, overnight thing, no. It was gradual. Less like a pipe bursting and flooding the whole house and more like a slow, steady leak, hidden from the rest of the world as it infected every part of me. I thought the walls I built would keep me safe — all pretty and pristine and strong — but behind those walls, that slow, steady leak ensured I was rotting from the inside out. And as I grew, pieces of thewalls I built would break, revealing the stinking, damp rot beneath. I’d patch those walls, the pipes would continue to leak, and I’d continue to rot. The older I got, the faster they’d break, and the more time I’d spend patching and leaking and rotting until I knew nothing else, knew nothing but the pretty walls that kept breaking and the ruinous rot within.
I was five.
I was five, and now I’m not, yet the cycle continues.
Build and break and rot.
But it ends now. Glancing up, I set my phone down and stare at the tree that once held the only safe space I’ve ever known. It’s gone now, not even a whisper of the ladder that led me up to Bash, but I know it was there. I spent months searching for it. I know I’m right.
“I know it happened. I’m gonna find him, okay? I’m going on tour with him, he just doesn’t know it yet. I’m gonna find him and I’m gonna bring him back here and he’s gonna remember everything.”
Unsurprisingly, the tree doesn’t answer me. It stands there, silent and looming, holding my most precious memories in its rings. The memories that kept me saneduring my darkest days, the ones that kept me afloat when my world twisted itself around and spat me out. The ones that reminded me there was kindness in the world despite the horrors I’d seen.
“I’m gonna get him back.”
Wind tickles the leaves, telling me to get up and go. Brooklyn is sitting in the passenger seat of my Bronco waiting for me to stop conversing with tree bark, so I stand up, wipe my knees off, and head back to the car.
Sliding into my seat, I hand her the cord to hook up her phone. “Are you ready?” I ask. “And are you sure you want to be a part of this?”
Brook scoffs, pulling up her GPS to navigate to the airport. “Am I sure I want to repeatedly see my favorite band while you finally get this shit out of your system? Yeah, Alaina. I’m sure.”
Good. This is insane, and I know it’s insane, but what about my life hasn’t been? At least now I’ll know. I’ll be able to see if he meant what he said, if I really stayed with him as long as he stayed with me.
And hell, maybe I’ll be able to stop the leak for good.
Chapter Two:
Feel Me Now
Alaina
Anxiety twists my gut as I lace up my combat boots. The hotel room is cold by design, but the chills running up and down my body have little to do with the temperature and everything to do with where we’re headed. I’m just a few hours away from seeing Sebastian Kincaid in person for the first time since I was ten, and he doesn’t even know I was breathing at the time. He thinks I was a ghost. And maybe I was — not in the traditional sense, of course, but more literally. I was starving, freezing, abused. Barely human, so malnourished I might’velooked transparent. And he’s right, I was sad. I just didn’t know any better.
“This is stupid,” I mutter, yanking the laces a little tighter, as if I can get them snug enough to hold me together. “Is this a mistake?”
“No,” Brooklyn responds confidently. “Just breathe, babe. We’re going to a Hollow Apparition concert — a band that is known to put on a helluva show, and we’re going to have an amazing night. This is what you’ve been needing, Alaina. I do have to ask, though, what are you hoping happens tonight?”
A question I’ve been avoiding since I first approached her with this idea. “I don’t know,” I finally admit. “I just... need to see him. And I need him to see me.”
She bites her lip like she feels bad asking her next question, but she asks it anyway. “What if he doesn’t?”
“There are eight stops on this tour and I snagged two of the meet and greets. He’ll see me.”
“He’d be blind if he didn’t,” she adds to help boost my confidence. “I know you look different now, but your body is banging, babe, and you’re so fucking pretty I want to slap you sometimes.He’ll definitely notice you... but what if he doesn’trecognizeyou? Will you tell him?”
